Author Archives: Kim Reisman

God desires to be in relationship with you, a relationship that is more than a weekly ritual or something you do at a distance. God wants all of you. God wants the kind of commitment that compels you to be in the thick of things, to do whatever it takes in order that God might work in you and through you. That’s the kind of dedication that accepts no excuses—a whole-life commitment.  

The Via Dolorosa, which means “the way of the cross,” is in the old city of Jerusalem. It is basically unchanged since the day Jesus walked it, carrying his cross to the place of his execution. The Via Dolorosa is made up of winding narrow streets and is filled with vendors who hawk their wares just as they did in Jesus’ time.  

When I was thirteen, I visited Jerusalem, and we followed the Way of the Cross. It was a surreal experience for me. I noticed all the signs along the way proclaiming that this was the way that Jesus took to the cross; yet people were going about their business, carrying groceries, kids playing in the street. At the time of my visit, the execution site itself overlooked a bus station. It was loud and smelly. As I walked, I thought, “Does anybody really get it? Does anyone really understand what it means to walk the way of the cross?” 

That question is as real for me now as it was thirty years ago, because that’s Jesus’ invitation to each of us. “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross, and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24). Following Jesus involves sacrifice; it can be painful, because the kingdom of Jesus is ruled not from a throne but from a cross. So many people hear this message, but so few act on it. Those who do act change the world.  

The apostle Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:19). It’s not about following at a distance; it’s about a whole life commitment. Paul said, “I myself no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).  

I will do whatever it takes so that God can work in me and through me. I will do anything, even when there’s pain, even when it feels as though God is nowhere to be found, even when the diagnosis is not good, even when my spouse walks out, even when . . . I will walk side by side; I will give everything I have, because Jesus gave me everything he is. In his letter to the Roman church, Paul wrote, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). Moving into the light takes passion. It’s about blood, sweat, and tears. The fire can be hot and the journey long. But it is the journey to which our Lord Jesus calls us; and it is a journey that provides immense rewards, both now and into eternity.  

I pray that you would continue to follow Jesus, up close and in the thick of things. Will you single-mindedly give your all to God and experience the victory of God’s whole life commitment for you?  

In her famous play-cycle, The Man Born to Be King, written for the BBC, Dorothy Sayers wrote: 

[The disciples] had seen the strong hands of God twist the crown of thorns into a crown of glory, and in hands as strong as that they knew themselves safe. They had misunderstood practically everything Christ had ever said to them, but no matter: the thing made sense at last, and the meaning was far beyond anything they had dreamed. They had expected a walkover, and they beheld a victory; they had expected an earthly Messiah, and they beheld the Soul of Eternity (from The Man Born to Be King, in “The Triumph of Easter,” by Dorothy L. Sayers, as cited in Christianity Today, Vol. 41, No. 4). 

I pray that in following Jesus, you will come to know the joy of his victory; that in carrying your cross as he did, you will experience new life as he did; that in standing close, you will behold the Soul of Eternity. 

People tend to consider me a passionate person.  

Maybe that’s why I love the word passion. In English, passion can mean to be fully engaged. The thesaurus lists the opposites of passion as indifference or casual interest. That’s because passion means to be committed with everything you’ve got. If you are passionate about something, all of you is wrapped up in it.  

As we look at our lives, usually the people who have had the most profound impact on us were passionate people. It’s passionate people who give the world symphonies and beautiful pieces of art. Our favorite books were written by passionate people. People of passion invent life-changing tools, discover life-enhancing medicines, and solve human problems. Passionate people aren’t conformers. They aren’t casually interested. They are completely immersed and give from the depths of their entire being.  

Jesus was a passionate person. He didn’t just engage the Pharisees in measured, polite debate; he challenged them, calling them hypocrites and a brood of vipers (Matthew 3:7; 12:34; 23:33). He didn’t just quietly ask the Temple vendors to reconsider what they were doing; he overturned their tables, raging with a whip that they had turned God’s house into a den of robbers (Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-16).  

