The Reward of Poverty of Spirit

The promise that Jesus makes to those who will come before the Father in poverty of spirit is fairly astonishing. He says “the Kingdom of Heaven will be yours.” In other words, those who embrace these character qualities will become participants in the life God intended for them here on earth now, and in the fullness of the Kingdom of God in the age to come. This is the life Jesus lived, a life fully established in a relationship of intimate friendship with God. It’s a life filled with His attitudes and expressed in His character. It’s a life characterized by the power and authority that Jesus had.

Let me share a story that illustrates the point. I have a friend who is a businessman in Madison, Wisconsin. Dave owns and operates two fitness centers in that city, and has been enormously successful over the past couple of decades. The key is that he began to cultivate with God a relationship of intimate submission and therefore intimate authority years ago before the business became what it is now.

Dave was a fledgling businessman in his middle twenties when the opportunity came to purchase the fitness center that became the Princeton Club. He put together an investment group, raised the necessary capital (somewhere in the neighborhood of $2 million), and felt as though the Lord was going to bless this venture. On the morning that the deal was set to close escrow, the Holy Spirit spoke to Dave in the quietness of his heart and asked him to lay the deal down, to not do it. 

Dave was devastated. He knew it was the voice of the Lord, yet he had business partners to think of, and his own reputation as a credible businessman was on the line. He could have pressed past these very subjective feelings in his heart, and rationalized the purchase of the club. He had the backing of reputable partners, and the confidence of the men from whom he was buying the business. However, deep in his heart, Dave realized that to move forward with the purchase would be to trust his own judgment and value his own reputation more than the voice of God. He would move out of the place of intimacy and confidence in the Lord’s leading. He would save face in the short term, but lose that wonderful sense of partnership with God in his business ventures.

Dave went to the closing that day, and shut the deal down. It was painful and humiliating, and he bore the price of that decision over the next couple of years. No one really understood why he had done what he did, and as you can imagine, his mind was bombarded with thoughts of being ridiculous and hyper-spiritual.

A couple of years later, however, the Lord vindicated Dave’s willingness to live as one who is poor in spirit, who knows how much they need God. The men from whom Dave was going to buy the center called and asked to see him. When he walked into their offices, they declared their inability to find a suitable buyer, and their unwillingness to have anyone but him own the club. They then proceeded to give the fitness center to Dave – property, membership, machinery – everything! In one moment God vindicated the trust of His friend Dave, and since that time has given favor to Dave in the marketplace of Madison. In 2004 he opened the second center, a $15 million structure that is a wonder to behold. Within a year of opening, the membership at the clubs doubled, and a strong profit margin was realized. 

When God’s people dare to live a life of total dependence upon Him, the reward they get is God Himself, and the full authority of His Kingdom. It’s worth the risk!

Gary Wiens

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.

Jesus and Poverty of Spirit

It is necessary for us to see that Jesus Himself lived in the constant awareness of how much He needed the help and strength of God, His own Father. This is shown to us clearly in His encounter with the Jewish religious leaders recorded in chapter five of the Gospel of John. Here’s the scenario: Jesus has just healed a crippled man in a wonderful way, and the Jews are upset because He did it on the Sabbath day. Jewish tradition and religious legalism had turned the day of rest into a spiritual and social prison by restricting activity instead of calling the people to a day of intimate communion with God designed to bring rest to their bodies, souls, and spirits. So, when Jesus revealed the tender mercy of God by healing this man on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders missed the whole point, and were furious.

When they questioned Him about the event, Jesus’ reason for healing him was a surprising one:

Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; 

for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. (John 5:19)

Here’s the startling truth of this confession: Jesus, the Son of God, is declaring that He can do nothing on His own initiative! The most powerful man in the universe is admitting that He has no strength unless the Father gives it to Him! Then Jesus goes on in the next verse to reveal the delightful dimension of intimacy with His Father that releases this strength and authority in His life:

For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; 

and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. (John 5:20)

It is so important that we grasp what is being shown us here! Jesus, the ultimate man, is declaring that He has no ability to do anything on His own.  Jesus can’t do anything for God! All He can do is what God gives Him the strength to do in the context of their intimate friendship. He is completely dependent upon His love relationship with His Father to know what to do, and to have the ability to do it. This is poverty of spirit at its best, and the example is given to us that we might embrace the same reality in our lives.

