DCLM Daily Manna Saturday 8 July 2023
TOPIC: How to Make Heaven
TEXT: Matthew 5:3-11 (KJV)
KEY VERSE
“Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
(Matthew 5:3)
DCLM Daily Manna Saturday 8 July 2023 MESSAGE
Although heaven is God’s abode, He has made provision for man to spend eternity with Him. Man can be in that Kingdom only if he meets the conditions of our Lord. What we know as the Sermon on the Mount (the Beatitudes) forms the essential teachings of Christ on how to respond to God’s love and make it to heaven ultimately.
The Beatitudes do not form a legal code meant for human carnal analysis and interpretation. They are imperatives to be obeyed by grace if we truly love our Creator and desire to enter His kingdom. The repeated opening with the word “blessed” is a reference to the unspeakable joy that awaits those who mindfully imbibe the teachings. They are attitudes to adopt for heaven-seeking pilgrims who are poor in spirit, meek, holiness-hungry and not proud in their relationship with God.
No one can tell us about heaven and what it takes to access it better than Jesus who came from there and is back there preparing a place for His faithful followers. The prerequisite for heaven, which He gave the huge crowd that attended His sermon session at that time is still relevant to us today. The standard is still complete purity, inward and outward, obtained by grace.
God will not shift ground to lower the standard and the criteria for righteousness, just because men are unwilling to change and obtain the required spiritual experience for making heaven. The canon is, “holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord”. The Lord adds that no unholy thing shall enter His abode. We start that journey to the Kingdom as we shed the garment of unrighteousness at salvation and abandon the world of sin for a lifetime of absolute surrender to God, His will and word.
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: No holiness, no heaven.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 2 Kings 16-17
