We do not belong anywhere except alongside the publican in Jesus’ parable, crying out with downcast eyes, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ As Calvin wrote:

He only who is reduced to nothing in himself, and relies on the mercy of God, is poor in spirit.

To such, and only to such, the kingdom of God is given. For God’s rule which brings salvation is a gift as free as it is utterly undeserved. It must be received with the dependent humility of a little child. Thus, right at the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus contradicted all human judgments and all nationalistic expectations of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom is given to the poor, not the rich; the feeble, not the mighty; to little children humble enough to accept it, not to soldiers who boast that they can obtain it by their own prowess. In our Lord’s own day it was not the Pharisees who entered the kingdom, who thought they were rich, so rich in merit that they thanked God for their attainments; nor the Zealots who dreamed of establishing the kingdom by blood and sword; but publicans and prostitutes, the rejects of human society, who knew they were so poor they could offer nothing and achieve nothing. All they could do was to cry to God for mercy; and he heard their cry.

How do leaders see poverty of spirit?

• It is a sense of powerlessness in ourselves.
• It is a sense of spiritual bankruptcy and helplessness before God.
• It is a sense of moral uncleanness before God.
• It is a sense of personal unworthiness before God.
• It is a sense that if there is to be any life, joy, or usefulness, it will have to be all of God and all of grace.

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