This is the essence of my time with God this morning since developing this chart yesterday.
|
Matthew 5:11-12 |
Luke 6:22-23 |
Prayer |
|
“Blessed are you |
“Blessed are you |
|
|
when others revile
you |
when people hate you |
|
|
and persecute you |
and when they exclude
you |
|
|
and utter all kinds
of evil against you falsely |
and revile you |
|
|
|
and spurn your name
as evil, |
|
|
on my account. |
on account of the
Son of Man! |
|
|
Rejoice |
Rejoice in that day, |
|
|
and be glad, |
and leap for joy, |
|
|
for your reward is
great in heaven, |
for behold, your
reward is great in heaven; |
|
|
for so they
persecuted the prophets who were before you. |
for so their fathers
did to the prophets. |
|
I am sure I will be here for the week. I am using the “prayer” column to pray through each of the expressions from this Beatitude regarding the blessing of being persecuted. Today I was on the third row regarding persecution and exclusion. There is some comfort in God simply using the words that describe our personal experiences.
The main conclusion is that God is not telling us to deny our sorrows and just rejoice, and he is not allowing us to baby our wounds as if pain is all there is to life. The third option (plumbline) is that God returns us to joy.
So, for each of the things Jesus mentions,
I face how I am affected in that way, and bring it all to him for whatever
healing and helping I need. As an injured soldier gets the help needed to
return to health, the grieving servant gets the help he needs to return to joy.
© 2023
Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8
Email: in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the
English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text
Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of
Good News Publishers.)
No comments:
Post a Comment