Blessed Are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven

• Published in the November | December 2003 issue

Twenty-three years ago, I met Richard Wurmbrandt. The testimony of this Romanian man who had suffered atrocities for his faith stunned me. I remember how unfair it seemed. But because I had lived in relative comfort up to that point, his experience was hard to relate to, as were Jesus’ words in Mt. 5:10–12.

How can persecution equal blessing? I remember wondering. How can someone anticipate future rewards when experiencing unjust pain now? I was too young in my Christian walk to know how to grapple with these verses, so I simply tucked them away in a corner of my mind.

Personalized Persecution

Shortly after meeting Pastor Wurmbrandt, I moved to France with my husband, where we founded the Nîmes Theological Institute. In recent years, the French culture has grown increasingly hostile to the gospel, and we have suffered persecution.

One of the most dramatic attacks resulted in four cars on our campus being fire bombed. Other forms of persecution have been more subtle but no less demoralizing. In spite of our affiliation with many well-known, mainstream theologians, our school was erroneously cited as a cult by the French government. Consequently, students and church members have been ostracized, maligned, and denied jobs. In this context, I’ve had the unlooked-for opportunity to revisit Jesus’ teaching and to ponder more deeply the connection between persecution and blessing.

Sometimes I still wonder: Where’s the blessing in this? Other times, I remember my conversation with Pastor Wurmbrandt. I could see that his love for Christ had been tested and purified through torture. He was blessed by a deep awareness of his Savior’s victorious, indwelling presence—a foretaste of the kingdom to come. Therein, I believe, lies the secret of the blessing Jesus promised.

The word blessing signifies an inner well-being that’s independent of our circumstances. We may not feel blessed when we’re under attack. But if we can focus on the joy set before us—as Jesus did—remembering that unmerited suffering reaps an eternal weight of glory, we’ll be empowered to persevere (Heb. 12:1–2).

As I have found myself thrust into fierce spiritual opposition, I have begun to experience the unlikely blessing that accompanies persecution. Slowly, my eyes have been opened to see how this beatitude embodies our hope.

Reigning Training

The blessing of the persecuted is “the kingdom of heaven.” This is where God shares His reign and reward with us. Yet those gifts come at a cost: The training ground for reigning is often on the soil of suffering.

If we are growing in Christ, unjust affliction will eventually come our way: “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also” (Jn. 15:20). The more we manifest Christ, the more we become candidates for persecution “because of righteousness.” It is, after all, the righteousness of Christ in us that is being attacked.

The apostles understood that one consequence of identifying with Christ would be unmerited persecution. To a scattered band of Christians fleeing the bloodthirsty persecution of emperor Nero, Peter wrote:

The Apostle John echoed those words in his first letter: “Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you” (1 Jn. 3:13).

The world hates us because we exude the light of Christ. Our convictions make those at home in the world so uncomfortable that they attack us. In some cases, they may even be influenced by demonic powers that seek to destroy us because we represent a threat to Satan’s purposes. Like Christ—and the multitudes of persecuted saints before us—we become targets of abuse and derision, objects of harassment and hatred. None of us is exempt from such hostility.

If endurance seems daunting in the face of such a fiery furnace, we must remember that God understands our fragility. We see this truth in the verses following the last beatitude, which suddenly change tense, growing more personal: “Blessed are those” becomes “blessed are you…because great is your reward in heaven” (Mt. 5:11–12, emphasis mine).

Herein lies my hope: Painful as it is today, persecution for righteousness will work for my good as I yield to God. The Apostle Paul, no stranger to persecution, understood that reality. “If we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12). If we find ourselves unexpectedly persecuted for our faith, our task is to persevere, trusting in Jesus’ promise of reward in the kingdom of heaven.

As we do, we’ll discover that sharing in Jesus’ sufferings truly is a blessing. We know that our endurance in the midst of persecution will not go unrewarded when His kingdom is established to the full.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers, for They Will Be Called Sons of God

• Published in the November | December 2003 issue

I grew up in a hard-fisted town where schoolyard fights were rites of passage, almost sacraments. In spring, when boys go out to war, we fought almost every day. It was what we did instead of talking, an intimacy by other means.

The fellowship of the fists.

