POOR IN THE SPIRIT

THEME: UNDERSTANDING THE BEATITUDES

TOPIC: POOR IN THE SPIRIT

TEXT: MATTHEW 5:3

SPEEKER: Onuigwe Chidi Sirnoel

Introduction:

This is one of the series of things Jesus Christ taught on that day at the mount Olives. Today the sermon He preached which started from Chapter 5 of the book of Matthew to chapter 7 is popularly known as the SERMON ON THE MOUTH.

But the first 11 verses of Matthew 5 starting from verse 3 are known as the Beatitudes. Beatitude which simply means condition or statement of blessedness.

The word Blessed used in this place is the Greek word makarios (mak-ar-ee-os)  which is the same as the Hebrew word esher (eh-sher) which is used in Psalm 1: 1 and it means something like happy. This esher or makarios can only be used for a human being. It is different from barak (baw-rak) in Genesis 24:27 which mean to praise or kneel. And this can only be used for God Almighty.

I went this way so that you understand the difference between what Jesus was saying to humans and when someone like David says “blessed (barak) be the Lord.

Jesus Christ spoke to the multitudes that gathered to hear him “blessed are the poor in the spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

WHAT POOR IN SPIRIT DOES NOT MEAN:

The poor in spirit here does not mean someone who is financially or materially poor. It does not also stand for someone that has poor self image. Like the children of Israel in Numbers 13:33 that came back from spying the land of Jericho and declare that they were like grasshoppers “in their own eyes.” Not in the eyes of their enemies but in their own eyes. It is funny but this is how most of us feel. The devil always wants us to belittle ourselves and our ‘abilities’. He wants us to believe we are nobody and if you are not careful he will quote this portion of the scripture to you just to convince you, you are on the right track. This is not God’s way and style.

Do you remember the man Gideon in Judges Chapter 6? He had a poor self image issue which was borne out of bad condition which he found himself just because he was from Israel. When God’s angel visited him on that day when he was threshing corn at a wine press because of the fear of the Midianites. Imagine someone threshing rice inside room. If you have not been to rice mills you won’t understand how this man was suffering by threshing corn inside wine press which is a kind of room. The first thing the angel did was to boost his morale by building up his self image. Gideon himself was not able to comprehend what the angel meant when he called him “mighty man of valour.” I am sure you know how Gideon ended and if you don’t know, read Judges starting from chapter 6.

The God we serve is a promoter of self-love. God believes it is only when a person has been able to love himself before he could love another person. Therefore Jesus was not talking about poor self image here. Poor self image is anti God’s plan for mankind. God wants man to love his fellow man just the way he loves himself (Matthew 22:39).

It is a known fact that nobody can give what he does not have; therefore it is only those who have been able to overcome poor self image and have love for themselves that can transfer such to others or their neighbours.

TO BE POOR IN SPIRIT MEANS:

1.       To trust God and depend on him both in good and bad times. King David who was a great King will always talk about God as his shield. He would always tell people how God was the one who gave him victory over his enemies (Psalm 18: 2).

2.       To go to God knowing that all you have and will ever have come from Him.

3.       To show God that without Him you can do nothing (John 15:5). Someone who is poor in spirit counts himself as nothing before God. He knows the source of everything he has been able to achieve or hope to achieve is God.

4.       To go to God forgetting whatever you have done or are doing for the kingdom. Your righteousness, your holiness, your perfection or whatever. Even your being able to give, pay your tithe, help the poor, pray, serve or do any other thing as recommended by the scripture must mean nothing to you but the act of God in your life.

Remember a story Jesus Christ told in the book Luke 18:9-14. In that story you will see two men who went to God with their needs, one was busy telling God how righteous he was while the other was busy telling God how he was nothing before Him (God). The one who told God how he was nothing before Him went home fulfilled and satisfied while the swank went home more wretched than he came.

The other man, who told God I am nothing without you, is the man who did what Jesus is telling us to do today. To be poor in spirit.

5.       To know that our imperfection is made perfect by God alone. To always show Him we are at His mercy. To be poor in spirit is to stick to God for direction and guidance.

6.       To realize we need God more than He needs us especially when we offend Him or go astray. The prodigal son was a typical example of this. In Luke 15:18-24, this guy who went away from his father traced his way back to his father. Though his father needed him too but the decision to go back came from him (the prodigal son). This is what God needs from us too.

