Poor in Spirit 

I’ll never forget the inimitable Dr. Howard Hendricks asking us Dallas Theological Seminary students in class one day, “Do you think living a Christian life is easy or hard?” We all chimed in on the “hard” side, which brought a smile to his face as he corrected us all: “Living the Christian life is not hard. It’s impossible!” As G. K. Chesterton commented, “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it’s been found difficult and not tried.” Christianity is not only difficult, but impossible when attempted in our own strength. It is a supernatural calling. That’s why we mere mortals are wise to discern and acknowledge that we all desperately need God’s help. When we do, Jesus famously pronounces us blessed! “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). Or, in The Message paraphrase, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” How counterintuitive. At the end of my rope … that’s when I attain the kingdom? Yes indeed.

Listen carefully to what Jesus says. We are not blessed by trying to become poor in spirit, but by recognizing that we already are. The word “poor” is the Greek ptochos, a beggar who lives off the alms of others. Jesus isn’t recommending low self-esteem or pseudo-humility. Rather, He is recommending a sane sense of where we all stand spiritually in relation to a holy God. The poor in spirit recognize their true condition before God as spiritual “have nots.” They don’t have enough faith. They don’t have enough strength. They don’t have enough understanding. The poor in spirit are grateful for hope, but long to have more. They try to obey, but realize their efforts consistently fall short. The poor in spirit, in other words, are needy, and they know it. They need God. They’re dependent on Him. They’re desperate for Him. As the great reformer John Calvin wrote, “He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.”

How is it that being reduced to nothing in ourselves and being cast on the mercy of God is a blessing? Because it clears out human pride and makes room for the Lord Himself on the throne of our hearts. Max Lucado, in his book The Applause of Heaven, writes,

The jewel of joy is given to the impoverished spirits, not the affluent. God’s delight is received upon surrender, not awarded upon conquest. The first step to joy is a plea for help, an acknowledgment of moral destitution, an admission of inward paucity. Those who taste God’s presence have declared spiritual bankruptcy and are aware of their spiritual crisis. Their cupboards are bare. Their pockets are empty. Their options are gone. They have long since stopped demanding justice; they are pleading for mercy. They don’t brag; they beg.

That would not seem a happy outcome but for the fact that it’s God to whom the poor in spirit beg, and it’s only what God gives that the poor in spirit receive. History shows the Holy Spirit extremely capable of great gift-giving to those who acknowledge they have nothing.

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand was for fourteen years a Christian prisoner of conscience in a dark, communist prison cell underneath the city streets of Bucharest, Romania. He and his Christian brothers held there communicated by tapping on a sewer pipe that joined their isolation cells. As the weeks of captivity wore on, Wurmbrand and his friends longed to share a Communion service together, but they had nothing. No church building. No beautiful music. No bread or wine. How could they have Communion with nothing?

“But wait,” one of his friends tapped to Wurmbrand. “Nothing has to be something or you wouldn’t have it. And consider, God hung the world on nothing! It has to be the strongest substance in the world.” So with nothing in their hands, these prisoners broke bread. With nothing on their lips, they sipped from the cup. With reverent taps on a rusty sewer pipe, they worshiped the God of their salvation. In later years, Wurmbrand would remember many Communions, but none richer or sweeter than the one he celebrated with nothing at all.

But then in 1991, eighty-seven-year-old Richard Wurmbrand returned to post-revolution Bucharest, where jubilant believers gave him a tour of their new store—the first Christian bookstore in Bucharest in living memory. They took him to an underground room stuffed with Bibles and books and church supplies including Communion wafers and cups. As he peered into the little room, a look of puzzlement came over the old man’s face. Then shock. Then boundless joy. That little room was the actual cell where he had spent fourteen years of his life. The very place where once he had shared Communion with no wine or bread was now a storehouse of plenty overflowing with God’s Word, God’s comfort, and God’s exhortation. Though crippled in his feet from years of torture, Richard Wurmbrand danced for joy in realizing that when a man, woman, or child brings their nothing and yet offers it to God, God takes it very seriously indeed.

He certainly did for David. What did that young shepherd have to offer God in the fight against Goliath that day long ago? A picnic basket and the scorn of his brothers. That’s all. In other words, nothing. David was poor in spirit, and he knew it (we will see more evidence of this in chapter 5), and it pleased God to no end because David’s acknowledging his poverty was the very key to gaining God’s plenty. Hence the primary posture of one who would catch the wind of the Spirit is poverty of spirit. All of us are spiritually bankrupt in ourselves, hopeless unless God intervenes. But God rejoices when we acknowledge our need. “The poor in spirit are blessed because they have come to the end of their efforts to make it on their own and, having failed, are no longer too proud to admit it. They are desperate … poverty of spirit is the end of denial.”

I am one who struggles constantly with denial. What about you? I tend to drift constantly from “poor in spirit” toward “middle class” in spirit (as Tim Keller says)! I start feeling my oats, enjoying my successes, and thinking maybe it’s time to start denying my poverty after all. It is then that God graciously knocks the stuffing out of me through failure or trials or burdens far too heavy for me to carry. These serve as loving reminders that without Him, I have nothing, but when we bring our nothing and offer it to God, He takes it very seriously. I recently admitted as much in a recent sermon when I shared with my friends my regular, pre-sermon prayer. It’s not, “Lord, speak through me,” though that would be a very strategic prayer. It’s not, “Let Your Word go out powerfully today,” though that would be an appropriately results-oriented prayer. Rather, my regular pre-sermon prayer is not strategic or results-oriented, just authentically needy. What I do say is, “Lord, I ‘got’ nothin’.” If the Spirit doesn’t show up and the Wild Goose hold forth and the Comforter wax eloquent, I can’t put one word in front of another to any true spiritual effect. I’ve learned that if I don’t catch the wind of the Spirit, I might as well hang it up for the day. In and of myself, I got nothin’. But I’ve also learned that when I ask, the Spirit responds consistently and lovingly and powerfully.