Jesus was full of passion, which makes following in the Jesus way a passionate endeavor. It isn’t easy. It’s not for wimps. It’s not about celebrating the joy of Easter every Sunday; it’s filled with Maundy Thursdays and Good Fridays.  

We can see the intensity of the Jesus way in Luke 22. Jesus goes with his disciples to the garden to pray. He has finished his last meal with his followers and is in need of some time alone. Jesus asks the disciples to pray that they might not be tempted (or as some translations say, that they might not enter into a time of trial). He then moves off by himself and begins to pray, “Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will, not mine” (Luke 22:42, NLT).  

In his humanity, Jesus was struggling. It was taking everything he had to come to grips with what lay before him. The struggle was great: “He was in such agony of spirit that his sweat fell to the ground like great drops of blood” (Luke 22:44, NLT).  

Following in the Jesus way is not easy. It isn’t about getting what you want—not even for Jesus himself. In the garden, Jesus was pleading with God, “Do you have a ‘Plan B’? Can you think of some other way?” That sounds a lot like most of us. “God, this is what I’m facing; do you have a ‘Plan B’? Can you think of some other future that doesn’t involve having to go through this? Can you take this cup away?”  

So often we want a God who will soften the blow of our failures. I’m sure I am not the only one who has prayed for a life without pain. “Please, God, take this away from me. Protect me and keep me out of harm’s way. Make my children’s lives safe and secure.” But we can’t just celebrate the joy of Sunday and still follow in the Jesus way. We’ve got to experience sleepless nights.  

Jesus was experiencing a sleepless night in the garden. I’ve experienced sleepless nights, but usually I assume it’s because something is wrong. My assumption is that I shouldn’t have sleepless nights. The reality, however, is that following in the Jesus way with passion, becoming a passionate person for Jesus, involves losing sleep.  

As Christ followers, we often have certain preconceived notions about how life is supposed to be: If we do our part and play by the rules, life should turn out a certain way. The disciples felt the same way. They had been following Jesus for three years. They had left their jobs, their homes, everything they had. They had certain expectations about how the future was going to turn out; after all, Jesus was the Messiah. They had witnessed his miracles and healings, they had heard him preach and teach. He was the real deal. Now they were going to Jerusalem for Passover. What an exciting time this would be!  

But then they got this news from Jesus himself: “When we get to Jerusalem . . . the Son of Man will be betrayed to the leading priests and the teachers of religious law. They will sentence him to die and hand him over to the Romans” (Mark 10:33, NLT). Great. That’s not what we expected. “They will mock him, spit on him, beat him with their whips, and kill him” (Mark 10:34, NLT). Wonderful. We can’t wait to get there.  

What happened is not what the disciples expected; and if we didn’t know the story so well, it’s probably not what we would have expected. From the beginning, it stunk. The betrayal stunk; the trial stunk. The disciples did what they never dreamed they would do: desert Jesus in his greatest time of need. To make matters worse, God was silent. Jesus, however, slips something in when he is telling the disciples about their upcoming weekend. He’s almost sneaky in the way he tacks it on at the end: “but after three days [the Son of Man] will rise again” (Mark 10:34, NLT).  

I think most of us are in favor of a God who brings people back from the dead. That’s our kind of God. Our problem is that we don’t always want God practicing on us. We want to skip the pain part. We prefer to pass over the death thing. Let’s just get right on to the eternal life part.  

But that’s not the Jesus way. God doesn’t dispense with death. God resurrects us from it. The truth is that the Jesus way isn’t about God taking pain away from God’s people; it’s about God providing us with strength, courage, and meaning, with abundant life, often in the midst of pain. We prefer to have no doubt, but God doesn’t make our doubt disappear; instead God gives us faith to cover our doubt.

Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis —moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources. 