Most fights were held in the woods just beyond the edge of the school grounds. That way the teachers couldn’t see us, though they could hear us—loud as a rabble—if they walked outside. But they rarely did.

The fighters squared off. Everyone else gathered in a thick ring around them, jostling and jeering. The fighters went at it in a wild, flailing, tribal dance of fear and anger. At the end, one or both warriors would be hobbling with pain, shimmering with bruises, gaudy with blood.

I vividly remember one of these fights for two reasons: My brother fought it, and the brother of his opponent tried to end it, to be a peacemaker. What the fight was about I have no recollection. Few who came to watch would have known or cared. We were there for the sport, the thrill.

My brother was winning. He always had a nimbleness about him, a sleight-of-hand quickness. And he could keep his head in combat. The other boy was angry in a way that made him lunging and sloppy—a rube more than a menace, an easy target.

The other boy’s face was glazed with blood. He was crying with rage. At that moment his brother leapt in, crying too—with grief. He flung himself between the two fighters and tried to separate them. “Stop it! Stop it!” he shouted. “Please, stop it!”

But no one wanted to stop it. We weren’t sated yet. So several boys dragged the peacemaker out. They held him back as he cried and begged. The fight went on, bloodier and bloodier.

No one stopped it.

A Messy Mission

“Blessed are the peacemakers,” Jesus said.

We smile blandly. “Oh, that’s nice.”

But it’s not. It’s messy, wrenching work. And it’s often resented. Anyone who thinks that peacemaking is inherently blessed—that it’s sought and honored in a culture of violence—hasn’t lived very long. Nor have they listened very closely to Jesus.

In the Beatitudes, Jesus pronounces the most unlikely people blessed: the meek, the mournful, the poor and hungry; those persecuted, assaulted, insulted. Blessed are the paupers, the vagabonds, the bruised, the losers. It’s in this list that Jesus places the peacemaker, a close cousin to the famished and the bankrupt.

I guess I knew that years ago. I knew it the day that boy jumped in, pleading for the combatants to stop, and we dragged him out. We despise peacemakers at the very moment we need them most.

Recently my wife and I had lunch with a missionary couple, Gordon and Regine King. They are extraordinary in many ways, but this stands out: They have become peacemakers in a blood-soaked land, Rwanda. Regine is from Rwanda, and she lived—barely—through that country’s genocide in 1994. She lost many members of her family. For several months, she lived a scavenging, scrabbling existence, hiding in the shadows, running. Always running.

Now she’s back. Back in her own country with a healed heart—and a Masters degree in psychology. Back to make peace. During the genocide, when all she had was her sister’s Bible, Regine met Jesus in a way she had never met Him before. That Bible became her bread, water, air. She met the Prince of Peace, the one who became her peace and ours, who made peace through His blood, who broke down dividing walls and brought those far away near (Eph. 2:13–18). Jesus gave her His peace. Then He gave her (and her husband, Gordon) a commission: Freely give what you’ve freely received.

Be peacemakers.

In a recent letter, her brother, Innocent, summed up just how costly that work is. Innocent is now a schoolteacher in Rwanda. Ten years ago, the parents of the children he teaches were wielding clubs and machetes, slaughtering without mercy. “It’s hard,” Innocent writes, “to love the children of those who tried to kill you.”

Yet he does. And Regine does. They have discovered a peace in Christ that is not from this world and that overcomes this world.

Consider this account, which Regine tells in a voice light and musical, as though she’s merely recounting a family vacation: A woman’s only son was killed. She was consumed with grief, hate, and bitterness. “God,” she prayed, “reveal his killer.”

One night she dreamed she was going to heaven. But there was a complication: In order to get to heaven, she had to pass through a certain house. She had to walk down the street, enter the house through the front door, go through its rooms, up the stairs, and exit through the back door.

She asked God whose house this was.

“It’s the house,” He told her, “of the man who killed your son.”

The road to heaven passed through the house of her enemy.

Two nights later, a knock at her door. She opens it, and there stands a man about her son’s age. He identifies himself: “I am the one who killed your son. Since that day, I have had no life. No peace. So here I am, my life is in your hands. Kill me; I am dead already. Have me thrown in jail; I am in prison already. Have me tortured; I am in torment already.

“Do with me as you wish.”

