And the last is.....Blessed Are the Persecuted

There is not a person alive, or deceased for that matter, that has not known ridicule or persecution for their looks, their thoughts or their beliefs...it just comes with the territory of being human. But some of us deal with persecution better than others and some of us totally melt into oblivion when persecution comes knocking at our door.

You see, there is always a payout for persecution..either to our benefit or our demise. Often, we react to persecution based on our value system and what the end game might be. But as Christians, Christ forewarned us that as His followers, we would be PRIME TARGETS for persecution of all kinds. He implored us to "put up treasures in Heaven" and by so doing, ease the pain of persecution.

But what does that mean? Well, you can always tell the difference between a believer who has his feet planted in the world and the one that has firmly planted his feet in the Kingdom to come. Though we all may live in both worlds, we must choose daily where to plant our feet and where to build our treasure. Those who build for the here and now are noticeably shaken when the world is shaken; but the believer who is firmly grounded in Kingdom endeavors, he is able to persevere through any of life's pitfalls or persecutions.

And when does persecutions come? When we are most committed to following the leadership of the Holy Spirit; when we are truly pursuing the ways of righteousness as demonstrated by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ...well, you can bank on persecution to come knocking! 

But God has promised us not only deliverance, but a place of deliverance...our eternal home! When we are persecuted, we need only lift our eyes toward Heaven and see that glorious promise;

Blessed are those who are persecuted, for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Persecution, probably more than anything else a believer may face, reveals how eternally focused he may be. It lets him know, in no uncertain terms, the true depth and width and breadth of his faith... and in the midst of that persecution, his faith is purified and built up...stronger and more resilient than he may have ever imagined. It is in the midst of this fiery oven that all the dross is burned away and we can see more clearly what our heart's treasure truly is...a treasure of unspeakable worth!!!

So, do as Paul urged the Corinthians to do in II Cor. 4:8-9, " We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."  

Look to the author and finisher of your faith to accomplish His will and His way in the midst of any persecution, knowing that He is with you always...and He is ALWAYS victorious...and in that promise of the last beatitude is that one day, for we will all be persecuted for the Lord's sake, we will all be home...eternally present in the Kingdom of Heaven.

AMEN and Amen,

WPQ

Poem for the day:

Life is hard; the storm clouds come...

And no one seems to care;

But lift your eyes toward heaven,

See the Savior waiting there.

For He knows the pain and suffering

And the persecution that is near;

But He will draw you close to him

To relieve your pain and fear.

For He has walked this path before

That lead to His great loss;

So if we are to follow Him,

We, too, must bear our cross.

But we will not walk alone;

For He has gone before.

And we shall see Him face to face

When we meet at Heaven's door.

WPQ @August 2015

This is the last post in this series...I will resume new posts the week of September 7th...

Be Blessed, Not Stressed and Give God the Glory!!!!

Blessed are the Peacemakers....It's a Family Trait!

We have all, at one time or another, seen one of those silly sitcoms that has two siblings, two best friends or whatever, clammed up, refusing to talk to the other party because of what he or she did. But, when the hero or heroine of the sitcom gets them in the same room so that they can begin the complicated process of reconciliation...NO ONE CAN REMEMBER WHAT STARTED THE CONFLICT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I think I can speak to the root cause of almost every conflict that mankind has ever known...THE PRIDE OF MAN! It seems that when anyone calls us on the carpet, smudges or soils our reputation or does anything that makes us look less than "perfect"; well, conflict is inevitable!

But it doesn't have to be...not if we seek to be peacemakers, as the sons of God should be. We need to know and understand that deep down, we were created for fellowship...both with our Creator and with each other. And it is conflict that makes that fellowship IMPOSSIBLE!

We cannot avoid conflict; even if we are not the instigator, conflict will come looking for us. Some people are by nature, confrontational; while others, steer clear of any such situation and try to avoid confrontation at all cost. Neither of these approaches make for peaceful living or expanding fellowship.

Jesus called out to those gathered on that hill to be peacemakers...to seek to diffuse any type of volatile entanglement and pursue a relationship of integrity and abundant grace...for grace shown is grace received. If we can show others grace when they say or do despicable things to us; give them the benefit of the doubt when we are wronged or as Christ urged us to do later in Scripture, "to bless those that persecute us and say all manner of evil against us"; well, we are holding our pride down and allowing the Holy Spirit to well up inside of us as a true and bona fide peacemaker. It is true that someone who can "turn the other cheek" is one that is learning to master PRIDE and in so doing, he is a peacemaker that is more concerned with his King's reputation than he is with his own.