God’s directions provide us with insight. God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting. 

God’s third instruction to Elijah is significant for us: Act on faith.  

God tells Elijah to go back the way he came (1 Kings 19:15).  

We cannot follow in the Jesus way until we act. Peter was transformed each time he acted on what he knew in that moment. Bit by bit, Peter’s actions of faith shaped and molded him into the true person God intended him to be—when he stepped out of the boat at the call of Jesus during a storm (Matthew 14:22-33; when he declared Jesus to be the Christ, the Son of the living God, at Caesarea-Philippi (Matthew 16:13-19); and when he began to preach to the crowds of Jerusalem (Acts 2:14-42).  

Holy Spirit power flowed though Peter when he acted on what he knew—offering the love of the resurrected Christ to all those who had rejected the earthly Jesus. Peter did not need to know it all, but he did need to act on whatever he knew at the time; and when he did so, his life was transformed.  

To follow Jesus up close, rather than at a distance, we must base our lives on the reality of faith rather than the reality of fear. We serve an awesome God, a God whose promises are steadfast and whose presence, while unseen, is everlasting. When we keep that vision of faith before us, when we declare our faith aloud giving it a life of its own, when we act on whatever faith God has provided us in the moment, we move to Jesus’ side; and we are able to walk with him in intimacy and power. 

Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis—moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources. 

God’s directions provide us with insight. God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting. 

Elijah obeyed God’s command and stood on Mount Sinai; and as he stood in that place of vision, he encountered God. There was a mighty windstorm; the wind was so strong that it broke rocks from the mountain. There was an earthquake. There was a fire. Then there was a whisper (1 Kings 19:11-13). Envisioning faith, keeping that picture in front of us, requires attending to aspects of life that aren’t readily apparent. God wasn’t in the wind, wasn’t in the earthquake, and wasn’t in the fire. 

 God was found in that “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12, RSV).  

The voice of God is not always readily noticeable. It is not something we always have an ear for. Yet following in the Jesus way involves attending to things that aren’t readily apparent. It involves listening for the voice of God and placing ourselves in a position to hear it often.  

My Belgian friend Mieke has lived in the United States for many years. One time she participated in a program that required her to ride along with a local police officer during an eight-hour shift. During her ride along, she encountered a police dog and heard the officer giving the dog commands—in Dutch! As she relayed the story, she exclaimed, “It was a Belgian dog!” I laughed because the thought occurred to me that here was a dog that could comprehend a language that I am completely unable to understand. A similar thought occurs to me every time I visit Mieke’s family and hear them conversing happily in Flemish—especially the children. Here I am, an educated adult, and I can’t understand a word they are saying; yet there they are—four-year-olds!—and they have no problem understanding whatsoever. I understand that I speak English because I grew up in an English speaking home. Mieke speaks Flemish because she grew up in Belgium, in a Flemish-speaking home. The police dog understood Dutch because its handlers, those who trained it from its earliest memory, spoke Dutch.  

We recognize the voices, the language, of those with whom we surround ourselves. We speak whatever language we hear regularly and often. If we are to hear the voice of God, and thus have an understanding of what it means to follow Jesus in real time, we must surround ourselves with the language and voice of God.  

If we desire to attend to the things that aren’t readily apparent, to hear the voice of God that molds and shapes our vision of faith, we must hang out in places where God’s voice can be heard, where we can consistently see people who are further along on their journey of faith and can energize us to push through in times of disruption and paralysis. God offers Elijah the spiritual resource of faith visioning in order to help him push through his state of paralysis and follow more closely: ”Stand before me on the mountain.”  

Then God offers another directive: “Speak.” God tells Elijah to find Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha and tell them about what he has experienced, anointing Hazael and Jehu as kings and Elisha as the next prophet. God’s directive to speak is a significant directive if we are going to push through our difficulties in order to follow in the Jesus way.  

