Optimist’s Roundtable

By Martha Sykes

It was a day like any other day in the life of Jesus as He walked on the earth. Crowds followed Him everywhere and if you take the time to look at Matthew, chapter 5, you will read what has been known as the Sermon on the Mount. This is when Jesus preached from the mountainside where so many wanted to be near Him and some even wanted to get so close that they could touch Him. But he chose to go to the mountain and His disciples came to Him.

On this day, He delivers what we recognize as the Beatitudes. The word Beatitude is actually taken from the Latin word meaning “blessing”. They describe some ways that help us to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ. These beatitudes are a kind of standard or code of conduct for us to follow. They can show us ,or tell us what we can expect if we follow Jesus and what God will give to us.

Each beatitude tells us how we will be blessed. To Jesus, to be blessed means to experience hope and joy. If we follow Him, we will be blessed, no matter what , but we do have to remember there is a cost to following Jesus. We can’t reflect what the world offers, but we have to reflect the humility and self-sacrifice of Jesus, our King. We can’t let ourselves be deceived by the things of this world, but realize that there is nothing really secure in our world, BUT God’s presence and love.

We all need to know and feel secure that God is with us always; that He is beside us no matter what we go through in this life, whether it is sickness, or indifference, loneliness or where and when we struggle to do what is right and where and when we fight to keep our faith. We all need to know that we can be touched by Jesus in many ways; that we don’t have to have all the answers, or understand all that goes on for Him to care for us.

(Part 2 next week!!)