To be poor in spirit is for us to be able to realize it when we have gone over board. To realize it is by grace God have saved us and go back into “gracefold.” It is not to arrogantly sit somewhere and claim that as a father, God must be the one to look for us and take us back and we don’t need to go back to Him by ourselves. Most of us do not know God concluded the act of chasing after us the day we got born again. The day you asked Jesus Christ to come into your heart, that day God completed the circle of being the one to always come searching. From that day any day you sin or go astray it is your duty to come back to Him. It is your duty to ask Him to take you back.

7.       To always come back to God by confessing our sins. We should not hide any of our wrong doing from Him because if we do we won’t be able to make progress in life and our relationship with Him or even with our fellow human being will be hampered. Proverbs 28:13; James 5:16a.

I think it is important to know that “the act of not confessing ones sins to God and asking for forgiveness anytime one sinned is an act of arrogance.” Just imagine your child offending you and without remorse comes to you to ask you for something or even to play with you. Okay; imagine this scenario, where you know you have done something your father, I mean your mother’s husband told you not do. Will you be bold enough to walk up to him to ask for anything or even to lend him a helping hand without first of all making sure you have been forgiven? To be poor in spirit is to always recognize your position of right or wrong with God.

Finally in conclusion: God’s kingdom is not made for men and women who think high of themselves. Men and women who can not humble themselves before God and even before human beings too. People who think they owe God nothing to the extend when they sin or make mistake they just ignore it and walk up to God without remorse. The kingdom of heaven is a place made for people who have been able to kill self and enthroned God’s spirit in their life.

Kingdom of heaven is for men and women who are always humble enough to know their capacity as humans and how far they can go spiritually. Kingdom of heaven is not made for people whose lives are filled with arrogance

James 4:10 tells us “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up”.  Friend let us be poor in spirit so that He (GOD) can lift us up to the kingdom of heaven.

God bless you opulently.

MAXIMIZING YOUR LIFE

Maximizing your life

What is the meaning of the word MAXIMIZE? To maximize means to increase SOMETHING as much as possible, or to make the best of SOMETHING. (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. International Student’s Edition. New 8th edition).

And Cambridge English Dictionary defines Maximize as “to make SOMETHING as great in amount, size or importance as possible.”

What does LIFE mean? Life according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. International Student’s Edition. New 8th edition says “the ability to breath, grow and reproduce.”

Another English dictionary says “life is the period between birth and death or the state or the experience of being alive.”

To me with the above definitions understanding what it means to maximize one’s life won’t be any difficult because I believe the above definitions are simple enough to put anyone on his feet knowing fully well that we have a limited time to work here on earth before we die.

MAXIMIZING YOUR LIFE, this is what I have to say or write about it:

1.      To make the best of SOMETHING while you still have the ability to breath, grow and reproduce.

2.      To make SOMETHING important as possible as you experience being alive.

If you look at the Dictionary definitions I wrote above you would find out that I wrote SOMETHING in uppercase. I wrote it like that because to me I believe that it is in the SOMETHING that whatever we need to understand lies.

Therefore you should know the SOMETHING here stands for ANYTHING you do now or will do after now. Whether you are teaching, writing, getting married, dating, eating, changing one’s life, dancing, watching movie, watching football, schooling, etc., or you are going to do these things in the future. They are the SOMETHING you have to maximize because they are your life. These things are the things you have to make best of. It is very simple; if you fail to make the best of them it means you have failed to make the best of your life.

Another thing of importance here to note is “we are not here to live indefinitely; therefore a time comes when we can no more breathe, grow or reproduce.” The writer of Ecclesiastes is so emphatic about this when he wrote Ecclesiastes 3:1-2  “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:  ² A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;”

With this in our minds we are to know that we have very short time to write our names on the Marble or leave our foot prints on the sand of time. Therefore you don’t have all the time in this world to make impact. The only time you have is now. When I say NOW I mean today.

To maximize your life you have to do “that” SOMETHING you do now as if your life depends on it (in actual sense your life depends on it.) How well or bad you will live tomorrow is totally dependent on how you do “that” SOMETHING you are doing now or you will do tomorrow.

I know there are many people who don’t like hearing or reading about anything that has to do with death. It is funny because we all know that one day; one by one we all shall die. Death is inevitable. It is something none of us can avoid. The worst of everything today is young people die more than old people. It is something that worries me anyway.

TAKE NOTE OF THESE POINTS:

a.      You don’t have all the time in this world to make impact. The only time you have is NOW.

b.      You have a life given to you by God and that life is not given to you to live it as you wish. You don’t have to waste the life by leaving as you wish. The giver of the life will request you give account of how you spent it. (Romans 14:12 “So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”)

c.       The life Giver requires you reproduce another life. The first thing God said when blessing the man, the image He created out of dust and sent His breathe in; is “be fruitful” (Genesis 1:28). That sentence simply means “be productive.” We all know every fruit reproduces its kind. That is natural law.

