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Broken and the Blessed Week 7, Day 5

by David Joynt on February 23, 2017


DAY 47

MATTHEW 5:1-11

 

The beatitudes answer the question “Who does God help?” God helps the needy, as we see in the first four blessings, and God helps the helpful, as we see in the next four blessings. This corresponds to God’s mercy and to God’s justice. We exercise faith when we trust that God will meet us in our need; we exercise love when we decide to be helpful.

 

As we seek to make peace or live purely or spread mercy, we will face opposition and be driven back toward God’s grace given to those in need. As we receive that grace, we are equipped again to be helpful.

 

 

Is there anyone God cannot help?

 

 FAMILY TIME:

Part of peacemaking is described by Jesus in Matthew 5:38-48 as “enemy love.” Discuss what this might mean in school.

 

 

Tags: beatitudes, comfort

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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