We are to work for peace in all areas of our lives: in the community where we work, at church, school, store, or on the international scene. In yourself you may not want to be a peacemaker. You may want to retaliate for wrongs and lash out against personal hurts. But this is not Christ’s way. He says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

The fourth beatitude encourages a hunger and thirst after righteousness. It stands at the center of them all. Righteousness is what we most lack, and, therefore, our greatest problem is how we as sinful men and women become right before God. We can deal with other problems. We can find partial solutions. But if we are not right before God we have missed the only thing that matters ultimately.

In Christian terms this means that believers must use all the force at their disposal to speak out against the sinfulness of the world. But at other times, perhaps when their own rights are intruded upon, they must step back and allow the Lord to be their defender.

In the first beatitude we stand before God, not in our pride, but in poverty of spirit, recognizing our need. As we stand before God we see Him in His holiness and are inevitably conscious of our own sin. So in the second beatitude Jesus says that we are not only to see that sin, but to mourn for it.

No portion of our Lord’s teaching is better known and probably no portion of the Word of God is more difficult to read than the Beatitudes given in Matthew 5. This is because it is impossible to read these verses without realizing acutely that while they may describe the Lord Jesus Christ, they most certainly do not describe us.