08/21/2025
The strongest people of faith that I know are those who are poor in spirit. This life was not chosen for them, but they chose it for themselves. Do you know such people? Are you one of them? Perhaps you are wondering what it actually means to be poor in spirit. Well, the very first blessing that Jesus taught us in the Beatitudes was about those who are "poor in spirit" and He does this for a reason. These are the people who yield all they are to the Spirit of God. They have laid down their own strength for the strength of God Himself. Is this who we believe ourselves to be? Are we poor in spirit?
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 5:3 KJV
Pastor Oswald Chambers wrote about this in a wonderful statement that I will share with you now. This is what he said...
"At the basis of Jesus Christ's Kingdom is the unaffected loveliness of the commonplace. The thing I am blessed in is my poverty. If I know I have no strength of will, no nobility of disposition, then Jesus says - Blessed are you, because it is through this poverty that I enter His Kingdom. I cannot enter His Kingdom as a good man or woman, I can only enter it as a complete pauper." - Oswald Chambers
Giving up our physical possessions and treasure to follow Jesus would be incredibly profound and difficult, but it can't hold a candle to laying down our own will and person to become totally impoverished.
When I was in school there was no such thing as word processing software, we typed our papers using an old fashion typewriter and most college professors would not accept the use of "white-out" which was a solution designed to cover a mistyped letter or word. So, if you made a mistake you would have to retype the entire page over again. In other words, to correct it we had to destroy what we had already done and begin again until it was without mistake; it was at this point that the professor would take his red pen and begin making his corrections.
Our lives of faith are much like the typewritten pages I produced while in school. In order to perfect our faith, we must abandon what we have started and begin all over again. We can't just correct this sin or that but must present the Lord with what we believe to be pristine faith. Then God marks it up with His corrections and we begin again. It is a humbling experience and occurs repeatedly throughout our lives... each time this makes our presentation more perfect, and more like what God would have written if He had done so in the first place. We are surrendering ourselves to Him; we are becoming poor in our own spirit and stronger in His, and we call this process becoming Christ-like.
“ assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:21-24 ESV
So, the people I find to be the strongest in my life are those who have been through many, many, corrections. When I look into their eyes I can see the eyes of God looking back at me. When they speak, I not only hear the Lord’s Words but hear how rich they sound when accompanied with their heavenly accent.
When people have lived in a foreign country for an extended period of time they not only begin to dress and talk differently, but they speak their once native language with the accent of a foreigner. I first came to Nashville Tennessee in 1974 and moved here permanently in 1976. I had a Virginia accent when I first arrived, but gradually that changed until on one visit back to Virginia one of my boyhood friends looked at me in astonishment and said, "What in the world has happened to your accent?!"
This same thing happens to me in my life today, but in relation to my faith speak. My spiritual accent has changed through familiarity and numerous corrections until even the things that I once did and said routinely without thinking are different in various ways... they have a new accent that defines them. We commonly call this seeing Jesus in someone. It is what I can see so profoundly in the eyes of those I feel are the strongest spiritual people I know. They are humble, they are often meek, they speak and act with a certain heavenly accent, and they are poor in spirit. The things of this world don't impress them any longer and they seem to be looking into your heart when you sit with them in conversation... quite often they become God's red pencil and correct of our lives too, but truthfully, even they are not perfect, just further down the path of correction and revision. They have lived in God's heavenly land longer than we have.
I want to share this final thought of Oswald Chambers with you; it goes like this...
"We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring." - Oswald Chambers
Are you giving yourself up for correction? Are you allowing the red marks you bear to alter what you have typed upon your life’s page so that you can begin revising it once more with the changes that Jesus has identified and asked you to make? Is your life becoming one that old friends will see as being transformed and inspiring? Are you speaking with a rich new accent?
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for the corrections you make to my life. Thank you also for the heavenly accent with which I now speak and the deep rich flavor of faith that you are instilling in me... they are both indicative of your presence in my life. Holy Father, thank you for those things you ask me to tear down and reconstruct; they bring me closer to your perfection with every new modification, because my will is being supplanted with yours each time I obey you after reviewing the red marks of correction which mark the shortcomings of my sinful old life. Lord, I yield to you in all things and give up my will and spirit to take on yours as my spirit becomes poor and I become wealthy and strengthened by yours. My treasure is yours Father, and I find my worth reflected in your eyes and see that it is no longer my own. You are great and your design is perfect; I praise you Father as you carefully go over my life and change me to be more as you would have me be... this is my greatest desire Abba... to be like you and Jesus, that is to be wholly yours… wholly holy… and wholly righteous. Change me as you will Father, and let all the glory for my transformation be yours.
Amen
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV
Rich Forbes