We all have hurts, habits and hang-ups. What’s yours? Stress? Fears? Overwork? Unhealthy or unholy attractions? Addictions? Regrets? Worry? Bad habits? Anger? Dishonesty? The overwhelming need to control? Finances? Perfectionism? Resentment? Compulsive thoughts? And the list goes on. Every problem in your life has the same root cause. Every problem in your life starts when you play God. Jesus starts his most famous Sermon on the Mount by saying, I want to tell you eight ways to be happy. And the way you think you’re going to be happy is not at all the way the world tells you to be happy. Jesus states each of these eight ways to be healthy as what we call a “beatitude,” and we refer to them as healing choices for life.
RELATED: Applying the Beatitudes
The first beatitude is the first healing choice, which I refer to as the reality choice, for getting rid of your habits, your hurts and your hang-ups that mess up your life. Matthew 5:3, the first Beatitude: “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs” (NLT).
And what does it mean to be “poor in spirit”? It means that among the healing choices for life I first admit I need help, and that I’m powerless to control my tendency to do the wrong thing, and my life is unmanageable. That is what it means to be poor in spirit. It means to acknowledge that I can’t control and manage everything in my life but I need God’s help.
The second choice is the hope choice. It is the choice to earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to him, that he has the power to help me to change. It’s based on the second beatitude, found in Matthew 5:4, “God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (NLT).
This third choice is a critical choice, because the next five really build on whether you make a commitment to this or not. That’s why we call it the commitment choice. Jesus said in Matthew 5:5, “God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth” (NLT). And to be meek means to consciously choose to commit all my life and will to Christ’s care and control.