And speaking of reputation, there is the promise of God for the peacemaker...Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the SONS OF GOD. Think about that for just a minute...if you are a true son (or daughter) of the Most High, you share the same last name and the same DNA. You are an ambassador for your Father and for all He represents to this lost and dying world...so if you share His name, you can ill afford to blemish that good name by creating or being involved in conflict, whether deemed righteous or not! You must be a PEACEMAKER and live up to the family name...a name above all names that will one day be uttered on the lips of all who have EVER lived...the sweet name of Jesus.

So, be the son of God that you have been called to be and eliminate conflict from your life, as well as your vocabulary. Speak only words that offer encouragement, filled with love, grace and good intentions; for that is your honorable and peaceful response when conflict is brewing. Whenever you do this,

YOU MAKE YOUR FATHER PROUD...AND HE'S THE ONE THAT KNOWS HOW TO HANDLE PRIDE...FOR HE IS THE ONE THAT DESERVES ALL THE GLORY!

Seeking His peace...loving the troublemakers as a son of God,

WPQ

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART...IS THAT YOU?

Purity is one of those words that falls easily from our lips; however, if you were to ask "the person on the street" to describe something that is pure and undefiled in this world, they would probably be permanently stumped and just stand there stammering.

First of all, purity is not an innate quality of mankind...FAR FROM IT! We are sinners and there is no one righteous or pure...NO ONE! In fact, King David's cry of the heart was bold, but quite simple; "Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a right (steadfast) spirit within me." Psalm 51:10  He knew, as we all do, that we are tainted with misplaced motives and petty agendas...the simple truth; OUR CORRUPTION RUNS DEEP!

Jesus knew the impossibility for us to have a pure heart; so He offered His purity to fill us by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit....just as He took on our sins and became sin for us, we can take on His purity and be pure of heart...but it will always be a struggle!

Even with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we are constantly bombarded by the Prince of the air to forsake our pure heart and give in to the "dark side" of our humanity.  It is this constant battle to remain pure that often creates the sadness that is seen in the lives of many believers when they fail...but there is a fail-safe plan if we will but trust in Him and remain "steadfast" in our single-minded pursuit to live our lives in the likeness of Christ.

Paul calls it the "renewing of our minds",  but it is really more than that..it is through the surrender of every thought, action and reaction that will help us grow in purity. It is that "steadfast" surrender of our will to a holy and pure God that will help us deflect and deter the arrows of the Deceiver as we solidly and irrevocably invest our lives in the pursuit of God. When we do this: any doubts, misplaced motives or stumbling blocks that rise up, begging us to choose self over sacrifice, will be defeated and the resounding choice, more and more, will be to choose purity over personal pride and preeminence.

Clearly, God knows the frailty of our character and that our human heart is a very fickle thing... for it far too often gives into the voices, screaming in our psyche or the compulsions of our flesh. But, because He loves us, He redeems us and completely saves those who come to Him as a "sinner saved by grace."

We are, at our very BEST, a work in progress; yet to be conformed to our Savior and therefore, incomplete...oh, but God is at work as He calls us out to be holy and pure in heart...to be a steadfast, passionate, faithful seeker and lover of the Savior...but it is a hard and relentless work that only God can accomplish through a surrendered heart, soul and will.

So, are you craving to be more like Jesus...PURE IN HEART...then, God is with you and at work within you... and He has promised that you will see Him in all His Glory; both in this world and in the eternal new world to come.

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God...and ALL WILL BE WELL!!!

Pure and steadfast in honoring Him...A WORK IN PROGRESS!

WPQ

BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL...FOR THEY SHALL

I am sure that you have all heard the saying, "that what goes around, comes around"...and we're not talking about a children's top here. We are speaking of JUSTICE...that in life, both here and in the one to come, you will receive what is your just due.

But fortunately in His Sermon on the Mount, when Christ shared the fifth Beatitude, He let us in on God's true nature and a vital foundation for those of us who profess to know Jesus...OUR GOD IS A GOD OF MERCY!!!

Now to many of us, this comes as no surprise...in fact, we are banking on it! After all, God is a God of Love and Mercy, so how could a loving God do anything else but show His love and mercy to His Creation.  But time and time again during the ministry of Jesus, he spoke of the promise that God is merciful to us when we are likewise merciful to others.

He says it best in this Beatitude, "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." But how do we "obtain" mercy? Asking for mercy is a good first step, but showing and demonstrating mercy is what Jesus requires.

