Welcome to the classic speeches podcast presented by BYU Speaches, bringing you treasured talks from 70 years of BYU Devotionals.

Be sure to check out our other podcasts by searching BYU speeches wherever you get your podcasts,

or by visiting speeches.bYU.edu slash podcasts.

According to my dictionary, the word blessed is a very positive adjective, meaning enjoying

happiness, enjoying the bliss of heaven, and bringing pleasure or contentment.

If these expressions are true, there is an apparent strong contradiction

between the blessings we seek in today's success-oriented world

and the blessings the Savior refers to in the eight beatitudes,

which opened the great sermon on the mouth.

Blessed are the poor, blessed are those who mourn,

blessed are the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst, blessed are those who are persecuted. These are startling and attention-grabbing

contradictions. Who needs problems if these are blessings? These declarations are not quiet philosophical stars in a summer night.

Rather, the beatitudes of Christ are lightning bolts and thunderclaps of spiritual surprise.

Please review them with me as a list of Christ-like attributes we should each seek to develop.

The first beatitude in the Bible says,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, and the book of Mormon version adds, Who come unto me.

We can all agree that being poor economically is not usually a desired blessing,

but the Savior is talking about something entirely different.

He's talking about humility and subjecting oneself to the Lord in all things.

The most powerful scripture we have on this attitude is from Mosaic 3,

where King Benjamin gives us the definition of an ideal Latter-day Saint,

become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love,

...