Question

The Lord Jesus shared lessons on how to interact with others to bring peace and hope to the world in the form of the “beatitudes.” Discuss one of these blessed interactions and share what it means to you.

Apply one of the beatitudes to your own life circumstances; share how the Spirit of God is working in you to help transform you and your relationships in a “blessed” way.

Answer 1

The Sermon on Mount in the Chapters og 5,6 and 7 of the Gospel of Mathew are guiding principles for any individual who wants to follow the foot steps of Jesus Christ in their life. The eight "beatitudes" are given by Jesus Christ in the beginning of the Sermon of Mount in Mathew chapter 5: 3-12. Before every beatitude Jesus adds the word "blessed" which means a state of spiritual happiness that cannot be neither compared to the superficial happiness of this world nor the sorrows of this world can take away that happiness.

"Blessed are poor in spirits, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mathew 5:3)

Poor in spirits means acknowledging one's shortcomings and frailty. This knowledge helps us to humble ourselves before our Lord, to open ourselves to him, to seek his guidance and grow to grow in spiritual prosperity. It gives us inner peace and strength. It is opposite to pride that brings misery in our life. As in arrogance we are always revengeful and have hatred towards others. This is self destruction. As for example during the storms and cyclones what we normally observe is that tall and mighty trees that resist the wind gets uprooted, while the reeds that bends itself is saved though maybe bruised is never uprooted. Similarly the calamities of life uproot the pride who resist with their arrogance, while the humble who are bend with humility are saved, and bruised are healed by the grace of God. (Isaiah 42:3). As we look into a fruitful branches of a tree we see that they are always bent, humbled down, as compared to the branches that don't have any fruits. Thus, humility or humbleness leads to bearing of spiritual fruits that help us in our spiritual growth and spreading of God's kingdom in this world.