Dear Friends,

Our name is “Kingdom Advisors,” and we aim to encourage, educate and empower “Kingdom-minded” financial professionals.  But, what is the Kingdom?  The Sermon on the Mount was the greatest sermon ever preached; in it, Jesus describes what life in His Kingdom looks like.  The verse in the video today comes toward the end of the sermon, in Matthew 6:33.  However, the sermon begins in Matthew 5 with the Beatitudes.

The Beatitudes show me, in a few short verses, what being “Kingdom-minded” looks like.  I’ve heard it said that the first four statements tell what happens in our hearts as we enter the Kingdom, and the final statements tells the fruit of a life lived in God’s Kingdom. If that is true, then the first verse is step one.  It says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 5:3)

According to Jesus, we will not begin find the Kingdom until we know poverty of spirit.  A pastor at church recently said, “Our problem is that we all think we are middle class in spirit rather than poor in spirit.  Grace only flows in broken places…Jesus must be for us what we are not and Jesus must give to us what we do not have.”

When God convicts us of our own poverty of spirit, we are tempted to turn to the moral “riches” we’ve built in our own kingdoms and claim our own righteousness or merit before His holy throne.  Instead, He asks that we trade our bankruptcy of heart for the riches of His kingdom, with no attempt to self-justify.  When we make the highly unlikely trade and give our sin to gain Christ’s righteousness, we have access to the abundant grace of the Kingdom.  With access to that grace, we become a people of radical mercy, purity, and peace who cause the world to question and even to resist the work of God on earth (Matthew 5:7-12).  The power and the potential for impact is matchless, but the first step is poverty.

Blessings,

Ron