Summary: In understanding the disciple’s experience of God’s kingdom, we must wrestle with the reality of persecution. When faced with it in any form, the Lord encourages us that reward surpasses the suffering.

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From Series: "Kingdom Blessing"

The word “blessing” might not get your attention. Perhaps its commonality, both culturally and in the church, causes our soul to yawn. Yet may it not be so! For beneath the layers of diluted truth there lies a treasure of grace. God’s blessing connects to His reign in our lives and His desire for our lives. We can root our understanding in Numbers 6:24-27. God chose to “put his name on” his people through a blessing, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace” (Num. 6:24-26). These words express God’s heart towards us. In receiving them, we find our souls’ desire, the presence of God. At the beginning of Matthew 5, Jesus teaches about blessing and strips away the world’s false, misleading and shallow definitions. He upends and even shatters the world’s culture of blessing. And then, at the same time, he announces and invites us into true blessing in the face and favor of God. Jesus speaks these words to his called followers, his disciples. They’re set in the context of a broader instruction about the nature of life in the kingdom of God and the way of a disciple. They are eight distinct signs of God’s presence and reign in us, but they flow and work together as one. This Lenten season, as we ‘be, make and send disciples’ who proclaim God’s Kingdom, may we learn God’s blessing.