Poor in spirit'

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Back to Man's religion & God's religion 4

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"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:3

None are really poor in spirit, but those whom 
the hand of God has stripped—whom He has 
brought down—and made to abhor themselves 
in dust and ashes—and to see and feel themselves 
destitute of everything good, holy, heavenly, and 
pleasing in His pure and heart searching eyes.

The heart must be stripped and emptied, and laid 
bare effectually—by a work of grace that goes to 
the very bottom, and penetrates into the recesses 
of the soul—so as to detect all the corruption that
lurks and festers within.

The really "poor" man is one who has had everything 
taken from him—who has had not merely his dim views 
of a merciful God (such as natural men have) taken 
from him—not merely his legal righteousness stripped 
away—but all that kind of notional, traditional religion, 
which is so rife in the present day, taken from him also
—and who has been brought in guilty before God, naked, 
in the dust, having nothing whereby to conciliate Him, 
or gain His favour.