Near the beginning of His teaching, Jesus introduces a mysterious list that His disciples may not have really understood until the power came at Pentecost a couple of years later. Please have a look through Matthew 5:1-16 again if you would like to refresh before we go on. The disciples will have understood these statements in the context that Jesus embodied what He was saying though, and the way that the power of His righteous presence held them. ( E.g.  John 16:10 concerning righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more. )

His righteous presence is now living in us from the moment we sincerely and from the heart, surrendered our life to Him and invited Jesus to live inside us. He gives His Life to us to live from and He dwells or lives in our spirit, ready to flow out with us. We sing a bunch of songs about come Lord Jesus and inviting His presence as if He comes and goes. He said I will never leave you nor forsake you so what is that all about?

This is all about our perception of being in tune with Him and what that feels like.

When our spirit to soul connection is enabled, we sense or feel His presence.

It doesn’t mean He isn’t with us when we don’t sense His presence, our soul is just aligned with the world or with self more and we need to switch back to spirit. Romans 8:5 For they who are according to self mind the things of selfishness, but they who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

Delighting in Him is a useful way to make this switch happen. Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

What is delighting in Him?
We can experience delighting in Him as we sing in praise and worship  

We can experience delighting in Him at other times (and so we should) but it takes some practise to get there. We need Him to change some strongholds of thinking in us so that we can delight in Him in everything, Through cool stuff and not cool stuff. 
Ephesians 5:18-21   And do not be drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves to one another in the fear of God. Jeremiah 31:33

Jesus spoke a lot about agape love (His love) because without His great love coming through our hearts we cannot express our connection with Him fully to Him or to others. His love is present in our spirit all the time. As our soul and spirit connect, His love pours through into our hearts and we sense Jesus Life in us welling up the power to live His life, but only as we surrender and connect, the Holy Spirit helping, giving into and through us.

In John 8:12, Jesus says “I am the light of the world: he who follows me shall not walk in darkness but have the LIGHT OF LIFE “. This is the message that Jesus came to the temple to preach. I believe it is one of the most important messages that He brought, as demonstrated by His mercy and forgiveness to the woman. It is a choice to follow. It is a choice to love with His love. It is a choice to delight in Him.

The only struggle in this is the choice. Once the choice is made His Life flows through us in love and power (and we experience His “presence”). We have Life resident in us, it is our choices that allow us to light up. Choose for spirit and Holy Spirit will empower your choice.

Here is a way to view what Jesus is teaching in this passage.
Matthew 5 up to meek are the attitudes we can choose to get into a place of delighting in Him. Only Believers can choose because each of these attitudes is an outflow of the Life of Jesus inside.
The rest of the list in Matthew 5 flows from delighting in Him.

Delighting in Him brings the ability to:-

• completely yield to Him

• let the worries and cares of life rest with Him

• know heart to heart that He cares

• know that He is not mean or unkind

• know that He is merciful and giving

• rest in Him Being still and knowing that He is God

• turn away from anger and into His love

• turn the other cheek Matthew 5:38-45

He never ill-treats anyone and we get infected with His attitude

Delighting in Him is a key that makes lots of other stuff fall into place.

Making these choices is a bit like jumping off a hill with Him into Him at times but as we do we learn that He’s always there, always big and always worth the struggle to choose.

It’s so much easier to bring out a spiritual gift from a place of delighting in Him and we are much more likely to get it right. We connect into His bigness, and His great love as we pursue delighting in Him.

Fruit of relationship

Some are afraid to look and see if they are truly following Jesus. Others say “well, how do I know anyway?”

The answer is simple. Jesus gave us the insights Himself in Matthew 5:1-16. What He talks about here is the qualities of His life.

• Poor in spirit- that we see our need of the Father Himself,
• mourning when not sensing his presence and the pressure of the world of self becomes too much,
• meekness of those who choose not to use their strength against others because they are trusting Him,
• hungering and thirsting after righteousness, mercifulness, pureness of heart, peacemaking, suffering persecution quietly and joyfully, being a light to others.

The qualities of Jesus Himself, are what He desires to flow naturally more and more in each of His children. The work He is doing is to change us permanently on the inside from increase to increase.

Matthew 5:2-13. And He opened His mouth and taught them, saying,

3 Blessed are the poor in spirit! For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

4 Blessed are they that mourn! For they shall be comforted.

5 Blessed are the meek! For they shall inherit the earth.

6 Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness! For they shall be filled.

7 Blessed are the merciful! For they shall obtain mercy.

8 Blessed are the pure in heart! For they shall see God.

9 Blessed are the peacemakers! For they shall be called the sons of God.

10 Blessed are they who have been persecuted for righteousness sake! For theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

11 Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all kinds of evil against you falsely, for My sake.

12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for your reward in Heaven is great. For so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt loses its savour, with what shall it be salted? It is no longer good for anything, but to be thrown out and to be trodden underfoot by men.

As we invite Him into more and more areas, He captures them, calling us to surrender to Him afresh on a key point for each one (sometimes painfully). Then He turns that area around and makes it a friend to us instead of something working at cross purposes in our lives. As He does, we are able to stand more on our own feet and walk with Him. We need to grow ever stronger in our walk with Him because this Kingdom Life attracts resistance. Jesus did not promise us that life would be easy, He promised that He would take us through it. The more we have these fruits of relationship with Him which includes all aspects of His Life the better we walk through life. The more we hang out with Him, the more we find these imprinting on our hearts, and the better we deal with life.

He says "blessed" here which means 'congratulations to you if you see these in you, for you are seeing the nature of your Heavenly Father in you'. It is His nature in us that causes us to be the light of the world. He created us to have and be the light of Life and not walk in the darkness of our own agendas and reasoning, but in His voice.

He tried to tell the Israelites in the wilderness what He is like, but in their fear they could only see and receive rules, laws and commandments. The 10 commandments given to them are actually a statement of God’s own nature. Exodus 6:9. But they were too afraid to see it and some Christians today make His life flow into a set of rules. They have missed the point. Our calling is to be connected to the vine. John 15:1-11 We are called to constant flowing with the rivers of His Life. John 4:1-14

In that context, understand that in these statements we recognise an aspect of His nature coming through us and what blessing or anointing that opens up to us as a result.

Those who see that without Him they are truly spiritually poor, get to manifest the Kingdom of heaven.

Those who are keenly (and painfully) aware of how much the world around them lacks the Kingdom of God, He comforts and they carry a comforting anointing that touches others.

Those who pull back from their own solutions in favour of His, rule the earth and all things come into line with them.

Those hungering will be filled with His righteousness, which is felt by others.

His merciful flow through our hearts opens hidden depths of His mercy toward us.

His pureness in our hearts brings an ability to see Him clearly.

His mind blowing wisdom of Peacemaking is recognised as miraculous by Christian and worldly people.

His righteous Life flowing through us provokes some to reject and persecute us.   This is normal so don’t retreat or get upset by it or you will miss the opportunities to manifest the Kingdom of heaven.

Keep rejoicing, keep delighting in Him through all the uncool stuff and watch what He brings about. Keep your salty taste going and your life light glowing.