A Deeper Look at Power through Poverty of Spirit

As we begin the process of reflecting on the Beatitudes as the measuring stick for those who are being qualified to have authority on earth as it is in heaven, the first thing to notice is the order in which they are given. There is a purpose to that order, a progressive encounter with God’s character requirements that must be embraced that we might fulfill that which is His desire for us.

Therefore it is significant that the first requirement for heaven’s authority to be released is poverty of spirit. There is no great mystery to what the words mean. Poverty is a condition of having no resources, of being totally dependent upon the resources of another. One who is poverty-stricken is one who is at the end of their means, who has no hope of changing their circumstance by their own strength. For most of us, living as we do in our affluent culture, poverty is something we see at a distance, something that rarely touches us except in a second-hand way.

However, once in awhile some circumstance emerges that allows us to touch poverty more personally. In the late summer of 2005, a massive hurricane named Katrina pounded the Gulf Coast of the United States, bringing great destruction to a huge region of the nation. We sympathized with those who were forced to leave everything and escape the storm’s fury. We watched with horror as people who had made the decision to stay in their homes rather than evacuate experienced the terrifying reality of nature’s strength. It was a gripping scenario, and for days the nation’s news agencies were riveted on this story.

In the midst of that event, one vignette that captured my attention involved a group of people who had been vacationing in New Orleans. They were people of means, but suddenly their wealth meant nothing as they were completely unable to make arrangements to get out of town. They had paid $25,000 to charter a bus to come into the city to take them away, only to find that the armed forces in the city commandeered the bus before it could get to these folks. In that circumstance, these people had no recourse, and though they eventually found a way out, the anger and frustration that is rooted in fear was obvious in their faces as they told their story.

Poverty of spirit is like that. It is the sometimes shocking awareness that when it comes to living up to the values and expectations of God’s heavenly kingdom, all of us are weighed in the scales and found to be too light. The statement of Paul the Apostle in Romans 3:23 is pointed and powerful: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Poverty of spirit is the realization that nothing I can do will set me straight with God, or produce the kind of powerful life I was created to live in and enjoy. (to be continued!)

Excerpt taken from "Reaching Your Power Potential: Authority on Earth as it is in Heaven"

By Gary & Marie Wiens, available in the Kindle Store, Amazon.com

The Blessing of Being Persecuted for Righteousness’ Sake

The final stage of being qualified to stand in the authority of heaven on earth is that of being persecuted for the sake of righteousness. The first thing to say here is that we must see the persecution come for the sake of righteousness, and not for any other reason. Persecution for the sake of any other issue is not what Jesus is speaking about here. This is not about being political activists, or doctrinal watchdogs, or adopting extreme positions on controversial issues. This is about being people who are consumed with God, passionate that all people and things become what they ought to be according to the design of God, and who have given their lives to that pursuit in the character of humility, meekness, and love.

The fact is that people like this will not be received well by the general population. At the same time that there is a longing and desire to be like Him, there is also a deep ambivalence rooted in our determination to be the god of our own little world. It’s a pathetic posture, really, a position polluted by megalomania. The assumption that we have what it takes to rule our world is so unrealistic and patently untrue. No matter how much we control, there are so many factors beyond our control that any human authority apart from God dangles by the most fragile of threads. History has proven this again and again, and we ignore the truth to our own detriment.

Having said this, it is an immensely unpopular stance to challenge the sovereignty of the individual and ask them to give up the right of self-direction for the sake of submitting to God. Though some people – prepared by the Holy Spirit and wooed by the heart of God – will hear that invitation and respond gladly, many will resist it to the point of persecuting those who stand with Jesus in the purposes of God.

Persecution has been the real experience of Godly people through the ages, and Jesus’ promise is that we will experience it as well. However, it is His desire that we see the real blessing behind the experience, and rejoice that we are numbered with the faithful through the centuries. We will be faced with trouble as we preach, teach, and live these principles. It is the way of the Kingdom of God, and it will be our way as well.

