Blessed like Jesus taught us to be

I'm struck that we all often wish we were God, so that we could fulfill all our selfish desires and avoid all the bad stuff. But as I reflected on this, I realized that the real God gave up his untouchable existence and felt all the things we hate to feel - and more.

Jesus came as a man and felt loss, felt lonely, felt pain and lack and poverty. He felt injustice, criticized, demeaned, and ultimately, he felt hopeless because there was no hope of escape from the cross. He died on it for you and me.

So, please pray for our team that we would celebrate that we're not God but are eternally loved by God.

We want to be blessed like Jesus taught in Matthew 5:3-11. So, pray that we would:

• Be poor in Spirit and humble, and realize our constant need for Jesus
• Mourn our sin and the brokenness of this world
• Thirst for righteousness and be pure in heart
• Be merciful and work for peace - at work, at home, at church, in the world
• Let people mock, persecute, and even lie and say all sorts of evil things against us because we're his followers

And pray these things for yourself, too. Jesus said you should be happy and very glad to live like this - just like the ancient prophets did.