Mountaintop Manifesto

<p>MOUNTAINTOP MANIFESTO</p> <p>Matthew 4:24 So the fame of Jesus also spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.</p> <p>On one such occasion Jesus sat with his disciples on a mountaintop and from there he began to teach the crowd that had been following him about what are called the Beatitudes, which means blessings – the blessings of being deeply fulfilled in soul and spirit. This teaching of Jesus is also known as ‘The Sermon on the Mount’. Today I’m calling that Sermon on the Mount the ‘Mountaintop Manifesto’ A manifesto is a proclamation of a grand intention that states where we have come from and where we are and the plan to get where we are going. Jesus starts the manifesto with the words; “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:2).</p> <p>Life was difficult for the people who lived under the harsh Roman rule that governed their lives in those regions around Judea and from beyond the Jordan. They were mostly very needy people and many were poor and sick and infirm and had no real hope of fulfillment in life except for perhaps a faint and distant promise of a coming Messiah. Jesus wanted to give these ordinary lives the dignity and meaning and satisfaction in life that they had been created for, and to bring a spiritual fulfillment that they had never dreamed of.</p> <p>He came to change the pitiful state they were in and to turn it upside down for them, and not only for those who heard him speak that day, but for all people everywhere and for all time, through being given entrance into his Heavenly Kingdom that would dwell within them in the here and now of their daily lives, and that new way of living would commence after his death and resurrection. Jesus had a wonderful plan to set all of these