Tag: Beatitudes

The best meal you can eat

“When we Pray the Scriptures, we begin by reading a few verses of the Bible. We read unhurriedly so that we can listen for the message God has for us there. ”

“Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, because they will be fed until they are full.  Matthew 5:6 CEB

Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible

Matthew 5:6 Happy are people who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness
“The Upper Room® is a global ministry dedicated to supporting the spiritual life of Christians seeking to know and experience God more fully.

From its beginnings in 1935 as a daily devotional guide, The Upper Room has grown to include publications, programs, prayer support, and other resources to help believers of all ages and denominations move to a deeper level of faith and service.”

Copyright 2018 The Upper Room

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Blessed and Happy

This verse is from a Bible passage called the Beatitudes, Matthew 5: 3-11, which introduces  Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. This version, The Common English Bible,  uses “happy”, while most others use “blessed” as The Message does

 “You’re blessed when you’ve worked up a good appetite for God. He’s food and drink in the best meal you’ll ever eat. Matthew 5:6, MSG

Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson

The Contemporary English Version puts it a different way, making God the subject of the sentence.

“God blesses those people who want to obey him more than to eat or drink.
They will be given what they want!” Matthew 5:6 CEV

Copyright © 1995 by American Bible Society

And in Spanish, the Nueva Biblia Viva reads

“¡Dichosos los que tienen hambre y sed de justicia, porque quedarán satisfechos! “Mateo 5:6 NBV

© 2006, 2008 por Biblica, Inc.® Usado con permiso de Biblica, Inc.® Reservados todos los derechos en todo el mundo.

THE BEST MEAL YOU WILL EAT-WWW.WATERCRESSWORDS.COM-

What do these verses mean to you?

Using this guide from The Upper Room, try praying these Scriptures- use one of these versions, all of them, or others that you prefer.

“When we Pray the Scriptures, we begin by reading a few verses of the Bible. We read unhurriedly so that we can listen for the message God has for us there. ” Continue reading at 

Praying the Scriptures

man with hands folded in prayer
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In her memoir, FIRE ROAD- the Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness and Peace ,  author  Kim Phuc Phan Thi  wrote,

“One of the passages that never failed to comfort me when I was feeling especially down was the Beatitudes, the  list of blessings Jesus proclaimed to his disciples in the Sermon on the Mount.”

Please continuing  reading at my related post

How to satisfy hunger and thirst

Thanks for joining me to read and explore these words of faith, hope, and love and for helping me share the HEART of health. 

Dr. Aletha 

faith, hope and love in cursive letters
another inspirational graphic from the Lightstock.com collections of stock images, an affiliate link

The Surprising Blessing of Discomfort

What does it mean to be “blessed”? Maybe not what you think.

updated June 23, 2026

The Beatitudes make up several verses of the Biblical book of Matthew .

Matthew recorded these lessons that Jesus taught in his “Sermon on the Mount”, some of the most well-known and often quoted verses of the Bible.

a ceramic cross with the Beatitudes Matthew 5:3-10

(To support this blog, there are several affiliate links in this post. I hope you find them useful, and if you purchase anything through them, you are supporting this blog’s mission.)

Finding “Our Utmost” -Oswald Chambers

Also well known and often quoted is a daily devotional book, “My Utmost for His Highest”, by Oswald Chambers. Some consider it the most beloved devotional book of all time.

Chambers was a Scottish Bible teacher in the early 1900s who was popular due to his penetrating examination of the Bible. After his death, his wife Biddy chose many of his talks and published them as a book of daily devotions.

Over 100 years later, Christians still find comfort and challenge from his pointed observations and interpretation of scripture.

In this excerpt from the devotional for July 25 Chambers reflects on “astonishing discomfort” described in Matthew 5:3-10.

“The Beatitudes seem merely mild and beautiful precepts for all unworldly and useless people but of little practical use in the stern world in which we live.

…we have to decide whether we will accept the tremendous spiritual upheaval that will be produced in our circumstances if we obey His words.

The teaching of Jesus is out of proportion to our natural way of looking at things and it comes with astonishing discomfort to begin with. “

 
The Beatitudes-The surprising blessing of discomfort-watercresswords.com

“Hunger and Thirst”-Kim Phuc Phan Thi

Author Kim Phuc Phan Thi also referenced a Beatitude in her memoir Fire Road 

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”  (Matthew 5:6)

“I would run my finger along those phases, wondering if those words could really be true. If I pursue your ways, God, will you really satisfy that which is hungry in me?”                    

excerpt  from FIRE ROAD 

Your personal reflection

Matthew 5:3-10

Using this link, read through the Beatitudes. (Change to a different version if you prefer.) Here is a definition of blessed from Strong’s Concordance

blessed, happy.

A prolonged form of the poetical makar (meaning the same); supremely blest; by extension, fortunate, well off — blessed, happy(X -ier).

Which one do you find most appealing?

Which one would you prefer not be included?

What else would you say is true of those who are blessed?

Exploring the HEART of Health

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