Let the Beatitudes BE My Attitude in You
Begin The Quest
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Jesus Christ is the centerpiece of the Beatitudes. He is lifted up and magnified in each and every one to glorify the Father. Jesus’ life on this earth and his selfless sacrifice for each of us was due to his Father’s great love for his human creation and his deep desire to restore meaningful fellowship with us. These Beatitudes could never “be” without Christ’s fulfilled mission on earth. Nor could they be experienced today without God’s enabling Spirit to carry us through each one. His Spirit in us brings each blessing into reality.
Jesus ordered the Beatitudes in relationship to the “Greatest Commandments.” The first four focus on intensifying our relationship with God as the first greatest commandment requires. Our mindset, mentality, and values are totally transformed to discover a new level of love so deep for God that it floods our heart, soul, and mind as we recognize our abject spiritual poverty before him, deepen our total dependence upon him, put aside the self that seeks to rule us, and encounter a vast spiritual feast to satisfy a desperate hunger to know him more. Through these first four Beatitudes, we are transported to the soaring plateau of a nearly horizon less relationship with our God!
The last four Beatitudes activate in our lives the second greatest commandment. Our Lord saturates us with more of his vital attributes and compels us to implement them in our lives. We comprehend his measureless mercy and are consumed to passionately practice it. We strive for supreme purity before God and commit to complete transparency with our fellow man. We receive his peacemaking power and promote reconciliation in our world. We are emboldened to endure persecution and suffer as victorious martyrs for our Lord on this earth.
We emerge from the Beatitudes quest exceedingly equipped to live immensely fulfilling and effective lives on this earth and build God-empowered relationships with all those around us.
Each of the Beatitudes is a total remaking experience with God and a ferocious refining fire to our being. Our perspective of God and our life is transformed with each one. A long trek exists from the startling awareness of our sinful selves to an indescribable salvation encounter with Christ, to then discover that an ever higher plane of spiritual existence can exist for us here on earth as we commit to bring alive each of the Beatitudes in us!
If you truly desire to take up this spiritual pilgrimage and embrace this adventure to know God even more intimately, be forewarned that areas of your life will be unlocked to the Spirit’s convicting power. Secret and even unknown sins will be revealed to you by God’s intense light. These revelations are not easy to deal with, but if an ever more intimate relationship with God is truly what you seek, these hidden parts of your life will be confessed and cleansed with the blood of our Savior and will be left far behind.
The Beatitudes are a God-designed gauntlet to challenge us to leave the land of "lukewarmness" and to enter into a world where we can know our Lord more fully and completely, where we can truly taste the kingdom of God. He desires us to take up the quest for the Beatitudes! They are the road map to guide us toward higher destinations in our spiritual sojourn. The Beatitudes encompass unexpected and diverse terrain, abounding with mountaintop experiences, purging valleys, ascending meadows, and dangerous precipices, but all lead to majestic vistas of God’s kingdom. Each blessing is designed by God to instill growth, increase strength, and develop dependence upon him.
The “Quest for the Beatitudes” is an awesome spiritual journey for each “knight,” fraught with obstacles to hinder progress but abounding with abundant rewards for the sojourner. Each of the Beatitudes is unique and distinct and will challenge us in spiritual growth.
The Beatitudes cannot be conquered or attained, but must be thoroughly experienced. They belong to God and will revolutionize our lives to be and become who he created us to be. His Holy Spirit, working within us, will endow us with spiritual eyes and sufficient insight to grasp the deep meanings behind each of Jesus’ “Blessed be’s” to encounter a life of great blessings and enhance who we are before him and man. In order for the Beatitudes to become our attitude, this quest must be accomplished.
Let’s press forward into this vast new territory that will only bring us nearer to our God. Let’s continually increase as Jesus did in wisdom and stature before God and man. Let’s determinedly live out the two greatest commandments and allow them to become reality as we experience and possess each Beatitude. The possession of each one is actually God possessing more and more of us as our quest drives us deeper into the Lands of the Beatitudes. When we arrive at the “other side,” we will be ready for what awaits us! Earthly conditioning today prepares us for heavenly citizenship tomorrow!
The Beatitudes have been lying as jewels in the Scriptures for centuries. Now is the moment to unearth each of these heavenly treasures to magnify our understanding of God and relationship with him, and multiply our usefulness and purpose in his kingdom. “For where our treasure is, there also is our heart!” (Matthew 6:19) May each of the ensuing chapters usher great blessings into your life, inspire growth in your communion with Christ, and escort you to dynamic Godly dimensions in your relationships with all those around you. Amen and amen. (From Prologue)
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About the Book
The Beatitudes occupy an expansive realm in God’s Promised Land, a bountiful spiritual frontier suspended between heaven and earth. Plunge into God’s plentiful grace and goodness to explore this marvelous kingdom in his sequenced and purposeful order. The Beatitudes are a supremely challenging journey, requiring significant sacrifice of earthly nature and great emptying of self. The grand reward is total saturation in God’s spirit and living life as Jesus did upon this earth.
Experience the Beatitudes in all their richness to comprehend even more completely that celestial world’s way of life!
Enter through the Door of Christ and encounter your spiritual poverty alongside God’s great richness! Climb the Mirrored Mountains of Meekness. Descend into the Purging Valley for the Pure in Heart. Allow each incredible Beatitude to lead you forward toward the unique and purposeful life God has planned for you—first on earth and forever in heaven! Discover an ever deeper relationship with God and your fellowman—which will never end, neither here nor there!
Accompany Wesley Baker’s amazing spiritual journey in The Epilogue: The Powerful Pilgrimage of a Suffering Saint, as he finds himself transformed by each Beatitude, allowing them to remake his life in Christ!
About the Author
Marlin Harris served as a foreign missionary in Bangladesh, Costa Rica, and Paraguay, where God generated challenging opportunities for spiritual growth, provided powerful evidences of His great grace in action, and created a driving desire to acquire the heart, soul, and mind that God seeks for His servants to be purposeful instruments in His kingdom. His career spans twenty years in healthcare administration at various stateside and foreign institutions, and eleven as an educator in Spanish. He sees careers as merely vehicles that God uses to thrust His servants into unique situations and the lives of others to make a mighty difference for His kingdom on earth.
Marlin resides at Pine Hearth, the family farm in central Alabama, with his wife, Jean, and daughter, DeLena. Marlin is also the proud father to Katelyn, who attends Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, and son, Marlin (IV) and daughter-in-law, Caroline, who also live in Macon and serve in the pastoral ministry and medical field.
Marlin's fervent desire is that this book will serve as a God-given gauntlet to challenge and convict many of this generation to take up the quest for the Beatitudes and let its life-changing power reap great rewards for God's kingdom and countless lives for Christ.