If we hold an idea or belief within ourselves, it will always remain an idea; it can never become a reality. Only by speaking our idea or belief aloud, by sharing it with others, is it empowered to become a reality. In speaking, we give life to our ideas and beliefs; they begin to exist outside ourselves, becoming infectious and dynamic.  

That is why the apostle Paul included both speaking and believing in his instructions to the Romans: “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved” (Romans 10:9-10, NLT).  

Like the experience of many of us, my adolescence was rocky and difficult. My classmates spoke resistance and disruption: “Nerd,” “Brain,” “Loser”; but my mother always spoke faith: “Your day will come, you will shine, you will blossom, you will flourish.” She was like Moses in the wilderness. There was adversity all around. But Moses spoke about the land that God had promised, a land flowing with milk and honey. Speaking faith grows faith. It creates and solidifies our faith visions and those of others around us. It enables Jesus to work through us to work miracles in the lives of those around us. It moves us forward through adversity, fear, paralysis, and resistance to keep us following Jesus.  

When we speak, we make ourselves accountable. We expand our sense of following from a solely internal project to an external one. As we speak faith, the vision we place beyond ourselves takes on a life of its own. Speaking faith keeps us close to the fire, enabling us to follow Jesus side by side even through periods of paralysis and fear.  

Elijah received three spiritual resources to aid him in pressing on despite his fear and spiritual paralysis. God asks him, Why are you here? And then instructs Elijah to stand before God on the mountain— to envision his faith. God also instructs Elijah to tell three others about his experience with God—to speak his faith. God asks Elijah a second time, “What are you doing here?” (1 Kings 19:13, NLT).  

I believe that is a question for all of us.  

Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis — moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources. 

God’s directions provide us with insight. God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting. 

As with our life picture, God desires us to have a faith picture.  

God wants us to have a vision of faith always before us. God tells Elijah, “Go out and stand before me on the mountain” (1 Kings 19:11, NLT). When we talk about life-changing experiences, moments that have such a great impact on us that we can never forget them, we often describe them as “mountaintop experiences.” This is because mountains are places of vision. Our sightlines are expanded when we stand on a mountain. Our perspective changes when we view our surroundings from a mountaintop. When Elijah stood on the mountain, the Lord passed by; and Elijah was given a renewed vision of faith. Just as recognizing God’s picture for our lives can be difficult because we focus on our limitations, envisioning faith is difficult because we limit ourselves to what is visible at any given time.  

But that is not what faith is all about. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (NIV). “It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see” (NLT).  

Faith isn’t about the reality we perceive around us. It’s about the reality of the unseen presence and promise of God.  

When we reach points of difficulty and resistance on our faith journey, when we become fearful and paralyzed, our inclination is to focus on the visible. Elijah was focusing on the circumstances that surrounded him. Jezebel had threatened him, and she had the resources to carry out that threat as was evidenced by the visible bodies of those she had ordered killed. Our inclination is to focus on the visible. But following in the Jesus way is not about the visible. It’s about the invisible promise of God.  

It’s about realizing that nothing has changed, even though our circumstances might lead us to believe it has. God’s promise continues to be valid; God is still present with us. Everything that God has envisioned for our lives remains intact. When God made the covenant with the Israelites, gave them the law, and was preparing them to enter the Promised Land, God spoke these words through Moses: “Watch out! Be very careful never to forget what you have seen the LORD do for you. Do not let these things escape from your mind as long as you live! And be sure to pass them on to your children and grandchildren” (Deuteronomy 4:9, NLT).  

God’s message is that it is the Israelites’ faith picture that will sustain them in their new land. It is their commitment to keeping that vision of faith ever before them that will make or break their experience as God’s people. The biblical witness shows how important this spiritual resource is. When difficulties arose for the Israelites, the strength of their faith picture was always a crucial ingredient to the outcome. More often than not, when they lost their vision of faith, when they forgot what the Lord had done for them, their difficulties increased and calamity followed.  

