THESE SACRED STAIRS, continued...

"Everything about our religion which is not heart-work must be unsatisfactory to us. As men cannot live upon the chaff and the bran, but need the flour of the wheat, so do we need something more than the form of godliness and the letter of truth, we require the secret meaning, the in-grafting of the Word into our spirit, the bringing of the truth of God into our inmost soul: all short of this is short of the blessing. The highest grade of outward religiousness is un-blest, but the very lowest form of spiritual grace is endowed with the kingdom of heaven."YOU SEE……“The kingdom is not an exclusive, well-trimmed suburb with snobbish rules about who can live there. No, it is for a larger, homelier, less self-conscious class of people who understand they are sinners because they have experienced the TWISTS AND TURNS of moral struggle.”  ― Brennan ManningJesus was contrasting two sets of life conditions; hunger and satisfaction, grief and joy, poverty and wealth, being despised and reviled by people as well as being honored by them. Jesus made another contrast and it was between now and then. He is speaking to the people of God, the people who have suffered for the kingdom of God, who are hungry for the kingdom of God and who week for the kingdom of God. These folks know their shortcomings and see their faults. They thirst for righteousness, they weep over their failures and are condemned by the self-assured and the self-righteous, to whom Jesus pronounces 'woe'.  Pastor TimTEXT: LUKE 6:20-26SONGS:LORD I NEED YOU, Matt Maher, Phil WickhamI SURRENDER ALLCOME THOU FOUNT OF EVERY BLESSING, ABOVE ALL ELSE, Shane and Shane