“BLESSED are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” This is the first Beatitude, so what is Jesus saying? How do we understand his meaning?

Our trouble is that we tend always to think in earthly terms. If we do this we shall come to a very wrong understanding. In earthly terms to be poor in spirit is to be the sort of person that is a bit of a wimp. It is the sort of person that is unsure of himself, and therefore always putting himself down in his thoughts. Such a person will always allow others to get the better of him, and if relegated to the lowest position will accept it because of the poor opinion he has of himself. Such a person may have many gifts, and be clever at many things, but because of the poor opinion that he has of himself, he will always be letting others suggest he is useless. Such a person becomes indecisive, and is afraid to express an opinion because of the fear that people will think it rubbish. Such a condition is often found in a person who when they were a child either their parents, or their teachers or both, were always criticising him and always putting him down. When we are told enough times that we are useless we tend to believe it and it becomes part of our make-up.

This has nothing to do with what Jesus is describing here. Poverty of spirit which Jesus is speaking about is not an experience that is found in a natural way in anybody's life. In fact it is something that is in nature of being supernatural. I am not saying that it is caused by some supernatural event or one off climatic event, but I am saying that it is produced by the Spirit of God in the soul. The blessedness of this poverty of spirit is because it is produced by the Holy Spirit. It may be and usually is painful, but it is still a blessing because it leads us forward towards salvation.

This poverty of spirit can’t be worked up by human effort. This poverty of spirit comes by the grace of God, and because God is being gracious to us he sends his Holy Spirit to work in our soul. This is the beginning of God’s work in the soul, and it is the necessary starting point to salvation and knowing God. We can’t know God unless we are poor in spirit.

So what is the experience of being poor in spirit? Here I find myself in difficulty because the work of God’s spirit in the soul is hard to describe. What I can say is that poverty of spirit comes when God meets with us and makes his presence known to us and to be felt by us. It is an evaluation of ourselves which the presence of God produces in the mind and heart. Before we meet with God we go on in life without any experience of this poverty of spirit.

The best way to describe it is to look at this experience in the life of people whose experience of it is described in the Bible. First let us look at the prophet Isaiah and his experience as a young man when he went in the temple one day. We read about it in Isaiah 6. Isaiah went into the temple one day. It was after King Uzziah died. He probably went into the temple because he was overcome with grief, because King Uzziah was one of the good kings of Israel. He had an experience which he did not expect which changed the whole way he thought about himself and God. Before he thought of himself as a good Jew and worthy of God’s approval. Then he was given a vision of God. He was devastated. Read the account in Isaiah 6 and see. He saw himself in a way that he had never seen himself before. He realised this was the true picture of himself, which before he had never understood. This experience had nothing to do with his excellence as a man in the society of his day. It had all to do with himself in the sight of God. He truly became poor in spirit because he saw what God was like, and in the light of this he saw what he ought to be, and so saw how far short he fell from the holiness and the purity of God. Further he understood how impossible it was for him to change, or climb to the heights of that holiness he saw in God. He saw himself, therefore, condemned and lost and deserving to be consumed by the wrath of God. This is the experience of being poor in spirit.

We can see the same experience in Acts 9 when the apostle Paul was met by Jesus. He was on his way to Damascus to bring Christians to justice, because in his self righteousness he thought them to be against God. He was an excellent Jew. He describes himself in his letter to the Philippians at this time as being righteous according to the understanding of the religion of the Jews. Jesus met him, and he fell on his face, and his whole attitude to himself and God changed. He became poor in spirit.

This is a work only the Spirit of God can produce. But though it is painful and crushing to the soul, and producing fear before God, it brings blessing. What is the blessedness that the poor in spirit receive. It is the kingdom of heaven. It is the poor in spirit that possess the kingdom of heaven. It is the poor in spirit that enter the kingdom of heaven. It is the poor in spirit who are brought into fellowship with God and whom God loves. When Isaiah fell on his face before God in despair we are told that God sent an angel with a live coal off the altar, and placed it on his lips and told him his sin was purged. When Paul bowed in poverty of spirit in the presence of Jesus, Jesus accepted him as his servant.