{"id":6045,"date":"2020-04-02T20:03:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-02T10:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/?p=6045"},"modified":"2020-04-02T20:03:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-02T10:03:18","slug":"the-meek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/the-meek\/","title":{"rendered":"The Meek"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The Beatitudes Series Part 3<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Rebecca Kozman<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Picture this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019re sitting on a hill in the\nmiddle of a little village overlooking the Sea of Galilee, looking up at Christ\non a mountain preaching something called the Beatitudes. You live in a time\nwhere there is no understanding of weakness or meekness. No, this is a time\nwhere there is more of an understanding of power, a world ruled over by\nCaesar\u2019s. A world where armies made the people subject to their sheer force.\nThis is a world that turns on the tables of power. This is a world where the powerful\nwere the ones that \u201cinherited the earth.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So if you\u2019re a villager, living in a\ntime that only cares about power and authority, why should you even bother to\ncare about Christ\u2019s preaching? Why should you care about inheriting the earth\nif it only goes to the powerful? The message Christ shares regarding this\nbeatitude is preached within a context. He\u2019s not preaching to the rich and\npowerful, He\u2019s not preaching to the people that had the ability to make a phone\ncall to make something happen. He is preaching to villagers<\/em>, a simple\nclass of people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christ is saying to the simpletons, \u2018If you\u2019re a meek person, not only will you be happy, but you\u2019ll have the type of life, the type of power, that transcends that of Caesar.\u2019 Every time Jesus preaches a sermon, He\u2019s not just preaching to our life in this world, He\u2019s preaching to something greater. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m convinced that those who inherit the earth are sometimes those whose stories are never known on the earth. One day, when we\u2019re standing in Heaven, don\u2019t be surprised to find out that the little person sitting on the hill was the unlikely character God used to change history.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So it all sounds nice and dandy to\nbe meek so we can inherit the earth, but what does being \u2018meek\u2019 even look like?\nThe Cambridge English Dictionary defines \u2018meek\u2019 as being quiet, gentle, without\nresentment. The Biblical understanding of being meek is best defined in Psalm\n37. Let\u2019s put together a portrait of a meek person using this allusive psalm;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verse 5 tells us that a meek person\nputs their trust in God, trusting He will work for them when others oppose them\nwith their authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.
6\u00a0<\/sup>He shall bring forth your righteousness as the light,
And your justice as the noonday.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going\ninto verse 7 we find that a meek person is still before God and waits patiently\nfor Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7 <\/sup>Rest\nin the <\/em>Lord<\/em>, and wait patiently for Him;<\/em>
\nDo not fret because of him who prospers in his way,
\nBecause of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only that, but they don\u2019t fret themselves\nover the wicked who get in their way and they refrain from anger.
\n8 <\/sup>Cease from anger, and forsake wrath;
\nDo not fret\u2014it\nonly causes harm.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

9<\/sup>For evildoers shall be cut off;
\nBut those who wait on the Lord,
\nThey shall inherit the earth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, King David says, \u201cThe meek shall inherit the earth, and shall\ndelight themselves in the abundance of peace<\/em>\u201d (sound familiar?). If we\nbacktrack and take a look at verse 9 it says, \u201cThose who wait for the Lord\nshall possess the land.\u201d The portrait of meekness begins by trusting God. Then\nit commits its way to the Lord in His confidence, and it waits patiently and\nquietly, not giving way to anger when faced with opposition and power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this in mind, what effect does\nJesus want this promise to have on the followers? He wants the promise to give\nthem strength to continue in their meekness, that what is seen as weakness by\nthe world is strength in the Lord. The promise of the inheritance of the earth to the meek was\nintended to strengthen the meek to endure when times get tough. The natural\nhuman inclination is to defend one\u2019s self; fight for your rights. But there is\nblessing (i.e. beatitude) in the one that meekly refrains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All\nthings are yours, \u201cwhether Paul of Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or\ndeath or the present or the future, all are yours; and you are Christ\u2019s; and\nChrist is God\u2019s\u201d (1 Cor. 18-23). You don\u2019t need the vain pleasures of this\nworld because God has already made you an heir of the world. The quietness and\nopenness and vulnerability of meekness is a very beautiful yet painful concept.\nIt goes against all that we are by our sinful nature. It requires supernatural\nhelp. And that help is available, thank God!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Beatitudes Series Part 3 Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth by Rebecca Kozman Picture this. You\u2019re sitting on a hill in the middle of a little village overlooking the Sea of Galilee, looking up at Christ on a mountain preaching something called the Beatitudes. You live in a time where … Continue reading “The Meek”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6047,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[212,226,225,224,30],"class_list":["post-6045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-beatitudes","tag-blessings","tag-humble","tag-meek","tag-peace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6053,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6045\/revisions\/6053"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stmark.com.au\/Blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}