Living the Beatitudes Today looks at how the Beatitudes are like a hinge between the Old and New Covenants of the Bible. They are not only the basic building blocks of the Christian life, but also the gospel in a nutshell. They encapsulate and summarize the law of the Old Testament as well as the teachings of Jesus and of all the New Testament. They practically express the two great commandments and the golden rule. There is a great need for them to be taught in churches today, and even in society. They are for everyone, but everyone will not accept them. Those who do—who embrace them, memorize them, study them, and build their lives around them, will be blessed.
Each beatitude depends on the others and each protects the other from being wrongly interpreted. For example, if righteousness is read wrongly as being just living a good clean life and nothing else, a correction to this thinking would be that it must be with meekness and mercy as well. So, none stands alone.
Never has this message of the Beatitudes been needed as much as now!
The fact that we have all spectacularly failed them puts us in the same category as everyone else. We are all fallen people. But no one enjoys failure. We cannot rest in defeat. The Beatitudes alerted me when I read them to my need and they constantly call me. I consider it dishonorable to avoid that call and challenge, the one that says—"they exist; God doesn’t make mistakes; you need to allow them to be a reality in your life!” God is not unreasonable and I believe they are not out of reach but are do-able, and while I am able I will seek for them to be part of who I am. So though we all may initially hang our heads in shame in front of them, we should not be satisfied with failure, but rather wrestle with the Beatitudes, make them ours and let them encompass out thinking, allowing ourselves to become a "work in progress:".