{"id":27267,"date":"2026-07-08T10:10:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:10:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27267"},"modified":"2026-07-08T10:19:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:19:35","slug":"the-beatitudes-week-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=27267","title":{"rendered":"The Beatitudes: Week One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Gratitude - Brandon Lake - Lyric Video\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LDHCzm0mhuk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Land for the Humble<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Wednesday, July 8, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Blessed are the gentle: They shall have the earth as their inheritance.<br>\u2014Matthew 5:5<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard explains why the third beatitude would have been simultaneously shocking and comforting to Jesus\u2019s listeners:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The third beatitude is almost taken verbatim from Psalm 37:11: \u201cThe humble shall have the land for their own.\u201d Some translate \u201cgentle\u201d as \u201cthe nonviolent,\u201d but perhaps the most familiar translation is \u201cthe meek.\u201d There\u2019s an irony here. If there was one hated group in the Palestine of Jesus\u2019s day, it was landlords\u2014those who possessed the land. Nobody possessed land except by violence and oppression, by holding onto it and making all the powerless peasants pay a portion of their harvest. The landlords certainly weren\u2019t meek or gentle, so Jesus is turning that around and saying, \u201cNo, it\u2019s you, humble ones, who are finally going to possess the land.\u201d [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author Micha Boyett considers how Jesus\u2019s listeners would have understood the paradox of the meek \u201cinheriting the land\u201d: &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>[Jesus] says that those who have no power and those who choose to give up their power are the ones who inherit the earth, which could also be translated as \u201cthe land.\u201d<\/strong> The people sitting before him \u2026 are certainly not landowners. They are most likely what we could consider today to be sharecroppers, working the land for a wealthy owner, who didn\u2019t need to get his hands dirty\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cMakarioi<\/em>\u00a0[Greek for \u201chappy\u201d] are the powerless ones,\u201d Jesus says. \u201cThey shall have the earth as an inheritance.\u201d They will recognize that the earth has always been theirs. <strong>He is getting at something essential to the spiritual life: our ownership is temporal. According to the psalmist, human beings are <\/strong>l<strong>ike the leaves of grass, here for a moment and then, poof, gone. <\/strong>We\u2019re all stewards here, and the land remains long after we\u2019ve become the dust we came from. Only the divine one possesses it. In God\u2019s dream for the world, possession is an illusion. <strong>When we humble ourselves, when we release our hands from all that we have tried to control and cling to, we discover that those who possess the land are the <\/strong>o<strong>nes living under the illusion. But the ones who release their power and the ones who never had power to begin with inherit the really real\u2026.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This feels like the secret Jesus is letting his listeners in on: <strong>the power we\u2019re born into and the power we gain throughout our lives is a mirage. In the really real, power can only be shared\u2026. Meekness\u2014the upside-down possibility that when we let go of the power we hoard, power grows wide enough to share. <\/strong>When the few in power release their hold on the land, everyone has space to spread out and flourish. <strong>Meekness is the way toward an earth where we live in peace, where resources are shared, where everyone has enough. <\/strong>[2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>________________________________________________________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sarah Young <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Jesus Calling: July 8th<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When you seek My Face, put aside thoughts of everything else. I am above all, as well as in all; your communion with Me transcends both time and circumstances. Be prepared to be blessed bountifully by My Presence, for I am the God of unlimited abundance. Open wide your heart and mind to receive more and more of Me. When your Joy in Me meets My Joy in you, there are fireworks of heavenly ecstasy. This is eternal life here and now; a tiny foretaste of what awaits you in the life to come. Now you see only a poor reflection as in a mirror, but then you will see face to Face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RELATED SCRIPTURE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>John 15:11 (NLT)<\/strong><br><strong><em>11<\/em>&nbsp;I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additional insight regarding John 5:11: When things are going well, we feel elated. When hardships come, we sink into depression. <strong>But true joy transcends the rolling waves of circumstances. Joy comes from a consistent relationship with Jesus Christ. When our lives are intertwined with his, he will help us walk through adversity without sinking into debilitating lows and manage prosperity without moving into deceptive highs.<\/strong> <strong>The joy of living with Jesus Christ daily will keep us levelheaded, no matter how high or low our circumstances.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>1st<\/em>&nbsp;Corinthians 13:12 (NLT)<\/strong><br><strong><em>12<\/em>&nbsp;Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additional insight regarding 1st Corinthians 13:12: When Paul wrote of &#8220;full understanding,&#8221; he was referring to when we must see Christ face to face. God gives believers spiritual gifts for their lives on earth to build up, serve, and strengthen fellow Christians. The spiritual gifts are for the church. In eternity, we will be made perfect and complete and will be in the very presence of God. We will no longer need spiritual gifts, so they will come to an end. Then, <strong>we will have a full understanding and appreciation for one another as unique expressions of God&#8217;s infinite creativity. <\/strong>We will use our differences a<strong>s a reason to praise God! Based on that perspective, let us treat each other with the same love and unity we will one day share.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Land for the Humble Wednesday, July 8, 2026 Blessed are the gentle: They shall have the earth as their inheritance.\u2014Matthew 5:5 Father Richard explains why the third beatitude would have been simultaneously shocking and comforting to Jesus\u2019s listeners: The third beatitude is almost taken verbatim from Psalm 37:11: \u201cThe humble shall have the land for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27267"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27272,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27267\/revisions\/27272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}