When anyone of us stops and looks at the rebellious nature that we have demonstrated to God, it is any wonder at all that He would demonstrate His love to us through His unmerited grace and unending forgiveness...that He would truly bestow mercy on us! And the fact that we, then, would stand in judgment of another and not offer mercy is truly ludicrous...and that must truly raise the ire of our Heavenly Father.

In fact, I wonder how often God may hold back His mercy on us because we have not shown mercy to another. For if we fail to show mercy, then we really don't understand God and our relationship with Him at all! He has set us apart as His children to be holy and righteous; but not to hold others to some attainable righteousness that we have set and thus compel them to obtain...He sets the bar and when others fail, He requires us to show the mercy that we have been shown.

For us as Christians, mercy is a spirit-led ability to show practical, compassionate and cheerful love to those who may be suffering...and in so doing, find the joy and happiness of a heart that has been shown mercy from our loving God and a forgiveness that is always ready to be displayed to those who may have done us wrong.

So, do as God has done for you...don't meter out justice when mercy is required...required not by you, but by Him who has shown His mercy to you and has gifted you in love through His abundant grace.

Do this and as Jesus promised from that gathering on the hill, YOU will be BLESSED!!!!

Mercifully showing the Love of my Lord that I may be blessed,

WPQ

Here's the Fourth in the series of the Beatitudes....

Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst For Righteous....

Have you ever been so hungry or thirsty that you thought you might faint? Or so hungry that you could not think clearly or so thirsty that your judgment was impaired? If so, I feel your pain...if not, consider yourself blessed already.

When Jesus shared this fourth Beatitude, He knew all too well the desperation that can be caused when one grows hungry or is parched with thirst; after all,  He had just recently returned from His confrontation with Satan who had tempted Him to turn the stones to bread. His reply, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." Matthew 4:4

Here, He was telling those that would listen and learn that true hunger or thirst for a relationship with a righteous and holy God would be blessed and they would indeed be filled with the Spirit of the one they sought.

Jesus knew that the Old Testament shared such imagery as in Psalm 42:1-2, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. Where can I go and meet with God?"  Or perhaps He had memorized the Prophet Isaiah who said, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy, and eat!" Isaiah 55:1

We are truly a needy people...and when it comes to hunger or thirst; well, we are all too ready to do whatever is necessary to meet those most basic needs...just go to any war-ravaged or storm-weary place in this world and see the lines of people, waiting to procure food and water. But the true hunger is the hunger of the soul...this is a discontentment that must be met!

The discontent soul knows that there is something basically wrong deep down in our being...in the innermost recesses of our soul, there is a God-shaped hole that only a righteous and holy God can fill. There is this vacuum that consumes us and drives us to fill it with pleasure, work, riches, people or things....but no matter how hard we try, it is God, and GOD ALONE, that can make us WHOLE...AND IT IS ONLY HE THAT CAN FILL THAT HOLE!

So, do you hunger and thirst for a right relationship with your Heavenly Father or are you striving and conniving to fill that emptiness with everything else that Satan and the demons of his dominion might offer...if so, you will be eternally hungry and thirsty. But, if you allow God to fill your heart, body, mind and soul...YOU WILL BE BLESSED and FILLED TO OVERFLOWING WITH THE GOODNESS OF GOD!

The choice is yours....so choose carefully...your choice has eternal ramifications and consequences....choose Christ and be hungry and thirsty no more!

Blessed by the Father...Hungry for Him and His Righteous,

WPQ

Poem for the day:

There are those times, my precious Lord

When your love seems far away;

But when I invite your Spirit in

You meet all my needs each day.

It’s then your Spirit fills me up

With life that springs anew;

I know my life will never be the same

Since I given my heart to you!

Blessed Are The Meek....Not Weak!

I grew up in a time when, as kids, we spent our Saturday morning in front of the TV. We sat there and watched The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers or some other gun slinging, tobacco chewing, bronco-busting cowboy do his best to tame the Wild West and bring law and order to the small town folk...the part I liked best...breaking those wild stallions.

Now to break a wild stallion and be seen riding off into the sunset on that same horse later in the show,  the cowboy had his work cut out for him as this wild animal did all within his power to throw off that cowboy and then trample him under foot. But, the real cowboys got thrown off; got up, dusted off and got right back on until that wild stallion could be ridden around that corral, fully harnessed for life as a cow pony. The stallion's spirit had been broken and now he was ready for service...totally submissive to the reins and to the cowboy who held them.

