BEATITUDES SERIES: Wrestling with the Lord

The Beatitudes that Jesus lays out in Matthew 5 are not simple, easy, shallow, or mastered in one day.  These truths He teaches may bring about wrestling in our lives as we see His teaching and compare it with our own lives.

We who have received God’s Spirit are privileged with His presence.  He is with us pushing and drawing and whispering and mourning.  This creates a wrestle within us between us and the Spirit in us.  We should wrestle with the Word!

Think of Jacob wrestling with the angel of the Lord in Genesis 32.  We too wrestle with God.  We also do not let go because we need God’s blessing.  We need Him to encourage us to have the cognitive character to live out what Scripture teaches. 

For…

… if Jesus is the eternal word of God

… if the apostles are the witness sent to proclaim His incarnation, life, death, and Resurrection

Then…

… we need to meditate on Scripture to seek to relate with God

… we need to meditate on Scripture to understand how He desires us to live.

Only in Scripture are we given eyewitness accounts of God’s nature from the prophets and apostles.

The thing about wrestling is that one participant is trying to win over the other.  In this case (and in all cases), we should not try to ‘win over’ on God, but submit to Him after wrestling with His Word.  By wrestling, we more fully experience God through Scripture and what we learn we bring into the fellowship of Christ’s disciples.  Wrestling with God and with the Word is growth and ultimately, we submit in meekness to Him.

BMD