Blessed are the grateful
Quick! What do you say when someone sneezes? If it’s someone you know well, you might say, “Gross! Why didn’t you use a tissue?” But normally, we say, “God bless you!” To which my wife says, “He always does!”
Jesus began each saying on the Sermon on the Mount with the word, “Blessed (Greek, makarioi).” Some versions translate it, “happy,” but that is too weak.
Makarioi indicates a judgment on the person who fits the conditions; in this case, it is a state of the highest good, the greatest prosperity. It is also the opposite of “woe,” or as the Jews would say, “Oy!” Some of the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:2 — 12) even completely overturn the world’s values, producing benefits available only in the spiritual realm.
True blessedness is what the believer in Jesus Christ has to look forward to.
However, a measure of blessedness is available to everyone, believer and unbeliever alike. Although we might not think of unbelievers as “blessed,” they are, according to what is called, “common grace.” This is God’s showering His blessings on the just and the unjust.
“For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). We may consider someone who is rich or prosperous or very happy as blessed, but those who receive simple things that we take for granted, like rain, sunshine, health, clothing, brains, air, etc., are blessed. Although we get used to these blessings, we would sure miss them were they taken away or threatened.
The Beatitudes are a sort-of checklist for the Kingdom. They are also promises of eternal bliss, provided one has the heart attitude to meet the conditions — and here is where the world’s offers of blessing fall short.
Who would expect the “poor in spirit” to matter? Mourning is hardly something to strive for. The meek will get stomped on. Hungering and thirsting don’t make it in an obese, overindulgent world. Few people wake up in the morning wanting to be persecuted and falsely charged. There is little mercy, purity, and peace in the world, yet the minority who struggle for such virtues will receive unimaginable blessings.
Note that those blessings are waiting in the future. Yes, there are earthly blessings, like the rain and sun, but there are rewards awaiting us that require exercising perhaps the most difficult virtue: patience. Job was patient and received double the blessing that he lost (James 5:11).
On the other hand, a terrible fate awaits those who the world would call “blessed” but are not thankful to God. Romans 1:21 states, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Notice that ingratitude toward God is part of a checklist for condemnation.
When the rich man and the poor man in Jesus’ story died, their fortunes were reversed: “But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish’ ” (Luke 16:25). The blessings that the rich man had were taken away, and Lazarus was living the good life.
Regarding blessings, the apostle Paul reminds us, “But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content” (1 Timothy 6:8). Anything beyond that is icing on the cake (or gravy, depending on your tastes). Therefore, there is much more to being blessed than we often recognize. As seen on a church sign, “Gratitude turns what we have into enough.”
The day you read this may not be Thanksgiving Day, but it should be a day of thanksgiving, no matter what your situation. “[G]ive thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).