Scripture

Revelation 3:17-18 ESV

“For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”

Consider

In 1739 Charles Wesley, brother of John, wrote the classic hymn, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.” You may have sung four or five stanzas in church, but there are at least seventeen, including the following stanza:

He speaks, and listening to his voice

new life the dead receive;

the mournful, broken hearts rejoice,

the humble poor believe.

Who are “the humble poor”? What is your image of such people? Perhaps you think of a homeless person sheltering in a church basement, or a child suffering from disease and hunger in a region where clean water is scarce.

Would it surprise you to know that Jesus says it’s you and me?

God’s Word tells us that we are each of us poor, blind, and pitiable. Not everyone, however, is humble enough to know it. The humble poor believe God because they understand how desperately they need him. They are not fooled by worldly standards of prosperity and success. They bear no illusions about their good deeds and charitable donations being anything more than filthy rags in the eyes of a holy God.

In fact, Jesus speaks about the humble poor in Matthew 5, in a passage commonly called The Beatitudes. Here he describes such persons as hopeless and grieving, hungry and thirsting for righteousness, insulted and harassed. Yet still in their poverty, because they believe God, they find the grace to be merciful, pure of heart, and peaceful.

Humility—that is, living in reverence and submission to God because we know he is sovereign and we are not—opens a pathway from desolation to divine inheritance, from a life of pretending we are rich to a new life of sharing in the richness of Christ. Humility leads us to purity of heart and the privilege of seeing God. As Charles Wesley so poetically declared, the humble who acknowledge their spiritual poverty and cry out to God will surely find God and be given the grace to believe.

Pray

Heavenly Father, I get so caught up in self-congratulations that I miss everyday opportunities to see You. Give me humility, I pray, to know that I am spiritually poor and in desperate need of your goodness and mercy. I do not ask lightly, for I know humbling can be painful. Confront me in my pride so that I may learn to boast only in You.

Reflect

Matthew 5:8; Luke 18:9-14

Ponder

How might identifying with the humble poor change my approach to a difficult person or relationship?