G Mac II - Poor in Spirit

The last post discussed the struggle to send away sin.  Jesus describes believers who do so as the poor in spirit.   Who are the poor in spirit?   MacDonald says that they are  "unambitious, unselfish, and they never despise others or seek their praises."   They are the lowly who see "nothing to admire in themselves ...."  They "give themselves away ...."   The poor in spirit "would lift every brother to the embrace of the Father. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they are of the same spirit as God, and the nature of the kingdom is theirs."

Here is G Mac commenting on those who have "the same spirit,"  the poor in spirit and the meek who will inherit the earth:

The same spirit, then, is required for possessing the kingdom of heaven, and for inheriting the earth. How should it not be so, when the one Power is the informing life of both? If we are the Lord's, we possess the kingdom of heaven, and so inherit the earth. How many who call themselves by his name, would have it otherwise: they would possess the earth and inherit the kingdom! Such fill churches and chapels on Sundays: anywhere suits for the worship of Mammon.

How can a person go through life looking up from the bottom of society in this manner as Jesus teaches?  The believer always looks to the future, and the work which still needs to be done,  clinging to the precious father and child relationship: 

He who delights in contemplating whereto he has attained, is not merely sliding back; he is already in the dirt of self-satisfaction. The gate of the kingdom is closed, and he outside. The child who, clinging to his Father, dares not think he has in any sense attained while as yet he is not as his Father—his Father's heart, his Father's heaven is his natural home.

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All quotations are from George MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel  (Ward, Lock, Bowden & Co. 1892).