The woman had prayed so long for this day. But now she finds she cannot kill him. She doesn’t want him thrown in jail. Or tortured. She asks only one thing: “Come into my home, and live with me. Eat the food I would have prepared for my son. Wear the clothes I would have made for my son.

“Become the son I lost.”

And so he did.

Peacemakers do what God Himself has done, making sons and daughters out of bitter enemies, feeding and clothing them, blazing a trail to heaven straight through their houses.

No wonder they will be called sons of God.

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart, for They Will See God

• Published in the November | December 2003 issue

My five-year-old, Lydia, had been in bed an hour when I passed by the half-open door of her darkened room. She was weeping uncontrollably.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” I asked, sitting on the edge of her bed and gently taking her hand. “Did you have a bad dream?”

Lydia tried to respond, but tears choked her words. I stroked her hair to soothe her. After a moment, she cried in little-girl anguish, “Oh, Daddy! I—I just want to see God!”

Her words startled me. Now it was my turn to weep. I drew her close and said, “Darling, do you know why you want to see God so much? Because that’s the reason He made you. You were created to see God. And if you love Him with all your heart, one day you will see God face to face. That’s His promise.”

Comforted, she nodded her head, lay back down, and was soon fast asleep.

After 16 years, I still find myself amazed at Lydia’s words that night. In the depths of her five-year-old soul, she had realized intuitively what theologians over the centuries have carefully reasoned out: In our heart of hearts, we long above all things to see God face to face.

God has made us for Himself, and we will be satisfied with nothing less than the unobscured sight of His face as we stand in His glorious presence:

Theologians call it the “beatific vision”—the final vision, in heaven, of our Alpha and Omega; the destiny for which we were designed; the fulfillment of all our desires, which alone brings us perfect happiness.

Distracted and Divided

God longs for our view of Him to grow wider and clearer and brighter, so that the “glass” through which we see “darkly” at last gives way to our encounter with Him “face to face” (1 Cor. 13:12, KJV). To see Him is to know Him, and to know Him is to love Him.

Unfortunately, sin has blinded us, leaving our spiritual eyes swollen shut. Unable to see God, we grope in the darkness, searching desperately for someone or something to make us happy. Only the healing light of divine grace can restore our sight, can begin to open our eyes to the glory of the one who calls us to Himself. Even after our eyes have been opened by grace, we often fail to see God. Our vision of Him may remain a cursory glance; our knowledge of Him, a passing acquaintance; our love for Him, a fickle fondness.

Why does our vision of God remain so feeble? Most often, God is not in view simply because we aren’t paying attention to Him. We are otherwise occupied. Recall how the 10 lepers were miraculously healed by our Lord, yet 9 of them dashed off to celebrate without even a backward glance or a word of thanks (Lk. 17:11–19). In much the same way, we receive “grace upon grace” (Jn. 1:16, RSV), only to desert our redeemer again and again in our pursuit of lesser things. Our distractions blind us to God.

Our heart is thus divided or—more precisely—splintered and scattered. We run to and fro, gathering first this trinket, then that one, dropping both for the next shiny bauble we spy. As we pursue countless idols—for that is what they are—they compete for our attention, our allegiance, our devotion. The result is a civil war of the soul. All the while our Father stands close by, waiting for us to turn around and run into His arms.

No wonder Jesus tells us, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Mt. 5:8). In this context, we must understand pure to mean what is intended when we say, for example, “pure gold”—that is, unmixed, unadulterated, unalloyed. If our vision of God is to grow wider, clearer, and brighter, our will must be united in a single focus on Him and an overriding desire to know and love Him.

Toward Purity

How do we purify our hearts in this way? We can at least begin, I believe, with two motivating insights. The first is this: God is the fountain of all we desire. Whatever we long for—love, acceptance, truth, strength, beauty, delight, adventure—we will find it at its best and most complete in Him. Once we recognize that our deepest hunger is for God Himself, that all other hungers are only faint rumblings of this one, then our longings can drive us to seek Him above all else.

The second insight is found in the scriptural promise: To see God is to become like Him (1 Jn. 3:2). In the end, the reason we pursue what we see, know, and love is that we desire to be united to it, to take it into ourselves and to be one with it. The more clearly we see God, the more intimately we know Him, and the more passionately we love Him, the more completely we will be changed into His likeness.