Here I am not talking about having children, I am talking about reproducing someone like you in the work you do. It is said “a success without a successor is a failure.” Whoever that made this quote first is a very wise person.

Maximizing your life has nothing to do with how many houses or cars you have but it has to do with your reproductive ability. (I am not saying having cars or building houses or other properties is bad. That’s not what I am saying here.) What I am saying here is this “people will not count you as one who has really maximized his life because of the properties you acquire but based on how many people whose lives you were able to impact by reproducing yourself in them.

NOTE: Whether you impacted people positively or negatively, you will be remembered in them all. This is why it is important we make positive impact on people. We have to reproduce the good part of us in the people we work with or even work for.

Don’t forget there is a time when we can’t be able to reproduce. There is always that time when we can’t be able to influence anyone. Ecclesiastes 12:1-8 talks much about this. Therefore the only time you have to maximize your life is now.

d.      Every second you spend here on earth, you spent it between your birth and your death and they are worth spending with care and caution. You have to be deliberate about your life and what you do with it. Do not leave your life in the hand of chance. Those who are successful in life are those who are DELIBERATE in their action. Nothing just happens, things happen because someone made them happen.

e.      Every second you spend on frivolous activity is wasting a portion of your life which if time is not taking, you won’t be able to recover it till death.

Few years ago something happened that brought tears to my eyes and fear to my heart. I was invited to a church in Lagos for their annual thanksgiving service and when I got there, I didn’t want them to give me sit among the priests, pastors and clergies because I was not one. I was once a guest speaker in one of their youth programme. While waiting outside for them to make a space for me somewhere at the back as I instructed one of the ushers that came to welcome me. One man who by my own calculation would be in his 70s walked up to me and greeted me and I smiled as anybody in my position would do.

To cut the long story shot; the man told me that there is something he learnt from what I told them when I was there as a guest speaker that he has been putting into practice since then and it has been helping him leave a better life. I was happy to hear that because as a motivator or inspirational speaker my joy is always to see or hear people talk about how God through me has changed their lives. But the man now said something that brought fear and tears to my heart and eyes. He said “how I wish I have known it when I was younger, my life would have been a different story now.”  I became afraid as tears rolled down my eyes. My fear is this; when I will be in my 70s will I have any regret of what I would have done that didn’t do because of my personal mistake? The statement from that man shook the root of my entire life. Friends, my desire is that none of you reading this piece would say what that man said when you have become old or older.

TO MAXIMIZE YOUR LIFE you have to

1.      WORK WITH TIME:

Always remember that time waits for no man. You should know that “anytime you spend your time in doing something, no matter what it is, you are spending your life.” Your time is your life. If you waste anytime, you waste your life.

Youth Wing of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (YOWIPFN) in Mushin area of Lagos State invited to me to speak in one of their youth programmes and after the programme, another pastor took the opportunity to ask me to come to talk to his youths. I agreed and asked him when their meeting would be starting. He told me the programme would start by 6pm. I said okay. Then he told me that I should not bother coming by 6pm that I should come later. He told me that I should come around 7pm so that once I come in I would be given the microphone.  I smiled and told him I will be coming by 5 minutes to 6pm. And he was surprised to see me in his office before 6pm. I have many reasons why I like going to programmes where I am a guest speaker earlier or on time. (If you want to know then ask me in secret). Laughs.

People who are close to me know that I don’t joke with time. I don’t joke with time because I know my time is my life. The first thing I always ask any person or group of people whenever I am invited to speak is “when is the programme starting?” One thing I learnt from those who are mentoring me is managing my time and managing it very well.

One of the things that killed Sapphira in Acts 5 is misusing her time. If she was there on time with her husband and see what happened to her husband she would have told Apostle Peter the truth and save herself from untimely death.

a.      You don’t have to procrastinate. Procrastination is a thief of time. And anything that steals you time stills your life. John 10:10a says “the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” Anytime you procrastinate, you expose yourself, your life to danger of being stolen, killed and destruction.

b.      Create time for anything you want to do or you are doing. You must create time to play. Time to read or study. Time to do your work. Time to play with your wife and children. Time to surf the net, chat, sleep and time to just lie down doing nothing but relaxing. All these things I wrote above are very important if you want to maximize your life. If you work without playing, tendencies for you to die younger than God planned are higher. If you also play more than you should, the tendency for you to die a poorer person is higher too.

There is a saying that says “all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.” But I have added something to it “more play and less work makes you a poor man.”

