An Invitation To Extraordinary Living

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the gentle…those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…the merciful…the pure in heart…the peacemakers…those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness.” Matthew 5:3-10

A few years ago, I was standing at the checkout counter in a grocery store. I had swiped my debit card, keyed in my pin number and was simply waiting for a receipt. I received that and then some. As the checkout clerk handed the receipt to me, she offered these words, “Sir, I hope you have a blessed day.”

I was tempted to look around to make sure that I was still in a grocery store and not at church. Normally when I leave a store, a clerk will thank me for coming and doing business with them. But words of blessing are usually reserved for church services not grocery stores. Nevertheless, there it was – a wish for me to have a blessed day as I headed out into the world with plastic bags in tow.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus stood before a large gathering of people and told them to have a blessed day. In doing so, he began to reveal to them what it meant to live a life with God’s blessing on it – a life that we might call extraordinary.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us would like to tap into that kind of life. We want to be blessed. Or at least we think we do. The reality is that most of the time when we think of being blessed, we think of being happy. In fact, that’s one way you can translate the word Jesus used here – happy. But Jesus had something far more profound in mind than the usual kind of happiness that we often seek.

Here’s what I mean. Consider the following incomplete sentence. If only _________, I’d be happy. How would you complete that sentence? If we were honest, some of us would probably say something like: “If only I had more money, I’d be happy.” Or we might say, “If only I had more friends or were more appreciated by others, I’d be happy.” Or perhaps we might say, “If only I looked better, had more hair, could lose 25 pounds, had a better complexion, (or some other reference to appearance), I’d be happy.”

In thinking about this, there’s certainly nothing wrong with having money, friends or a good appearance. But are these things really going to make us happy? It doesn’t appear so. In the words of Peggy Noonan, “The life of people on earth is in many ways better now than it has ever been…. But we are not happier. I believe that we are just cleaner, more attractive sad people than we used to be.” Indeed.

So when Jesus talked about having a blessed life, he wasn’t thinking about happiness. Instead He was thinking about a kind of life that puts us in a position to truly experience the full measure of blessing that God wants for each of us – to be able to have a truly extra-ordinary life.

We find the key to such a blessed life in what is often called the Beatitudes. These thought provoking statements are not the eight quick and easy steps to a better and more prosperous life. Rather they’re a description of an extraordinary way of life where dwelling in the middle of God’s blessing is a daily experience.

Take a moment and read through the Beatitudes as recorded in Matthew 5:3-12. These invitations to a blessed way of living reveal some critical truths which all followers of Christ need to take to heart.

Extraordinary living is possible. This is important for the skeptics out there. These are the folks who’ve had all the positive thinking, self-help, quick-fix solutions to life’s problems they can stand. As far as they’re concerned, life is the pits, and you might as well learn to suck it up, grit your teeth and survive until you die. Extraordinary living as far as they’re concerned is just an illusion.

I understand the feeling. I too am sick and tired of the religious gimmicks that are paraded about these days that in reality do more harm than good. But this isn’t what Jesus is offering. The pathways to extraordinary living don’t exempt us from the challenges of living in the real world, but they don’t leave us wallowing in pointlessness either. Instead they lead us on a journey where God’s blessings can be found regardless of the circumstances in our lives. So extraordinary living is possible. We just have to find a way to overcome the cynicism and negativity that so often keeps us from walking the pathways that lead to it.

You see a more hopeful attitude in the story of Martha Taft who was a descendant of former President Taft. Martha was in elementary school in Cincinnati and was asked to introduce herself. She said, “My name is Martha Bowers Taft. My great-grandfather was President of the United States. My grandfather was a United States senator. My daddy is the Ambassador to Ireland. And I’m a Brownie.”

This is a girl who hasn’t yet been infected with the spirit of negativism. And that’s crucial for us if we’re going to follow the pathways to extraordinary living. We simply have to believe that following them is worth it and that extraordinary living is possible. After all, Jesus is the one speaking here. If we can’t trust Him, who can we trust?

Extraordinary living is counter-cultural. I heard someone not long ago say that his wife was so directionally challenged that if she said turn right, he would always turn left. He never got lost that way.

I’d say that’a pretty good description of the pathways to extraordinary living. They run contrary to everything that our culture tells us. For instance, the culture tells us to claim your personal power. Jesus invites us to be poor in spirit. The culture encourages us to seek entertainment. Jesus turns our attention to mourning. The culture suggests that we should get even with those who hurt us. Jesus counters by telling us to be peacemakers.

Indeed everything that our culture values is contradicted by the pathways to extraordinary living. Therefore, to walk on these paths is to live a counter-cultural life. It is to turn the world upside down.

Author, Erik Kolbell put it this way:

If you want to see what the kingdom of God could look like, if you want to live a blessed life, take the world as you know it and turn it on its head. That is to say, imagine it free of the tyranny, poverty, loneliness, and greed that now hold it in thrall. Imagine it loosed of the unholy trinity of ignorance, arrogance, and indifference that conspire to suffocate all remnants of hope. Imagine the hungry fed and the just vindicated, the poor satisfied and the pure sanctified. Imagine a world governed by an urge for compassion rather than a will to power. Imagine all of this, because this is what God imagines…. Imagine such a world, and then, having imagined it, live in accordance with it. Live it into being. Live as though the world is turned upside down, because when you do, you will see the kingdom….”

Extraordinary living is a choice. The longer I live the more I’m convinced that we choose the kind of life we’re going to live. If we want, we can choose to live an ordinary life like most people we know. We can get our education, secure a good job, and own all the stuff that society says we’re supposed to own. We can even add attending church, living a good moral life, and being a good family person. And while all of this will be admirable and fine, it’s still ordinary. And it’s less than we’ve been designed to experience.

Or we can make a different choice. We can choose to live an extraordinary life. Yes, we can choose it. Living under God’s blessing isn’t a matter of good fortune or special opportunity. It’s about choice. It’s about getting up everyday and deciding whether or not to embrace a counter-cultural, God-inspired life or not. It’s about choosing to walk the pathways of spiritual poverty, hopeful mourning, genuine humility, righteous passion, compassionate mercy, authentic purity, and persevering peacemaking that is the essence of extraordinary living.

Why? Because people who make that choice are the ones who get the joy of experiencing the Kingdom of God, feeling the comfort of His presence and promise, inheriting the fullness of the earth, knowing true inner satisfaction, receiving abundant mercy, seeing the reality of God at work, and knowing that they are truly the sons and daughters of God. That is truly extraordinary living.

In future posts we will be exploring each of these pathways in more detail. But for now, let me encourage you to open your heart to God so that He can build a deep longing within you for the kind of life that truly is extraordinary.