Keeping a vision of faith before us is critical if we are to follow in the Jesus way. We have to continually shape it and form it and articulate it in order to push through the times of resistance and disruption. God’s words to the Israelites are also for us: 

You must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you are at home and when you are away on a journey, when you are lying down and when you are getting up again. Tie them to your hands as a reminder, and wear them on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9, NLT) 

As we rehearse our vision of faith over and over, keeping it ever before us, it strengthens and sustains us, remaining intact as a source of strength during times of crisis and resistance.  

“Ahab reported to Jezebel everything that Elijah had done, including the massacre of the prophets. Jezebel immediately sent a messenger to Elijah with her threat: ‘The gods will get you for this and I’ll get even with you! By this time tomorrow you’ll be as dead as any one of those prophets.’ When Elijah saw how things were, he ran for dear life to Beersheba, far in the south of Judah. He left his young servant there and then went on into the desert another day’s journey. He came to a lone broom bush and collapsed in its shade, wanting in the worst way to be done with it all—to just die.” 1 Kings 19:1-4 (THE MESSAGE)

Following Jesus is not an easy task. There is one distinct block that is particularly important to explore. If you recall Peter’s experience in the courtyard, you’ll remember that it was a very frightening time. Peter had experienced not a few dramatic events, all crammed into a short period. The Gospels record that Jesus had turned the Passover supper on its head with a foot-washing and predictions of betrayal and death. Judas had walked out on the entire project. Peter and the rest of the disciples had fallen asleep in the garden while Jesus was praying, which had led to yet another rebuke. Then Judas led a band of soldiers into the garden, confronting Jesus. Peter attacked the high priest’s servant with his sword, cutting off the man’s ear and prompting Jesus to heal one last time before they led him away. Finally Peter found himself standing in the courtyard, most likely scared to death.

It is no wonder that he lurked in the shadows, away from the fire; fear is an incredible obstacle to faith. (See Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22; John 13–18.) Fear undermines. It blocks faith and achievement. It disrupts our life direction, hinders us from seeing God’s picture of our lives and discovering our life mission. Peter was sidetracked by fear that night in the courtyard.

So was Elijah when he fled the wrath of Jezebel. Elijah was one of God’s mighty prophets in the days of the Old Testament. In a time when the people of God were following at a comfortable distance, Elijah was following up close and in the thick of things. He stood with integrity and spoke with courage and boldness. Elijah knew how to depend on God. God led him into hiding in the wilderness for his safety, fed him for an entire year with food carried by ravens, and then showed him the way to a widow who was able to provide him shelter from his enemies.

Elijah understood that God was in control. He had experienced the power of God working through him to resurrect a widow’s son and bring fire to the altar when the priests of Baal were unable. Elijah was faithful, focused, and obedient. And that is where fear enters the picture. (See 1 Kings 16:29—18:45.)

When we follow in the Jesus way, we will always encounter resistance. The fire can get very hot, and there will always be disruptive events that challenge our commitment to follow. That is what happened to Elijah. He had experienced great prophetic success; but even as he sought to be faithful to God, forces of resistance challenged him, bringing him to the end of his rope. Queen Jezebel had been systematically murdering the spiritual leaders of Israel, and now she set her sights directly on Elijah. He was terrified and ran for his life. (See 1 Kings 19:1-3.) His life direction was disrupted. He was sidetracked by fear.  

I believe this is an experience common to all of us. We undergo spiritual growth and gain maturity in our devotion and success in our faith. We believe we are living out of our God picture, our life mission. But then the world throws resistance or disruption at us, or we experience a spiritual plateau, and suddenly we’re paralyzed. The forward movement of our spiritual journey is halted.