2.      ORGANIZE YOUR THOUGHT:

We are living in a world and at a time when what we see or hear are being dictated by our environment. When I say environment, it is not limited to where we live or places we go physically.

The word environment has changed with time. At this moment or time, internet, our phone, television or even magazines have all become “our” environment. I always tell me people that my friends live in my phone. The statement is true to every one of us especially young people. And this is one thing our parents or those of older generation do not understand. Our parents or people of older generation do not know that what their children face today is beyond what where they live physically can handle.

If you want to maximize your life you have to organize your thought. Decide what stays and what don’t. Do not allow your friends or the things that happen around you both in and outside your phone to control your mind.

Decide what you meditate in and what you don’t. It is not all manner of music you hear or watch the video or fashion you see along the road or in a magazine that you should get yourself involved with.

Our mind is a battle field and many battles have been won and lost in our mind. Anybody who fails to take control of what stays in his mind in this generation will live to see himself rubbished. There are some programmes they air on our airwaves that I have kept asking what the sponsors want to achieve with them.

The writer of Proverbs 4:23, says “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

The Hebrew word translated “diligence” here is “mishmar” pronounced “mish-mawr,” meaning; “place of confinement, prison, guard, jail, guard post, watch or observe.”

I won’t dwell so much on this point but by what is written above you should by now know what I am advising you to do to and with your thought or with your heart.

You have to put your heart in prison, you have to guard your because it is from the what keeps you alive or takes you to death comes from.

One thing that is certain about human being is this; humans are spirits that have souls and live in a body. Our soul which is our heart is the home to our emotion, desires, feelings and wills. This part of our lives can never get born again. Apostle Paul while writing to the Roman Jews told them to organize their thought. This is how he puts it, in Romans 12:2 he wrote, “…be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…”

He told them to renew their mind, which in simple term means; do not allow wrong pictures and thoughts to stay longer than necessary in your mind. We should avoid mediating on those issues and pictures we see around us everyday that reduces us to mare objects.

Let me conclude by saying this. You can maximize your life if you so wish. God has given us all that pertains to live and godliness (2 Peter 1:3). All you have to do is to get back to Him and He will guide you into all truth.

Thank you so much and God bless you as I see you maximize your life.

Onuigwe Chidi Sirnoel

LOVE SO AMAZING

 

The greatest thing that can happen to any human being is to find someone that loves him and show him love expressly without asking for anything in return. The reason is because all humans seek after love. All of us want someone who will tell us how much he loves us and also go ahead to show us love practically.

Love is expensive and rare to find in today's world because humans cannot be trusted. Many people profess love but do not practice love. So many people have been hurt because they loved someone who does not deserve their love. Some people are devastated emotionally and psychologically today because of how someone misused the love they gave to the person. There are so much heart break and pain all because someone loved a wrong person. However, not minding all these pains and even shame, there is still LOVE SO AMAZING.

LOVE SO AMAZING is found in Christ. The man who responded to HIS Father's heart cry for love. God the Father looked down from His everlasting throne and discovered that men lacked love. He saw that men were and still in need of love; He them shouted out of desperation “whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Jesus Christ the only Begotten of the Father out of LOVE SO AMAZING responded in affirmative. He said “here am I; send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)

God knew that for Him to show human being how much He loves them; He has to do something out of the ordinary. What did He do? He gave His only Son and all He is asking you to do is to believe in Him.  He is asking you to believe in Him so that you don't have to perish or suffer in life after now. (John 3:16) What God is requesting from you as a person is not easy but it is possible and achievable.

Jesus Christ does not care about how bad your life has been. He does not care if you have hated Him all these while. He does not care about the level of sin you have committed. He doesn't care if you have killed or shed blood through any means. He doesn't care if you live in lie or sexual immorality. He doesn't care about how much you have pretended to be righteous. He doesn't care if you have hated and persecuted believers and preachers. He knew that you are living in these sins before He agreed to die on your behalf. Jesus knows the level of your sinful life. He understands all your struggles. He knows everything about your secret and public life; yet He choose to die for you. (Romans 5:8)

My friend all Jesus Christ is asking you to do now is for you to come to Him. In Matthew 11:28 He says “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Jesus Christ is calling you today to come to Him and enjoy HIS LOVE SO AMAZING.

Before you drop this paper in your hand, take a second to think about the type of death this man Jesus Christ died as a result of sins of mankind. Remember He was taken to Calvary and hung on a cross. He was nailed to that cross. He was beaten and people spat on his face. He was given a crown of thorn. He went through so many shameful and humiliating things just because He loves you. Remember He committed no crime of his own. 1 John 3:5 “And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.”