Augustine put it succinctly: We become like what we love. The Apostle Paul described it this way:

That is why the pure in heart are blessed. If we desire the holiness, the goodness, and the beauty of God above all things, then we will in the end see face to face what we have desired. We will become holy and good and beautiful—like Him—and we will experience utter blessedness.

That is His promise. That is our hope. If we allow it to, such a hope will purify and transform us even now, day by day: “Every one who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure” (1 Jn. 3:3, RSV).

Blessed Are the Merciful, for They will be Shown Mercy

• Published in the November | December 2003 issue
• Written by Gary Thomas
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“Mercy!”

It’s the cry that gives birth to every child of God. Whatever words we used, whatever tract we followed, whoever led us in prayer, the foundational request we made when we became Christians was that God would show us—sinners all—His amazing mercy.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Mt. 5:7). Perhaps the merciful are shown mercy because there is no more wonderful gift for sinners to receive. Mercy is its own reward. The poor in spirit will receive the kingdom of heaven. The mourners will receive comfort. The meek will inherit the earth. What do the merciful get?

Mercy.

Without mercy, we’d be damned—not only in the next life but in this one. Without mercy, we could never experience release from the guilt that accompanies our sin. Nor could we release those who sin against us.

I grew up with truckloads of guilt. I still recall my college buddies laughing at how easily they could make me feel guilty. But one glorious day, God used a verse of Scripture to open my eyes to a reality that changed everything about how I view my standing before God and how I treat others.

To Love Mercy

In Mic. 6:8, we witness the centrality of mercy:

When Micah instructs us to love mercy, he isn’t telling us merely to demonstrate mercy or to discipline ourselves to be merciful. He wants us to fall in love with it, to lose ourselves in the beauty of mercy.

The Hebrew word for love in this verse, ‘ahaba, is used of a husband toward his wife. It appears frequently in the Song of Solomon. To love mercy, then, is to be enthralled by it—just as a lover delights in his beloved.

When you love someone, you naturally talk about that person. Likewise, the person who loves mercy is so thankful that he tells others about what God has done. He cherishes mercy; the mere thought of it warms his heart and brings a smile to his face: “God has shown me mercy!”

As I’ve meditated on mercy, I’ve realized this jaw-dropping truth: Without guilt, there could be, by definition, no mercy. Guilt is a terrible reality, but mercy is more wonderful than guilt is terrible. Without acknowledging my own guilt, I would never sense my need for mercy, and I wouldn’t fully apprehend this glorious gift of God.

If you, like me, have suffered from your share of guilt, I invite you to see it as a call to worship. Acknowledge your guilt, and thank God that He has made provision for it in His Son, Jesus. Confess that you have fallen short, then worship the God who shows mercy to you in your failings.

Mercy’s Triumph

But learning to love mercy means more than merely being thankful for the mercy we’ve received. It means we’re eager to show mercy to others too. Like the Father who’s forgiven us, we choose to let go of our grievances and demonstrate grace to those who don’t deserve it—just as we don’t deserve it. Our thoughts turn from revenge to reconciliation as mercy permeates our souls and becomes our way of life.

We’ve all heard of believers who rail against someone else’s sin—only to discover later that they were enmeshed in exactly that struggle. When we fail to fall in love with mercy, we often deal with our own sin by denouncing it in others. In contrast, mercy invites us to admit our guilt, receive God’s forgiveness, and then stop judging others.

James wrote, “Mercy triumphs over judgment!” (Jas. 2:13). Instead of judging others, we can offer them something they don’t deserve: unqualified mercy. We can give them the very thing we have so joyfully received. In so doing, we complete the circle, applying mercy to those who need it as desperately as we do.

As we fall more deeply in love with mercy, we’ll want to spend the rest of our days pointing others toward this glorious gift of our Father. As Jesus said, “Freely you have received, freely give” (Mt. 10:8). We are blessed to be the recipients of such mercy—and blessed to be the givers of it as well.

Gary Thomas

Gary Thomas is a Gold Medallion Award winning author whose books have been translated into eleven languages. He holds a masters degree from Regent College and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Western Seminary in Portland, Oregon, where he serves on the adjunct faculty and teaches on spiritual formation. Gary has spoken across the United States, in six different countries and on numerous national television and radio programs, including Focus on the Family and Family Life Today.

