Happily Persecuted Do You Say?

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
​​For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Matthew 5:10

If the neighbors, those you and I are to love as ourselves, reject the light we bear so much that it turns to persecution, then we have cause for rejoicing. I don't know why that doesn't make me feel like rejoicing. As our Lord Jesus spoke in the Gospels, it seems that we often run into commands and promises that seem to go against the grain of our feelings. Stephen probably didn't get up the day of his execution feeling happy to be killed. And yet the Lord was there with him to give such an amazing testimony of his faith in Christ Jesus. Stephen's blessing must be that he saw the kingdom of heaven open before him. The blessing we get from the Beatitudes may not be an immediate sense of pleasure that we are familiar with as happiness. It may well come in a similar manner as the woman in labor, an example Jesus used, seeing her newborn child. When it seems like the blessings of the Beatitudes are not blessings at all, remember that the Beatitudes are the beginning of the great sermon showing us not only how far we are as sinners from the Lord, but how far Jesus our Lord will take us in His great work.

Let us rejoice in Christ Jesus!

Bucky