Gary Wiens

The Power of Peacemaking

The New Testament understanding of making peace goes far deeper than merely working for a compromise between two or more parties so that hostilities can diminish. Peacemaking is a costly, self-sacrificing reality that finds its fullest expression in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Then, in His kind desire to share His blessing and authority with us, He invites us into the same kind of sacrificial life. Consider this passage from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. (Ephesians 2:14-18, NKJV)

Jesus was the ultimate peacemaker, and therefore sets the definition for what that term can mean. In the first place, He gave Himself as a man to full and complete obedience to the Father, completely and perfectly living out the character of God in the flesh. He is the one man who did it right every time! Because He is the author of life, and all of life is contained in Him,  when He demonstrated His perfection through the course of His days on earth, He was given authority to be the prototype of a whole new race of men. If you can picture this, it is as though He gathered up into Himself all who would believe in Him and brought them to peace, reconciling them to His Father through His life.

Because we have been reconciled to the Father, we can now truly come into our own identity and destiny by His grace instead of by our energies. As we live in communion with God, we hear our Father’s voice telling us over and over who we are, how much we are loved, what our task is, and the destiny to which He has invited us. His love and power assure our hearts that these things will be fulfilled, and therefore we can be at rest, at peace. When we live at peace with God, we can come to peace with ourselves and our own journey toward the fullness of our destiny. And when we are at peace in those two arenas, we can come to peace with one another.

Those who make peace stand in the direct flow of the ministry of Jesus. We are called to live in Jesus’ dynamic of intimate obedience to God and His ways. As we do this, the Father reveals Himself through our lives in ways similar to how He revealed Himself through the life of Jesus. People are drawn to Him through us as they were through Jesus, and the opportunity presents itself to establish peace between those individuals and God as their Father. As the reality of peace with God is absorbed into their lives, it becomes possible to bring them to peace with others whose lives they touch.
Because this effect stands in such harmony with the ministry of Jesus, the reward that comes to peacemakers is at the level of fundamental identity: they are called “the sons of God.”

Gary Wiens

Purity of Heart and the Knowledge of God

Apart from Jesus Himself, King David was a man who understood authority perhaps as well as any man ever has. He ruled the nation of Israel during its ascent to the pinnacle of power among earthly kingdoms, and he gave much energy to contemplating authority and what is required of those who will exercise it. In Psalm 24 David gives us insight into the authority structure of heaven, and the requisites for receiving that heavenly authority here on the earth. Consider these words:

The earth is the LORD’S, and all its fullness,

The world and those who dwell therein. 

For He has founded it upon the seas,

And established it upon the waters. 

Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD?

Or who may stand in His holy place? 

He who has clean hands and a pure heart,

Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol,

Nor sworn deceitfully. 

He shall receive blessing from the LORD,

And righteousness from the God of his salvation.

(Psalm 24:1-5, NKJV)

David’s first acknowledgement here is that all the fullness of the earth belongs to the Lord God. He is the supreme authority by right of creation and redemption, and all who dwell on the earth belong to Him. But then the Psalm gets focused on who will be qualified to share in the Lord’s authority. “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who may stand in His holy place?” In other words, who is the one who can stand before the Lord in confidence to share in His authority?

The answer is concise and pointed: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, nor sworn deceitfully.” David takes the issue of qualification right past the question of behavior to the deeper matter – the condition of the heart. The one who may confidently stand in God’s presence is the one with a pure heart, who has no falseness or deceit in the foundations of their personality. Because the heart of God is absolutely pure, with no hint of improper motives or deceitful agendas, He is able to exercise His authority in such a way that brings maximum grace and fulfillment to all who come to Him. He doesn’t use people for His own glory at their expense. Rather, He shares His identity and authority with them that they may be exalted and glorified, thereby bringing even greater honor to Himself.

Therefore, those who will share His authority must be those who are conformed to His character. They will be the same on the inside as they are on the outside, those who know that God desires us to have “truth in the inward parts.”  But the greater reward that comes to those with pure hearts is that they will see God. As we grow in conformity to His character, there is a greater and greater revelation that comes to us. God allows us to see Himself. We can hardly imagine the depth of this reward. King David, in the context of his own magnificent earthly kingdom, said that his greatest desire was to be in the House of the Lord, gazing upon the beauty of God, and inquiring in His temple.  David knew that God’s self-revelation was the ultimate prize, worthy of the total focus of his own heart.