Rethinking #Blessed…(Nurture Notes 006)
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‘Kingdom-minded’.
I wonder how many times you’ve heard that phrase?
I wonder how often you’ve heard it and then nodded or affirmed it somehow, without complete acknowledgement of what you’re even affirming? I know I have. Because it’s a habit we have as christians, isn’t it? To use language and phrases which sound good, or not even good but just ‘right’, when inside we may well be spiraling.
Now, don’t get me wrong - sometimes to be able to say ‘I’m blessed’ when practically or even mentally and emotionally speaking, you’re broken is faith and obedience which God smiles at and in fact, is where we’re going to land most of our Nurture Note today as we dive into Luke 6.
However, I wanted to open with this ‘elephant in the room’, because without acknowledging what we’re saying and doing, and why, we run the risk of autopilot.
When we’re battling with some of the worst things, practically speaking, that we’ve ever faced, why does it matter that we’re called ‘blessed’ when it fundamentally feels like we’re anything but?
To answer that through my writing today, I had to ask myself what being ‘kingdom-minded’ means to me because to be honest, outwardly speaking just looking from a human perspective, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Thanks be to God and him alone, being kingdom-minded to me means three things:
1. This earth is not my home.
2. What I believe isn’t always going to be matched by what I see.
3. I don’t have to understand everything in order for it to make sense.
To be clear, my favourite verse in the Bible is John 10:10 which says: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Life to the full. Jesus promises it - not only in heaven, but here on earth too (see Psalm 27:13, for example) and so I’m not someone who essentially has to find myself suffering in order to truly believe I’m doing the right thing by God. That’s a false gospel just as much as the prosperity gospel (which I also reject, to be clear), is.
However, the reason I preface this Nurture Note with those three things is because, without acknowledging them, anyone who gives half a glance to Luke 6 can stop reading and find themselves disappointed, angry and quite frankly, wondering why on earth it makes sense to keep seeking God and trusting him.
Luke 6 has a lot to say. I’ve still not decided whether or not to spend two weeks here to be honest. One thing which it does contain though, are the beatitudes and that’s where the rest of this Nurture Note is landing.
In verse 20 of Luke chapter six, we see a list of ways in which those who Jesus is speaking to as ‘blessed’:
“Blessed are you who are poor…”
“Blessed are you who hunger now…”
“Blessed are you who weep now…”
Blessed are you when people hate you…”
It doesn’t take a great deal to recognise that these things, in light of being ‘blessed’ seem quite countercultural, which of course Jesus was. But not only can they be seen as countercultural, they can feel as though they’re a million miles away from the ‘life to the full’ back in John 10:10 too, right?
This is why it’s so important (for me at least) to go back to the ‘what does it mean to be kingdom minded?’ question in order to make sense of this.
The word ‘blessed’ here is taken from the greek root word ‘makarios’, meaning ‘fortunate’ and ‘well off’. And yet, when you look at that list of things and consider whether or not you’ve experienced any or all of them, does ‘blessed’ come to mind?
This type of blessed is very different to the Instagram only #blessed we view in everyone’s highlight reels isn’t it? And yet, it’s vital we talk about it.
I’m convinced that our pipeline to recognising blessing in these areas is directly linked with our proximity to the ‘blesser’.
If we’re distant from God - so offended by him perhaps that we’ve chosen to no longer engage in communicating with him, we’ll of course get less and less moved by his motives and we’ll hear him a lot less too.
Contrast this with truly abiding in his presence and recognising that truly, as God challenged me with when I was writing my first book, our wellbeing has so much more to do with our source than our circumstances.
When we choose to abide, his heart is what presides.
Things might not make sense to those around us, even to ourselves. We’ll have some truly difficult days (we’re human after all). But we’ll also understand that not understanding everything isn’t the negative we often believe it to be.
Acts 5:41 says: “The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.”
The ‘Apostles’ here included the same Simon-Peter we read about last week. A regular fisherman who almost missed out on the overflow of blessing he was about to receive to his own human tiredness. Now, he’s rejoicing, not because he enjoyed being persecuted of course. But rather, because he knows that the mere fact he was considered worthy to suffer for Jesus’ sake means everything.
From verses 24-26, the beatitudes go on to speak ‘woe’ to those who are rich, those who are well fed, those who laugh and those of whom everyone speaks well of. To understand this element is again to understand the context.
If what we’re living for is simply the here and now and we’re essentially chasing those things, we’ve missed the mark. Remember, the bible doesn’t say money is the root of all evil, but it does say the love of it is! When we love anything or anyone above our love for God, that’s when things get really skewed.
And so with that, some questions to finish:
What does being ‘kingdom-minded’ mean to you? (Feel free to take my answers to this.)
What does it mean to you to abide in Jesus?
Does any of this have a bearing on how you see your circumstances?
Please do reply to this email with any of your thoughts on these questions - I’d absolutely love to hear more from you on them!
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Until next week!
Keep going, keep growing!
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