Walking with Jesus through Difficulty and Loss 8

The third horizontal Beatitude addresses the difficult topic of mistreatment of Christians for simply practicing their faith. Jesus conditions His teaching about persecution with, "because of righteousness", so believers understand the nature of the world's reaction to the gospel message. The promise in Beatitude 8 repeats the emphasis upon our eteral reward that was first cited in Beatitude one, "For theirs is the kingdom of heaven".