Blessing and beatitude - Chambers, Oswald
Matthew 5:4348
Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly father is perfect. Matthew 5:48 (RV )
By blessing we mean the great magnanimous over- flowing of the heart of god to all people, whether they be good, bad, or indifferent. By beatitude we mean the overflowing benediction of a life that is rightly related to god character that lives within the frontiers where god makes himself known. So many people think they must be right with god because he blesses them. This needs correcting, and we must get rightly related to the wonderful truths hidden in these verses.
1. The good
In the first place, gods blessings fall, like his rain, on evil and good alike. The great blessings of health, genius, prosperity, all come from his overflowing grace, and not from the condition of the character of the recipients. For instance, if health were a sign that a man is right with god, we should lose all distinction as to what a good character is, for many bad men enjoy good health. It is humbling and illuminating to catch the profound meaning of the apostle pauls statement to timothy: if we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself (2 timothy 2:13). All mans unfaithfulness, all mans sins,
. . . Alters god no more than our dimmed eyes can quench the stars in heaven.
There is no element of the vindictive in our great and good god. But to come more personally home to our individual spiritual lives. We get a sweet, all- embracing sense and feeling of gods blessing in certain atmosphere sin churches, with certain people, in camp meetings, in times of revival; but if we mistake that sweet sense of the blessing of god for being right with god, great harm is done to our spiritual character.
2. The better
Or take it in the more subtle matter of private prayer. How many of us pray simply in order to feel the pres- ence and blessing of god upon us, and mistake that for the answer? Such prayer is not transaction with god at all, it is in its final analysis an indulgence of the finer sensibilities. This idea of prayer gives rise to the thought of the present day that prayer is merely a reflex action on the life which quietens it, whereas new testament praying is getting hold of a personal god through the opening up of a channel whereby god can deal directly with those for whom we pray. Such prayer humbles the soul always, and gives the life the benediction of being rightly related to god.
This aspect of things throws a great light on what is often a perplexity. At the outset of the christian career the blessing of god is so sensible, so marked by feeling, that the christian walks more by sight than by faith, gods cares sings seem to be so upon him. But there comes a time in the life of the disciple when god withdraws these comforts, when joy in god is not what it used to be, when his presence is not so sweet, and when a strange dull grey (if one might say so) seems to fall over the spiritual life. For a time the soul gets into deep darkness; then he begins to realise that god is but teaching him the difference between walking in the light of blessings and entering into the experience of the divine beatitudes; or, to put it more simply, god is taking the soul out of the realm of religious feeling and emotion into the realm of faith. But without faith it is impossible to please him.
3. The best
One of the great marks that the blessings of god are being rightly used is that they lead us to repentance. . . . Not knowing that the goodness of god leadeth thee to repentance? Repentance in the new testament sense means just the difference between a sanctified and an unsanctified soul. The only repentant man in the new testament sense is the holy man, one who is rightly related to god by the atonement of Jesus and has become a written epistle, known and read of all men. How many of us have allowed the goodness of god to lead us to repentance? Or are we so enjoying the blessings of god, like the beasts of the field, taking them as our due and not seeing behind them the great loving hand of god, whose heart is overflowing in tremendous love?
Another practical issue: if god makes no difference in his external blessings to men, who are we that we should? One of the chief stagnating influences on spiritual character is this reason in do they deserve it? How much do any of us deserve the blessings of god? Let us ever remember that to enter into the experience of gods beatitudes is to find ourselves able to show to our fellow-men the same unmerited mercy, the same unselfish, unmerited love that god has shown to us. Jesus told his disciples that this is indeed the test: for if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses (RV ).
God grant we may realise more and more, with enlightened eyes and chastened hearts, the blessing of the lord , it maketh rich, and toil addeth nothing thereto (rv mg); and may this external blessing of god surround the heart that has been made pure by the blood of the lamb, that both together may witness in a life that is a blessing and a beatitude.