Blessed Are Those Who Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness, for They will be filled

• Published in the November | December 2003 issue

The truest thing I can say about myself these days is that I am a seeker. This may seem strange for a pastor’s kid who was saved when she was four years old, who later went to a Christian college and seminary, and who has been involved in vocational ministry ever since. But it is true. On any given day, I am aware of longing in my life, hungry places that ache to be filled.

Sometimes God is present to me in ways I can see, feel, and know. At other times, I sense a desperate yearning for Him. On some days, my desire for love and connection is satiated in relationship with family and community. But other days, I am overcome by a loneliness out of proportion to the richness of my relational world. At times the pains of the past are a distant memory. Other times, an old wound can make me suspicious and self-protective. Sometimes, I can bear the pain of injustice. But other times, my longing for things to be right gets all riled up and turns into impatience and frustration.

To experience so much longing this far into my Christian journey has been disillusioning at times. I was taught that once Jesus comes into your heart, He will satisfy everything—once and for all. This has not been my experience. So I am grateful for the beatitude that says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Mt. 5:6). It is Christ’s word to seekers, people like me who are baffled by the ongoing presence of hunger and thirst in their spiritual pilgrimage.

Holy Appetites

What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? With this beatitude, Jesus invites us to cultivate an appetite for rightness within ourselves, in our relationships, in the body of Christ, and in the world. He longs for us to experience righteousness in the very essence of our being, not merely in outward appearances.

Jesus saves His most scathing indictments for those who pay inordinate attention to maintaining external rules while being judgmental, uncaring, and inflexible toward real people in complex situations. Jesus had strong words for legalists who refused to interrupt the Sabbath to be kind to another human being, who misused their power and prestige in the name of God, whose hypocrisy prevented people from entering the kingdom of God.

When we hunger for things to be deeply right and explore what that means in our lives, we are right in the middle of this beatitude. But getting in touch with our pangs of spiritual neediness also uncovers our human vulnerability. Hunger and thirst are unpleasant experiences. When I am hungry, I get grumpy. If the condition persists, I become weak and have a hard time doing things that require physical strength.

It’s the same with the hunger of the soul. When my longing to be in right relationship with God, family, and friends goes unmet, I grow spiritually lethargic. This hunger simply doesn’t feel like the blessing that Jesus claims it is; it feels more like a place of pain and frustration.

So how do we begin to experience our hunger and thirst for righteousness as a blessing? How do these appetites result in our being filled—as Jesus promised?

The first step is to trust that our spiritual hunger—our desires and needs—is a good thing. Jesus uses two essentials of life, food and water, as metaphors for our longings in a world where every emptiness is not yet filled. He knows that our deepest unmet desires—the aches of our heart for what is right and good—play an important role in our spiritual growth.

Many of us are not very good at acknowledging our desires. After all, what if we long for things that we cannot have in the end? The fear of not getting our hearts’ desires often drives us to distance ourselves from our longing to avoid further disappointment. Yet that desire is the lifeblood that surges through the heart of our relationship with Jesus.

Several times during Jesus’ interactions with people who were hungry for what He had to offer, He asked them to name what they wanted—to say it out loud—as a prerequisite to their healing. On the road to Jericho, Jesus asked a blind man named Bartimaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mk. 10:51). This needy man’s willingness to state what he wanted opened the door to receiving the blessing Jesus offered.

Happily Hungry?

I am told that that the word blessed means happy. This understanding has always seemed a bit trite to me, especially given the seriousness of hunger and thirst.

Most of the people I know who are honest about their longings don’t wander around with happy grins on their faces. Instead, they carry within them the great tension of the Christian life. They are in touch with their humanity and the humanity of others; they have learned to live between realism and idealism; and they’ve come to terms with the groaning nature of this in-between place. But they are also the ones in whom I sense a deep well of peace, joy, and hope.

Paradoxically, the blessing Jesus promises stems from our willingness to admit our hunger and need. When we do so, it eventually leads us to the God who alone can satisfy our hearts.

To acknowledge our hunger in God’s presence and in the presence of others, and to allow it to motivate an honest search for what is truly right and good in any situation—that is the stuff of the spiritual life. In the end, we’ll find that our longings become the deepest motivating force in our pursuit of God.

When was the last time you let your longing lead you to Him?