Do not ignore Him, come to Him today. Pray this prayer;

Dear Jesus, I am a sinner.  I believe you are the son of God and died for my sins on the cross.  Forgive all of my sins.  Jesus, I repent and ask you to have mercy on me, a sinner, and come into my life.  Give me your spirit and your power. Help me to follow and obey your ever loving teachings, and to live for you.  Jesus, I give you my life and my heart.  Please come and take full control of my life style from this moment upward. Write my name in your book of life. Thank you for hearing my prayer.  Thank you for coming into my life. Amen.

(image credit to http://www.sharefaith.com)

BETWEEN YOUR PRAYER REQUEST & GOD'S ANSWER

Many times we tend to miss the answer to our prayers because of the little distractions that always occur between the time of our request and the answer to our prayers.
I won't actually blame anyone that misses it at that point because it is not always easy to wait. But experience has taught me that anytime we present our needs to God and God assures us of His positive response to our needs, it is worth it for us to wait.
God through His Spirit made me to understand that we always fall out because of distractions that we see when He is on His way to give us what we have requested for.
Let us take a look at Mark 5:21-42.
This is a story we all know very well. It about Jairus a leader of a synagogue.

HIS REQUEST:
Jairus came to Jesus Christ and requested that Jesus Christ follow him to his house to lay his hand upon his 12years old sick daughter. Of which Jesus obliged him.

I know that you who is reading this post or writeup has made many requests to God in the time past. I am sure that some of you just finished making a request to God few minutes ago before you started reading this. The way Jesus agreed to go with Jairus to his house is how He has agreed to meet you at the point of your need. In Jesus name. Amen.
Many of us always shout amen and jump up when a declaration is made upon our head from the pulpit in response to our prayer and heart desire. But soon we tend to become melancholic when we have not seen what we shouted hallelujah and amen for.
Our attitude at times makes it look as if God has lied or if the person whom He used to make that pronouncement is lying. But the truth is that God does not lie and the person whom God used to make that pronouncement didn't also lie.
The simple thing that happen is that the space between the time of our request and our actual receiving of our request is always filled with distractions. At that point we always lose focus.

BACK TO JAIRUS:
As Jesus was on His way to Jairus' house, two things happened in quick succession. The first thing that happened was a positive distraction which occoured when a woman who had been sick for 12years with a hemorrhage (24-32 The Living Bible) touched His cloth which produced her instant healing.
This type of miracle can also be a negative distraction to some of us. Imagine you have been waiting on God to release the answer to a promise He has made to you and out of the blues someone else who is not even as strong as you are in the Christian faith (as you think) just got a miracle even without praying about it as seriously as you have done.
The first thing that will come to your mind once you hear the testimony is God is either partial or He doesn't exist. The truth is God is neither partial nor a lying. But He does things in His own time not according to our own. He knows when best to respond to our heart cry. He knows when if He gives us what we are asking for the ovation will be highest.
God does not just things for doing sake. He is not one jobless god that has to do something anyhow to remain relevant. No! That not the God I know and serve.

What God has planned to do with the miracle He will perform in your life is to use it to shake your family. He wants to use it to make noise in your area. He wants that miracles to make headline news. Don't be distracted because all your mates seem to have gone far and higher than you. Relax trust God and watch Him shoot you like a missile.

The second thing that happened was when Jairus servants came to tell him not trouble Jesus any longer because the girl has died (35). These people that came with this information presented themselves as people who care so much about both Jairus and Jesus. But in the real sense of it they are harbingers of evil news and distractions to Jairus' miracle.

Everyday in our journey of life we meet these men and women on our way. They are always people close to us. People we trust and people who claim to love us. They present themselves as people whom God has brought around us for succour and favour while they are the people who have been blocking us from seeing the fullness of God's love in our lives. They will sympathize with us to the extent we forget God and His promises for us. Sometimes these people looks more Christian than us.
As you read this piece take time to think about those around you. Have you mate this kind of people before? Are they in your life right now.

These people are too strong for you to handle. You can't fight them off. You can't run or walk away from them. But what I am sure of is that Jesus Christ knows how to do away with them, and He will help you do away with them off your life. Amen.

DON'T BE AFRAID, JUST TRUST ME.
In verse 36 (The Living Bible) the Bible says, jesus ignored them and turned to Jairus and said "don't be afraid, just true me."
This day I am here to remind you that same thing Jesus told Jairus. Don't be afraid, just trust Jesus He will see you through.
Jesus went to his house and raise his daughter.

Friend trust God and He will not let you cry more than necessary...

Onuigwe Chidi Sirnoel