The New Year!
January 2015
Embarking on a new Bible to read for 2015, I chose The Two-Year Prayer Bible. It’s allowing me to go at a slower pace and read less each day. (For the last 15 years, I have read through a One Year Bible each year). This is enabling me to remember more of what I have read and meditate on it throughout the day. Each day, the Lord has given me something to ponder that has encouraged me.
Today’s reading, however, rocked my world- the much read Matthew chapter 5-the Beatitudes-Blessed are…
Knowing this passage would be important to me for the New Year, I looked in depth at the key words using my Hebrew Greek Key Word Study Bible: and discovered, “blessed” does not mean, “how prosperous I am and how many vacations I take”. Rather, it comes from the word, makarious , which means, I am blessed because the hand of God is at work directing all my affairs for a divine purpose. Which is why, even in suffering, I am blessed, knowing that God’s purpose behind my suffering is for my good (Ro. 8:28) and for the glory of God’s Name. I’ve been a believer for 27 years, and really didn’t know this is what “blessed” means.
Then I looked up the word, “poor”. Ptochos. To crouch, like a beggar. So poor, one can only obtain his living by begging- has nothing at all.
And then, “spirit”. Pneuma-the spirit as the seat of affections and emotions.
I then read this prayer in, The Valley of Vision: “Strengthen me to pray with the conviction that whatever I receive is thy gift, (italics added) so that I may pray until prayer is granted…”
This past year, I have faced some overwhelming hardships. Through it all, God was asking me to view the hardships as a blessing from Him-both the wonderful times and the really painful circumstances. He’s asking me to trust HIM and His divine purposes.
WOW! I am blessed, not by what I have, or the extent of my lack of suffering, but WHO I have. That it’s all about the WHO. And that WHO, God Himself, is at work directing this beggar’s life and all my affairs. That makes me the richest, most blessed person I know. And a very important truth to remember throughout the year.
What about you?