Warm greetings to everybody from us all here at Ashburnham Place. Thank you so much for your consistent prayers, financial support, and time volunteering with us, that you so generously and consistently provide. I am not sure where we would be without the Ashburnham Place worldwide family.
The times we live in
We are living in such unsettling times. War, food shortages, viruses, increasing costs, and political unrest, are all hitting our shores in one way or another in a way many of us have never known before. It’s hard sometimes to remain in a place of peace, hope and confidence in Jesus. And yet we know this is the call on us as we know He is faithful and loves us more than we can imagine. I have taken encouragement and hope recently in Jesus’ words from His first beatitude in Matthew 5: “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven”
‘Poor in Spirit’ is commonly translated as our complete and total need of Jesus. So Jesus is opening up His inaugural speech, His manifesto for living, with the simple statement that we need Him. We cannot rely on ourselves, money or power or anything in this world for a fullness of life; we simply need Jesus. The tense Jesus then uses in the second half of His statement is so encouraging to us – “for theirs is”, not “for theirs will be”. No, “for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven” now on earth. All the gospels were first written in Greek and in the beatitudes, the word ‘blessed’ is used as an adjective. It is translated ‘makarios’. Interestingly, in classical Greek, ‘makar’ was the word used to describe the immortal gods. In a Christ centred context, the word came to mean “sharing in the life of God”
The Promise
What a beautiful promise and call Jesus gives us. We are called into sharing life in the community of the Trinity as Jesus modelled for us when He was on earth. With the Holy Spirit making a home in our hearts we can stand in the place of difficulty knowing we are already at home in God. Standing in this truth we are well placed to be a gift to a hurting and desperate world that so needs to know they are loved too.
Every blessing to you all,
In Christ
Andy
