The God who kindles a spark

Before, we've looked at how the beatitudes reveal God as the one who blesses, and as the one who sees our need: the one who acts in compassion.

The beatitudes also show him as the God who kindles a spark. He sees humility, or mercy, or a peacemaker, or a pure heart, and he blesses them. He makes us hunger and thirst for righteousness. He encourages those things within us. What he starts in us is a flame, a dim reflection of him. He rebuilds the image of himself within us. The beatitudes create that desire within us to become that living embodiment of a divine spark. "The smoldering wick he will not snuff out"; instead he coaxes that ember back to life. If the image of God was originally put into us by the Word of God, then he again uses the Word of God to renew that image inside us. That is what we find happening when we read the beatitudes.

The Word of God is so much more than information for intellectual study. Rightly handled, it is transformative, planting the seed of the new creation, creating the image of God in us. That is the true work of a Bible study, or private reading, or a sermon. If the Word of God is the agent of creation, then the Word of God can be expected again as part of our renewal. The living word has in it the power of God to make us whole again. We find that at work in the passages that draw us to them.