Blessed Are The Meek

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. - Matthew 5:5

The meek are willing to submit their life to the will of God.  Whatever plans and desires, goals and dreams you have, someone who is meek holds them openly and loosely before God.  It is God’s will they are ultimately concerned with and submissive to.  The meek person finds their joy in obedience to God and is often not a miserable person.  Life may not always seem to go their way, in fact often times it doesn’t but the Lord gives them a promise that the meek, “shall inherit the earth.”  One day God will reward the meek with an unfading crown of glory for their perseverance and faith.  The meek will not only be blessed in this life by so much more in the life to come.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. - 1 Peter 5:6-7

The meek are willing to trust their life into the care of God.  How much energy do you expend trying to secure provisions, control outcomes or manage people’s perceptions of you?  The meek trust God’s promises that He will provide, protect, and defend.  We must roll our burdens onto the Lord for He is the only one able to carry them.  Many of us are walking around trying to carry boulders and we need to roll them onto the Lord and trust Him with our messy lives.  God may not always fix our lives but He can carry the burden for us when we trust in Him.

Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. - Psalm 37:5

Meekness is an attitude of humility, submissiveness, and expectant trust towards God while also an attitude of patience, gentleness, and kindness towards others.  Blessed are we when we submit to God’s will, trust our lives to His care, and show gentle kindness to people we interact with.  A.W. Tozer sums up the meek this way,

“The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his own inferiority.  Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself.  He has accepted God’s estimate of his own life.  He knows he is as weak and helpless as God declared him to be, but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight of God of more importance than angels.  In himself, nothing; in God, everything.  That is his motto.”

Why I Don't Pray

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. - Matthew 7:7

I can hear the words echoing in my ears; “Why don’t you just pull over and ask for directions?”  If you are a husband you have probably heard these words many times coming from the passenger seat of your vehicle.  Men (and most humans) have a deep desire in us to figure it out in our own strength and wisdom.  Asking shows weakness, it is conceding that I cannot do it on my own.

Prayer is a constant act of humility that is founded on the premise that we need help.  In it we admit our own weakness and surrender to the power of an Almighty God.  Our problem is that too often we simply don’t pray.  So then we must ask the question, “Why am I not praying?”

I don’t pray because I don’t recognize my need

We live in a society that elevates self.  Entitlement rules our thinking which is fueled by marketing that tells us we are special because we are a premier member or holder of a discount card.  When we are lost we prefer to stay lost and figure it out ourselves rather than ask for help.  One of the biggest lies Satan has convinced us to believe is that we are ok, that we don’t need help.  People who pray recognize that God gives life and breath.  That He rules over all and all is subject to Him.  This same God invites us to ask, to come before His throne of grace and lay out our heart before Him.  What a privilege that people once dead in their trespasses and sins would be given access to and help from the God of the universe.

Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! - Matthew 7:9-11

I don’t pray because I don’t believe God cares

God cares more about you than you will ever know, however the problem is that we view care from our perspective instead of God’s perspective.  Care defined by us often means that God does what I want him to do instead of God doing what I need.  We know what we want but God knows what we need.  When we feel like someone doesn’t care we don’t share our thoughts, feelings, and needs with them.  Why would we?  We have already concluded that they don’t care so why waste the time.  Don’t allow yourself to make a judgement on God.  Don’t make the conclusion that He doesn’t care.  Trust His person, His character, and His word and allow Him to care for you by developing a heart of prayer.

So today I encourage you to stop for a moment.  Let the world around you freeze.  Sit in the silence and listen.  Now think about all the struggles you cannot overcome, the heart changes that you cannot make, the lives that you cannot transform and ask the God who sits on the throne, the One who calls you son or daughter, the one who bought you with the precious blood of Christ to do far more than you can ask or imagine.  He is able, He is the God who cares.

A New Start

"Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days." - A.W. Tozer

A new year often signals a new start.  That is the beauty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  His grace has given us a new start and continues to give us forgiveness and new starts from whatever failures and mistakes we have made.  We become new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) where the old has gone and His grace is sufficient, and His power is made perfect in our weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9).

Wherever you are in your spiritual walk I can bet you could use a new start.  Today is a new day, commit your way to the Lord, trust in Him and he will act (Psalm 37:5).  As a pastor and a person many people look to as a spiritual leader I sit here in desperate need of a new start.  Wasted time, lack of prayer, self-reliance, selfishness, the praise of men and much more have infiltrated my life and relationship with Christ.  As I begin this new year it is a chance to put a stake in the ground and "turn to God in earnest."  To practice discipline this year to develop a deeper receptivity to the Lord.  I believe God wants to do far more in my life and ministry and I believe He wants to do far more in you.  What is God asking of you?  Is today a day to start anew?

God can do far more in your life than you can ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20) if you will let Him.  Let go of the world, hold desperately onto God and His Word, and when failure comes repent quickly and turn to God in earnest.