Feeling the Need

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Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  – Matthew 5:3 NIV

When I was about ten years old, my father was laid off from his job at the steel mill. In the years that followed, we learned the difference between want and need. I remember when I was in high school and went to a fast food restaurant after practice with a carload of majorettes and not ordering anything. “I’m not hungry,” I’d say. But I was. 

At home meatless meals were the standard fare, and a roll of toilet paper took the place of a box of tissues. 

“What’s this?” my sister’s boyfriend wisecracked when he spied the roll on top of a kitchen cabinet. “Johnson’s Poverty Program?”

In today’s world, poverty is seen as a negative. What does it mean to be poor? It means you don’t have the income to provide adequately the necessities of life: food, clothing, and shelter. 

That’s why it’s hard to understand what Jesus meant when He said that the poor in spirit are blessed. Poverty and blessings usually don’t go together. When you’re poor, you don’t feel blessed. When you’re poor, feel your neediness, your hunger, your thirst, your want for better things. Hopelessness and despair worm their way into your heart and mind, and devour your dreams. You battle envy, embarrassment, and shame. 

So what exactly did Jesus mean when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”?

Perhaps it has to do with that little word, need. 

God doesn’t condemn being poor. Throughout His Word, He commands us to look after those who are in need (Matthew 25:31–46), to help them, not mistreat them. 

He does, however, caution against trusting in riches. “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal … No one can serve two masters … You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:19–24). 

So does that mean He wants us to be poor? In a sense, yes.

Through the Apostle John, He told the wealthy Laodicean church that they were really poor: “You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. I advise you to buy gold from me—gold that has been purified by fire. Then you will be rich” (Revelation 3:17–18).

Starving people reach a point where they no longer feel hunger, where they no longer feel the need for food. These Laodicieans were starving spiritually, but they had reached the point where they no longer felt their need for spiritual food. Material riches were the empty fillers that deadened their spiritual hunger. They did not feel the need for anything, neither material nor spiritual. They were spiritually poor, and they didn’t even know it.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit who feel and understand their need,” Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:3. They are blessed because they aren’t trusting in material riches, they aren’t puffed up with spiritual pride, thinking involvement in kingdom affairs and tithing and giving to the needy are sufficient. 

They are blessed because they feel a constant need for God Himself. As a deer pants for streams of water, so their souls long for God (Psalm 42:1). They understand that “in him (God) we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). 

They hunger and thirst after Him. They long for a personal relationship with Him through His Son. They hunger after His Word and thirst for time with Him. They understand their need—and it is for God only. 

Dear God, sometimes I ease my spiritual hunger with empty fillers, such as my Christian activities, instead of the spiritual food that comes from seeking You alone. Forgive me. Amen.

Read and reflect on Revelation 3:17–18.

From God, Me, & a Cup of Tea, Vol. 3 © 2019 Michele Huey. All rights reserved. Used with permission.