November 11 – How can we be both poor and blessed?

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“He will beautify the humble with salvation.” Psalm 149:4
“if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed.” 1 Peter 3:14 [See also Psalm 10:17, 22:26, 37:11, 48:10; Isaiah 54:11.]

All this is for the humble and poor in spirit. But how can we be both poor and blessed? The answer is obvious. We are poor in ourselves — but become blessed in Christ. If we derive no happiness from Him, it is because we are not truly sensible of our own insufficiency and wretchedness. When we are brought low, let us confidently lay hold on Christ, and we shall be blessed, for all is ours. We may say, “O Lord, if You are a glorious help to the needy (lo, here are want and misery enough), therefore I come with all my want and poverty, to the riches of thy grace; with all my darkness to Your light; with the body of this death to You, the Fountain of life. Grant that all evils may be swallowed up in the fullness of Your love. My innumerable wants I set before You, as so many empty vessels, and desire to have them filled with Your spiritual and heavenly blessings. O glorify Your free grace in my poverty and emptiness! Fill me with Yourself. O fill me with all the fullness of God!”

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)