I have a friend who is a wellspring of faith and encouragement. She has been a significant source of spiritual mentoring for many people. One day, however, she stopped coming. I e-mailed her, wondering what was wrong. She would e-mail back occasionally, but she did not return to church. Over the course of several months, I lost contact with her altogether. Finally, she contacted me, wanting to talk. We met; and as her story unfolded, it was clear that she was experiencing an overarching spiritual paralysis. Despite the depth of her faith and the significance of her ministry in our church and our community, she doubted her place in the Kingdom. Her faith had been disrupted, and now she feared she wasn’t “spiritual enough.” Living in spiritual fear, she retreated from the community of faith— the very people who could support her and carry her through. The further she retreated, the greater the paralysis became. My friend experienced spiritual fear and paralysis and dealt with it by retreating from the community of faith; Elijah experienced fear and paralysis and dealt with it by running away to a broom bush, and then to the dark depths of a cave on Mount Sinai (1 Kings 19:4-9a).

Humans have developed many tools to deal with fear. One of the first tools we make use of is control. When something bad happens to us, we exercise our feeling of control and do everything in our power to keep this bad thing from happening again. My friend exercised her feeling of control by retreating. Elijah exercised his feeling of control by running away. It’s a basic human instinct.

That is exactly what Elijah discovers. He had experienced great victories in his life, but now he finds himself in a state of fear and paralysis; he can’t control the events unfolding around him. He’s under the broom bush; he can’t eat; he can’t sleep; he is so fearful that he even asks God to end his life. When you get to this point, it’s hard to hear God anymore.  

This was the case with my friend. She couldn’t discern God’s direction. She was filled with isolation and doubt. Committing ourselves to the Jesus way does not mean that we will be spared moments of crisis like these—moments when we are filled with fear and paralysis. However, if we are to continue to follow, we must be prepared and make use of the spiritual resources that God has provided. Elijah’s experience helps us understand those resources.

Elijah has traveled from the broom bush to the depths of a cave on Mount Sinai. God finds him there and asks a very important question: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:9b, NLT). It is as though God is asking, “Why would you come to this place after all I’ve done? Don’t you remember my power? Don’t you remember my love and care? What are you doing here so full of fear and doubt?”

God asks, but then God directs; and these directions provide us with insight.

God offers Elijah, and us, three specific spiritual resources: visioning, speaking, and acting.  

We’ll continue to explore God’s response to followers paralyzed by fear, but for now consider these questions:

What disruptions have you experienced in your faith walk where your forward motion of faith was stalled? How have you attempted to exercise control in your life?

You don’t have to live in paralysis. 

What do Kingdom people look like? Kingdom people come in different shapes and sizes, have different gifts and passions; they follow by leaving home and by staying put. But Kingdom people have several important things in common, and the Beatitudes offer several aspects of Kingdom people that are worth noting.  

Kingdom people seek to live their lives in sync with God and thus receive God’s blessing. They are poor in spirit, recognizing their intense need for God, understanding that they are not self-sufficient and therefore putting their whole trust in God. Kingdom people experience mourning, yet they are also blessed with Christ’s healing comfort and peace. They understand that the deeper the love, the deeper the loss—and in that same moment they recognize that it was with the deepest love of all that Jesus offered himself up for them. Kingdom people hunger and thirst for righteousness, working for the full realization of God’s kingdom in the world. They are merciful, extending forgiveness to others because they know forgiveness is crucial to God’s justice, and because they’re always aware of how much they’ve been forgiven. Kingdom people know that true children of God are peacemakers. They act as radical agents of love, which requires courage in a world whose foundation is force.  

When they are persecuted, Kingdom people continue to have hope, receiving God’s blessing, which provides them comfort in the midst of suffering. They understand that their lives are lived in God’s hand. They understand that God ultimately has won the victory, and they will share in God’s reward. Not all Kingdom people experience persecution, but they all align themselves with those who do, with those who suffer, and they work to alleviate that suffering and end that persecution.

