The Beatitudes – Chapters Seven and Eight
Righteousness and Blessedness + The Tests of Spiritual Appetite
Printables
- Hunger and Thirst Coloring page to print and color and keep in your mini-binder.
Assignment for next week
- Read chapter 9 in the book.
- Complete pages for chapter 9 in the workbook.
- After the pages are completed, click on Week 8, Chapter 9 on the Workshop homepage.
- AND add a short comment on this page to help out other women and share what you’ve learned. And leave a comment replying to someone else if you can!
WOW – these two chapters absolutely laid me flat…again. This video is SUCH a great way to process what I read and the workbook pages as I answered questions, the video further drives the teaching home. I LOVED the story you shared of your son – that was such a powerful picture for me. I am doing this study alone, I am mom to three with varying degrees of special needs. While we do try to get to church, there are some weeks (sometimes spill into months) where it is just impossible to go – balancing all of that with the desire to be in community with like minded believers is truly so difficult. I appreciate studies like this that I can glean from and and grow in the harder seasons (which we are in a hard season right now). As I worked through this study, I realized that I am dulling my hunger with snacks (distractions = specifically novels – I LOVE to read) and the pain of the season and weight of all that we carry. But as I read and worked through the workbook and then watched the video – I realized that I am just called to continually put myself in position – to put myself in front of Him and then allow Him to remove the sin and fill/clean me with His righteousness. This week I want to think of how to practically do that – how can I place myself in front of Him throughout the day?
So true! Such a hard season for you, but He is faithful to meet you when you seek Him! Praying you can continue to do that. Did you think of how to practically place yourself in front of Him throughout the day? I’d love to hear what you think because I need to do that too!
I have not finished the workbook yet, but I have been wanting to write all week. As I have said before I am leading a Bible study with a handful of ladies on the Book of Philippians. I am blown away by the parallels between the Sermon on the Mount and this book. Tonight we work through chapter 3, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
I see Christ’s meekness in chapter 2 and Paul’s meekness in 3 where He says that everything he did that would seem righteousness is dung, as Kari has been illustrating in her videos. And his hunger and thirst for the righteousness of Christ which can only be found in death to myself to obtain His resurrection power. I can only know Christ by this way, the way of the cross.
And Christ, in His kindness, shows me my lack of meekness this week as I am being falsely accused and want to strike back and defend myself and accuse right back. It is His goodness that places this opportunity to glorify Him in my path when I call out to know Him more. I have nothing to give Him. But, I trust Him.
I, too see so many parallels from the SOTM and the book I’m working through right now, 1 Peter! All of Scripture harmonizes and ties together so beautifully when you take the time to meditate and think on it!
It’s so hard to be meak and merciful and poor in spirit when faced with problems like that. But what a way to glorify God when we act like true believers instead of the way the world does! Praying you used the opportunity to grow in Him!
Thank you, Kari. I’m grateful for the ways He reveals Himself and grows in us a greater hunger and thirst for Him.
Kari
I have so many highlighted sections in these two chapters as Dr MLJ just opens my eyes to the meaning – to hunger and thirst for righteousness it’s a wonder it does not glow in the dark. Your video that listed all the ways we can have our appetites dulled in seeking GOD all day between home, kids, work and distractions. As soon as you said eating snacks I thought about those quick morning devotions that just give you a quick pick me up and then thinking that will get me closer to GOD. Just all the busyness in our lives today can be overwhelming. Most of my bible study is by myself but I do have my best friend who is able to do some studies with me and I love Sunday School where I am able to share what I am learning with others. Not to put on airs of being wiser but to let them how exciting the Bible truly is. I have been listening to The Normal Christian by Watchmen Nee during my daily traveling and the insights today which fits so well was When we are in the LIGHT (of GOD) we see the light of understanding. So many ask how to have time for reading and studying the Bible.. Dr MLJ noted in the tests of spiritual appetites that if we are hungering and thirsting after righteousness we will find time. Where there is a will there is a way. His gut punch was that it is amazing how we find time to the things we want to do. I want that hunger and thirst every day just like the hunger your son had for that protein bar. Thank you so much for your cup that shows how we continue to fill that cup with other things besides the crystal clear living water of Jesus Christ.
LOL, Carol! I haven’t taken a highlighter to my book yet, but I REALLY want to! I’m afraid I would have about five unhighlighted words per chapter left though. 🙂
I broke this lesson up over two weeks. These verses really stood out to me:
Chapter 7: “We often waste our time, and God’s time, in expressing our human thoughts and sentiments instead of considering His Word.”
How many ‘mundane’ sins would I avoid if I just considered His word before justifying or rationalizing my thoughts/actions by my own ‘authority’?
Chapter 8: “If we want to face God and spend eternity in His holy presence, we must be like Him.”
Only Jesus gives us what we need to be like Him.
This is where I am hit so hard each time through this study. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones sums it up so perfectly – this struggle of walking out the Christian life – (on pg. 62) ‘the outstanding declaration of the Christian gospel to all who are unhappy about themselves and their spiritual state and who long for an order and quality of life that they have not hitherto enjoyed.’ That dissatisfaction with facing where I am and how consumed with self and that utter desperation to be free from it in all of its horrible manifestations…this is SO SO SO hard. We have hard days here at my house (I am mom to special needs’ teens) and it is SO hard to not be swept up in the self-pity and self-concern (I don’t know if this is just a personal struggle or if it is a common one?) but chapter seven hits me hard with the truth of where I am versus where I desire to be.
And then in chapter eight, this is deeper, further driven home by the questions starting at the bottom of page 73 – into page 74 – and the final blow – the point driven home on page 75 – ‘I (I changed it from we) am not hungering and thirsting after righteousness as long as I am holding with any sense of self-satisfaction to anything that is within me, or to anything that I have ever done.’
This is where I love the workbook questions Kari has created as a companion study – what in my life – general, relationship with God, habits…etc; I ask myself what am I doing right now that is NOT reflecting this and what do I need to pray about, seek God’s help and power and strength to foster this hunger for righteousness? All-in-all this was a hard, hard two chapters –
Sorry, forgot to add, last year I noticed that I needed a practical step to place myself before Him each day and I found it this year (it took an entire year for me to find something that worked for us)…I am posting my prayers (and His answers) on the doors down our hallway. I found the idea through Georgia Brown – but tweaked it to make it my own. I write it on an extra large notecard, tape it up with washi tape, and we spend a lot of time walking from end of the house to the other throughout the day, so it automatically calls my attention back to Him. We also bought a Bible map poster and “laminated” it with packaging tape and use it as a table top cover on our dining room table and it is AWESOME – it is fostering so, so many discussions about God, His Word, His faithfulness etc;. I posted on my Instagram page what that looks like – we got it from Amazon.
Sunshine, I love the work the Lord is faithfully doing in your heart. He will finish the good work He has started. Please remember when you are struggling with the weighty burden of seeing your sin to come to Jesus. To cast that burden at His feet. He longs to give you rest. I love this quote from Susan Allibone “It is *for*
Whoops:
“It is *for* contrition [deep sorrow for sin] and love and faith that you must come to Jesus, not *with* them. Let your constant prayer be ‘Lord, increase my faith!’”