God blesses those who are persecuted for doing right, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.

Matthew 5:10 NLT

It feels good to do good doesn’t it? We are often rewarded for our acts of kindness. You greet someone and they warmly greet you back. But what about the times when doing the right thing hurts us? You treat someone with kindness and they’re rude in return. You speak up for a mistreated person or group and end up losing your reputation.

Throughout history people have endured violence, arrest, imprisonment and worse for standing up for what’s right. Figures like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr and Mother Teresa stand out as icons of doing good, no matter the cost. We tend to see these people as exceptional examples of goodness and sacrifice. But what if this is a way we’re all invited into? 

What’s the good you hesitate to do, knowing that it might cost you?

In this beatitude, Jesus encourages us to keep on doing good, whatever the cost. And to believe that doing the right thing is more important than any opposition we may face.

We are a part of a world of broken systems, where institutions are set up to protect the interests of the powerful, while others are excluded and oppressed. Love compels us to speak up, to act in the interests of those without power, to meet oppression with creative resistance. When we do this, we join the cosmic struggle between good and evil, and we embrace the possibility of suffering as a necessary and inevitable part of living in a divided world. When we choose to love our enemies and bless those who curse us, we cast our vote for goodness and love; and in the end, love will finally win.

9Beats

A growing tribe of us are exploring these nine sayings – nine beats – as a path of recovery, back to reality. An invitation to walk through life differently. A rhythm we are desperate to feel reverberating through our world, up through the soles of our feet, right to our bones. We’ve been experimenting in how to live life the 9Beats way. How to put hope, and trust, peacemaking and humility into practice. How to follow in the path of radical love. Why don’t you join us? www.9beats.org