When Jesus told the meek they would be blessed, He implied a gentleness, a humility, even a submission that an untamed will could never know. He probably had at the core of this teaching  the scripture from Psalm 37 that reads, "The meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace."  He was clearly saying that those who will surrender their will to God and be subjected to His will over their own..they will indeed be blessed with the lavish inheritance that only our Heavenly Father can bestow on those whose will has been broken.

Meekness is the harnessing of our will so that we can be under the control of a loving and powerful God. It is our humble acceptance of our lowly position before God...our need to be broken so that we might be raised up to walk in the newness that is ours in Christ Jesus.

This meekness is not for the weak, but rather the strong! We see our best example of meekness when we look at Jesus. He had the power of Heaven, always at his fingertips. The Heavenly Host just a spoken word away! The power of the Father just a prayer away...and we saw him keep all that strength locked tightly in his heart as He pursued the will of His Father...and the same must be true for you and me.

So, where are you and I on the meekness scale? Do we see ourselves as puny and defenseless, cowering when pressed about the Savior we serve? God is not asking us to be timid or weak in our dealings with life and those we encounter...He is, however, asking us to be gentle, unassuming, compliant and broken before him so that we might be used for His glory.

God does NOT honor an untamed will; but He does honor those who rely on Him to accomplish His purpose through their obedience...from a life such as this,  God will reap a great harvest of eternal value...and the one who lives such a life of meekness will truly inherit the earth and all the glory that comes from living for God.

Are you strong in the Lord by the surrender of your will? Have you come broken of a haughty spirit and now stand before Him ready to let go of your plans and adopt His as your own? If so, you have a spirit of meekness that makes you strong and ready for battle.

So be prepared....the Deceiver will bring his demons against you...BUT GREATER IS HE THAT IS IN YOU THAN HE THAT IS IN THE WORLD!!!!

Humbly prepared...trusting my Lord,

WPQ

Poem for the day:

God has set before each of us

A task we are called to do;

To share our hope in Jesus...

Let His love come shining through.

We're not to cower in darkness,

Timid; afraid or weak.

But to serve our Lord with gladness...

Bold...assured and meek!

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn....

We have all, whether young or old, come to a time in our life where we must go through a period of mourning. As a child, it might be our loss of our first pet, destruction of our favorite toy or loss of our "Binky". As a adolescent, it might be the loss of our first sweetheart to another. As a adult, it most often occurs when one of our parents passes away and we are left with that deep and abiding pain of losing one so dear. Whatever the loss, the mourning is real!

But Jesus tells us in his second Beatitude that blessings come to those who mourn in the form of comfort, but not necessarily in the extraction of pain. God seeks to bless those who mourn over the human condition, who find pain from the despair or guilt left by sin or lament the ravages of mankind's depravity since the Fall.

But our God seeks to bless those who are hurting...those who weep from the pains and woes of life, yet know that in Christ Jesus, " God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away."  (Revelation 21: 4)

It is in this context that God brings comfort to those who need His healing. They can be confident that he will "turn their mourning into dancing" (Psalm 30:11) and "put off their sackcloth and clothe them with gladness." (Psalm 31:12)  He says again in Psalms 126:5-6, "Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

Our God is a God of comfort for the tired and weary soul...the soul that mourns over its plight in life and for the ways of a lost and dying world. We need to mourn for this world...to cry out for pity, forgiveness and for the light of God's love to erase the darkness where sin and evil hide, seeking whom they may destroy. We need to lament over the ways of this world and for the sin-sick heart of each of us...but we don't need to stay there.

We need to rise and take hold of the promise of comfort offered to us from the Throne of Mercy. We need to know that in the midst of our pain, God's promise of deliverance is assured. In the depths of our sin, His grace is sufficient and our redemption is at hand. In the inner recesses of our broken heart, His love will see us through.

Our Father promises that comfort from the pain of this world is ours...He promises that He is the same...Yesterday, Today and Forever! He promises that if we come to Him, weak and heavy laden, cumbered with our load of cares...He will give us rest and COMFORT...and we will be blessed! He offers Himself as our comfort...AND THAT'S ALL WE NEED!

Blessed in the Comfort...Lavished in His Love,

WPQ

Poem for the Day:

If life is filled with strife and stress,

No peace for the troubled heart;

Just listen for the Savior’s voice,

Then your fears will soon depart.

No matter the pain your feeling

No matter how great the loss;

Christ himself has paid the price

With His life upon the cross.