Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. (Matt. 5:3)

The Lord starts His speaking on the mount to the disciples describing the nature of the people who are possessors of the Kingdom of the Heavens. First these people are poor in spirit.

The word for poor in Greek means to be a beggar with utterly no hope of improvement. It is a person who in the depths of his being, his spirit, he realizes that he is nothing, he has nothing and he can do nothing. It is not simply a matter of mentally acknowledging this, but through many sufferings and failures comes to the point where he is so convinced that he is such a person that he could never go to his own resources to accomplish anything, even things that are commanded by the Lord.

In every situation you spontaneously go to the Lord to receive the supply of His life for only in that life are you able. Without that life you can’t even say a proper word. You are completely dependent upon Him.

The ones who have been brought to this point in their Christian lives by the Lord are in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. They don’t have to get in. They are already in. May the Lord so work in all of us that we might arrive there.

“What can be done in the modern church that could help curb the current drop out and go someplace else where its peaceful mentality?”

The answer is simply that the saints do not see what the church is. The Christian life is a matter of seeing. If you see that Jesus is the living savior you will be saved. In the same way, every Christian must also see the church. They must receive a vision of the church. “Without vision the people run wild” (Prov. 29:18)

The church is constituted of the universal God, but it exists on earth in many towns and cities. In nature the church is universal in God, but in practice the church is local in a definite place. Therefore, the church has two aspects, the universal and the local. Without the universal aspect, the church is void of content; without the local aspect, it is impossible for the church to have any expression and practice. Hence, the New Testament stresses the local aspect of the church also. (Recovery Version, footnote 2 of verse 1:2)

The church in each locality is simply the expression of the universal church. Anything in addition to that is not the church. Since there is only one universal church on earth and all born again believers belong to it, there can only be one expression of that one church in every locality and all believers are born into it, whether they meet in it or not. Once the saints see that and the church drops every other affiliation that is not the church and takes the standing that it is the expression of the universal church, the saints will not leave it to go to some place that is not the church.

So it is a matter of the churches standing as the one church in a city and the vision that is imparted thru the ministry that will save the saints from wandering and give them the opportunity to be built up together in the reality of the church. This is confirmed by all the epistles of Paul.