Living a Kingdom Life

11. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

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

Read Matthew 5: 11-12.

When we live a life of the Kingdom of the heavens, in the spiritual nature of the kingdom and according to the heavenly principles of the kingdom. We're reproached, persecuted and evilly spoken of, mostly by the religious people.

The Jewish religionists did all these things to the apostles in the early days of the kingdom of the heavens ( Acts 5.41; 13:45, 50; 2 Corinthians 6:8; Romans 3:8).

Note here our persecution in v.10 is for the sake of righteousness, is due to us to our seeking for righteousness. Whereas the persecution in v.11 is directly because of Jesus Christ, the new King ie. because of our following Him.

The world today is selfishly following Jesus Christ to reward themselves only. Many only seek the benefit of exploiting others in the name of Jesus Christ. Or maybe many of us are following Him because of miracles and only physical things our witnesses told us and never emphasised on truth.

However, the heavens reward of the ninth blessing indicates that the result of the foregoing eight blessings are also rewarded. This reward is great and is in the heavens; it's a heavenly reward and not earthly one