Kingdom people are humble; they are meek and lowly and gentle. That’s a particularly difficult and challenging aspect of following in the Jesus way, and it is particularly significant in these times in which we find ourselves. The world doesn’t reward meekness; that isn’t an attribute that usually gets us to the top. Being gentle and lowly doesn’t usually get a person very much.

Jesus knew this when he talked about a particular experience he had at a dinner at which he was a guest. When Jesus arrived, he noticed that everyone was trying to get the best seat in the house. Everyone was intent on getting as close to the head of the table as possible. This observation prompted him to explain that we look at life backwards. We calculate that getting a better seat will aid us in advancing up the ladder of success—it will add to our honor. Jesus turns our assumptions around because he wants us to think as Kingdom people. He wants us to look at life from the perspective of the future of God’s kingdom back into the present. In talking about his dinner experience, he says, “If you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t always head for the best seat…Do this instead—sit at the foot of the table. Then when your host sees you, he will come and say, ‘Friend, we have a better place than this for you!’ Then you will be honored in front of all the other guests. “For the proud will be humbled, but the humble will be honored” (Luke 14:8, 10-11, NLT). Jesus wants us to think about our place at the table in light of God’s will and purpose.

If we are Kingdom people, if we are following in the Jesus way, then we will think about what the Kingdom is going to be like—a place where those who have humbled themselves will be honored and those who have honored themselves in the kingdom of this world will be humbled. The idea of humbling ourselves now is a challenging notion, because we are often confused by our concept of self-esteem. We confuse humility, being humble or gentle or lowly, with low self-esteem. Humility is about accurate esteem, it is about Kingdom esteem. Humility involves understanding that our worth is not estimated by the world’s calculations—that is, where we sit at the table. God’s math is much fuzzier—our worth is calculated not from our place at the table but from our place in God’s heart.

We are God’s beloved creatures. We are made in God’s image, paid for with the very life of God. We are creatures of unimaginable value, not because of our own merits—where we sit at the table, what we’ve accomplished, or how successful we are—but because we belong to God. God loves us unconditionally and without end, and understanding that fact is what God-esteem—Kingdom-esteem—is all about.

Kingdom-esteem leads to humility, because it involves recognizing that it’s not about us, it’s about what God has done for us. Humility doesn’t simply involve what we think of ourselves. It is intimately connected to what we think about others, how we esteem them and relate to them, and how we show them hospitality. Hospitality in the Jesus way entails showing love to those who can’t give us anything in return. Jesus said the crucial issue is not that we open our hearts and lives to folks who can repay us (see Luke 14:12); anybody can do that (Luke 6:33). The crucial issue is how we behave toward those who can do nothing for us (Luke 6:35; 14:13).

Kingdom people, those who are following in the Jesus way, don’t just open their hearts to those who can later provide them with some sort of benefit. They do not focus only on those who can show hospitality in return. Kingdom people show hospitality to everyone, particularly those who can do nothing in return. If we are following Jesus side by side, we’ll be practicing fuzzy math rather than calculating things from the world’s perspective.

Kindness, love, hospitality toward those who can do something in return will certainly reap rewards right now. That kind of behavior will more than likely add up to our increased success. But love, concern, support, solidarity with those who can do nothing for us will reap even greater rewards for eternity. 

Following in the Jesus way involves humility—an accurate sense of our Kingdom-esteem. Joy can be ours when we place Christ at the center of our hearts and live as Kingdom people, following Jesus side by side, reversing the world’s take on happiness and experiencing the deep and everlasting blessing that the world can never give nor take away.

How might you be living out of the world’s understanding of blessedness, rather than Jesus’ understanding of blessedness? 

Our spirituality is “whatever we desire most.” How does that description fit your life? What have you ordered your life around so far—what do you desire most?

What might have to change in your life if you were to begin doing whatever is necessary to put God at the very center of your life, to put yourself at the very center of God’s will?  

How has your understanding of humility had an impact upon your behavior toward others? How might your behavior change?

