Living Like Jesus in Poverty of Spirit

Jesus realized that He had come to fulfill God’s mysterious plan of bringing all heavenly things and all earthly things together in Himself. He was a man, but one who was full of the Spirit of God. In His merely fleshly existence, He could do nothing of power on His own initiative. Outside the intimate partnership with His Father He could not fulfill His destiny as the one who would bring together all things in heaven and earth. This realization that in our mere flesh we can do nothing is the essence of poverty of spirit. If Jesus could do nothing on His own initiative, how much can we do on our own?

But God designed us to participate in His life. So, Jesus models true humanity by cultivating His relationship with the Father, listening to Him, watching Him with the eyes of the Spirit, and doing whatever the Father is doing. The wonderful news here is that the Father loves the Son and shows Him everything He Himself does! Therefore, because the Father shows the Son what He is doing, Jesus is empowered to do those same things, and you have the reward that comes to those with poverty of spirit – the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to them!

Every time Jesus did what the Father was doing, the earthly and the heavenly came together. The man operated in poverty of spirit, and the Father released signs and wonders. The one who was poor in spirit received the Kingdom, and modeled the life of true humanity for the rest of us.

It is important that we not confuse God’s motives here. He is not a controller, limiting our activity so that He can pull the strings of our lives like some sort of cosmic puppeteer. That image of God is a horrible caricature, and is true of Satan, not God. The God that Jesus knew as Father desires His children to live in the full reality of His power and liberty. Jesus walked in the freedom of that power because every moment, as a man, He recognized His need for God’s life to be lived through Him.

See, Beloved, we are created to live every day in the power of God. However, we don’t see that reality lived out much in our day. I believe the reason for this is that the vast majority of God’s children don’t even know that He desires for us to live like Jesus did, much less that He has made the power available for that kind of living. It is for this reason that the Holy Spirit is raising up the message of intimacy and affection between God and His people at this time in history, so that we might come to believe what He has in store for us if we will come in poverty of spirit.