From the Pulpit...

The world says, “blessed are those who are confident, bold, wealthy, powerful, fulfilled, following their hearts, "good." That's now how the Lord Jesus Christ looks at things. The eight traits of character proclaimed by Jesus are descriptions of what a person looks like when he "repents for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." When a person comes into a right relationship with the king, he is blessed in the ways we read about in verses 3-12. At the same time, these traits are checkpoints for us to see if we are living responsibly before the Lord in manifesting the character traits that He seeks to develop in us. Like the letters from James or 1 John, these become tests of a living, genuine faith.