"The Blesseds": The Poor in Spirit

I was digging though my Bible reading journal and found notes I had made on the Sermon on the Mount, specifically, each of the "Blesseds". I thought, in between FF posts, we could take some extra time to look at these elements each week. This passage is found in Matthew 5:3-10. We'll start with the first Blessed, the Poor in Spirit.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:3

The word "poor" here is not referring to a financial state. To be "poor in spirit" means to be humble, hungry for God, dependent on His goodness and mercy instead of relying on our own sufficiency. Such a person will inherit all God has to offer. The "kingdom of God" can also refer to Jesus' work of salvation.

So he replied to the messengers, “Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Luke 7:22

In the passage above, Jesus reports to John on His work and mentions that the "poor have the Good News preached to them". Again, I don't believe poor here refers to the financially desperate, but to those who are hungry, seeking, and those who have been spiritually bankrupted by the futility of earthly things. The good news was that there was a cure for the emptiness, the futility, and the hopelessness of life they felt. Jesus was enough to meet their every need.
There is a similar, prophetic passage in Isaiah:

Once more the humble will rejoice in the Lord; the needy will rejoice in the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 29:19

Do you feel poor in your spirit? Do you feel like you have been stripped of all you once possessed and are left destitute by the ravages of the world? The Greek word used for poor in these verses is ptōchoi, which means "to crouch or cower like a beggar". Do you feel sometimes like you are cowering from your circumstances, like you are begging for something good while the world is passing you by? God is here to meet your every need and provide a life of joy and abundance in Him. He will never pass you by or leave you destitute.