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

A reader sent me an interesting quote related to the spirit of entitlement that we’ve been talking about in these meditations. It’s too long to reproduce here, but the sum and substance is this:

The result of being poor in spirit is you get it all…the whole Kingdom. That’s not a reward…it’s the consequence. That suggests there must be a result of NOT being poor in spirit. It, too, is not a punishment…it’s a consequence.

The poor in spirit have access to everything. Being poor in spirit is what enables us to experience repeated “Yes’s” to prayer without it leading us into a spirit of entitlement…without it destroying us. If God blesses us with many “Yes’s” and we’re not poor in spirit, we will not be able to get away from an inner “You owe me, God” mentality no matter how much we cognitively know that it’s wrong to feel that way…no matter how much we know that God is a giving Father who will not withhold any good thing from us (Ps 84:11).

And it gets worse: Without being poor in spirit we will not be able to get away from an inner “I deserve God’s blessing” mentality…no matter how much we know it isn’t true. We know God’s blessings come from His grace (undeserved favor) yet we’re insidiously taking silent credit for God’s blessing us and that attitude is so far from the reality of His grace and mercy that He will not feed it. He won’t feed it because He loves us too much, not too little.

The entitlement mentality is a stronghold from which we must be delivered, or when God blesses us with “Yes’s” to our prayers they might feed the beast from which He’s wanting to set us free.

On a human level, this “not poor in spirit” mentality drives wedges between friends and family; divides churches from each other and within each congregation. Because if the insidious error of our heart of hearts is that “I’m entitled to …” then we are not going to love well. Worse, if God so chooses to bless you with something He hasn’t blessed me with, a subtle animosity becomes hard to hide.

So we rebuke that symptom and declare it under the blood, but it won’t stay there because it’s just a symptom. When something bad happens to that person God has previously blessed, we can’t quite squash the inner glee that they finally got their pay-back for God blessing them in a way He won’t bless us.

The root of the problem isn’t what we’re feeling, it’s what’s behind what we’re feeling: the spirit of being “poor in spirit” is missing. That allows pride and entitlement to reign in our hearts; and out of our hearts our mouths speak (Luk 6:35). That causes us problems on so many levels…

What to do? Give it all to God, not holding anything back, is a good start. Draw near to God and He will draw near to us (Jam 4:8). Present our bodies, our desires and our dreams on the alter as an act of worship (Rom 12:1). Practice rejoicing with those who God has chosen to bless (v. 15); even those who got the blessing we want and still don’t have. Practice delighting in those who don’t deserve the “Yes” they got from God’s hand.

There are a hundred reasons we can’t do that, but there’s one reason we can: We can do all things through Christ who gives us the power (Phil 4:13).