We call Matthew 5:3-12 “the Beatitudes” because the word beatitude, which is Latin, simply means “blessing.” The meaning of the word “blessing” comes from two sources: the Latin word benedicere, which means “to speak well of,” and the Greek word makarios, which means “blessed.” Makarios was a word used to describe the gods, and it points to a godlike joy, a kind of joy that has its secret within itself. Makarios is a self-contained kind of joy, a joy that does not depend on circumstance. It is independent of chance or change. These concepts combine to form our understanding of blessing.

Unfortunately in English the idea of joy is often understood as being the same thing as “happiness.” The word “blessing”—and consequently the Beatitudes themselves—has also come to be connected with a concept of happiness. The surprise comes because Jesus associates some strange things with happiness— meekness, persecution, mourning. Our surprise comes because we fall short in understanding.

Our English word “happiness” contains the root hap, which means “chance.” That root word points to the reality of human happiness—something that is more often than not dramatically affected by chance and the unfolding events of life, something that life may generate or extinguish at the blink of an eye. (The “Gospel of Matthew,” Vol. 1; pages 88-89) When we think of Jesus’ words in relation to happiness, we miss the depth of what he’s talking about because the blessing he promises, the joy he promises, is completely untouchable. It is totally unassailable by the world.

In giving us the Beatitudes, Jesus is telling us that blessedness looks different from God’s perspective. The world may tell us what it takes to bring happiness, but Jesus is telling us that the world’s view may not be as accurate as we think. The joy God gives isn’t tied to happenstance, chance, or change. It is deeper, more lasting, and may even have some surprising components.  

God’s joy and blessing are what God’s kingdom is all about. Christ followers are Kingdom people. Christ followers are folks who are in relationship with God through Christ, who live in hope of eternal life and live out that hope in their daily lives, thus experiencing God’s blessing and joy. The Beatitudes tell us what it means to be Kingdom people, to live in God’s kingdom. They are concrete expressions of the nature of Kingdom life.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. / Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. / Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. / Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. / Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. / Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. / Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. / Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. / Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. / Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven. Matthew 5:3-12 (NRSV)

The Beatitudes are helpful to us because they highlight the contrast between God’s kingdom and the kingdom of our world. This contrast is crucial for our understanding because following Jesus side by side places us in sharp contrast with the world around us. As Peter was recognized to be a disciple of Jesus by the light of the fire, following in the Jesus way shines the light of blessedness on us, distinguishing us from our culture and making us recognizable as Christ followers.

The first thing to notice about the Beatitudes is that Jesus didn’t actually say them in the way we are used to hearing them. In the Aramaic that Jesus spoke, and the Greek in which Jesus’ words were written, the verb “are” is not present in the Beatitudes; that word was used to render his words into English.

Rather than statements— “Blessed are the poor in spirit”—Jesus gave us exclamations: “O the blessedness of the meek!”  

This is important, because the Beatitudes aren’t statements about what might be, or about what could be. They are exclamations about what is. Jesus is announcing the privilege that is ours, to share with God in joy, to share the very blessedness that fills God’s heart. The New Living Translation uses the action word “blesses” rather than the adjective “blessed,” which helps us understand the “is-ness”—the present tense action—of what Jesus is saying. God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness!  

The blessedness that God offers is ours now, not in some future time. Jesus is announcing the present reality of God’s blessing right now, in the present tense. (The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1, by William Barclay; The Westminster Press, 1975; pages 88–89). These blessings, available right now, are quite a surprise when we consider what the world tells us affords blessing.

The world would have us believe that righteous, merciful ways of living are weak. The world would have us believe that mourning leads to unhappiness. In contrast, Jesus proclaims that meekness, humility, and persecution, rather than being sources of unhappiness or misery, are actually sources of spiritual giftedness. That is the surprise of the Beatitudes—what appears to be a source of unhappiness, turns out to be a source of joy and blessedness.