Matthew 5: 1-2 (MSG) When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds, he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him, the committed, climbed with him. Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions.
Jesus went up the mountain. His disciples went with Him, the committed climbed with Him. There’s just a sense in this passage that not everybody climbed.
Do you want to be a climbing companion of Jesus?
I want to be a climbing companion. I don’t want people who climbed with Jesus to come back and tell me what I missed. Why did these people climb with Jesus? It’s simple – Jesus added value to their lives and gave them a blessed life. Jesus can take you to higher ground. Everything Jesus does, everything He touches, is blessed.
“There’s a difference between telling a story and being in the story. You need to make an effort to spend time with Jesus if you stay at the bottom and you don’t climb with Jesus, you just aren’t going to get all that He has for you. Everything worthwhile is uphill. Sadly, many people have uphill hopes and downhill habits.” –John C. Maxwell
The blessed life
The blessed life isn’t a life guaranteed to be without of difficulties or problems. The blessed life is not easy, but it is a blessed life with Jesus in it. Jesus makes it blessed wherever you are. Whatever you do, when He is in that life, it promises to be a blessed life
You are blessed when you push to get close to Jesus
James 4:8 (NIV) Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Mark 5:25-34 (NLT) A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors, and over the years she had spent everything she had to pay them, but she had gotten no better. In fact, she had gotten worse. She had heard about Jesus, so she came up behind him through the crowd and touched his robe. For she thought to herself, “If I can just touch his robe, I will be healed.” Immediately the bleeding stopped, and she could feel in her body that she had been healed of her terrible condition. Jesus realized at once that healing power had gone out from him, so he turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my robe?” His disciples said to him, “Look at this crowd pressing around you. How can you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” But he kept on looking around to see who had done it. Then the frightened woman, trembling at the realization of what had happened to her, came and fell to her knees in front of him and told him what she had done. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over.”
Set your eyes on Jesus, and push through the crowd today, He is the founder and perfecter of our faith.
Hebrews 12:2 (ESV) “looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”