eekness. Your comments yesterday fit my own reaction years ago when I felt God calling me to meekness. Who me? "People will run over me and I'll be finished," were my first thoughts.Our English language limits our grasp of the Bible's call for meekness in saints. Mistakenly we assume that God is calling us to being "nice" at any price. That spells weakness to me. But the Bible tells us that Moses and Jesus were meek. Neither of them demonstrate weakness
on any level to me.I use the term "Strong Gentleness" often and that is my desire at all times. Meekness in the Biblical sense is a virtue that is compatible with strength under control: strong gentleness
True meekness is always measured by Christ's meekness. Jesus' humility, patience, and total submission of His own will to the will of the Father exemplifies meekness.
Charles H. Spurgeon, a Protestant preacher of the nineteenth century, comments, "The way to rise in the kingdom is to sink in ourselves" (The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 21).
It is this realization of our utter unworthiness, a sense of spiritual need and destitution, that drives us to seek Christ to lift it. As I walk in meekness I know moment by moment I need the Lord in all things.
I grasp deep meanings of words by exploring opposites. Help me out with opposite words connected with meekness as the Bible calls us to be meek like Jesus and Moses. Please add to my list....
Pride in self/knowledge........Meek
Arrogant/Know it all.................Teachable
Rough,uncaring........................ Gentleness
Self-concern .....................Awareness of others
Self-protection................ No need to always be right
Speak mind quickly....... Listen compassionately
Tough guy/girl ... ..........God controlled strength
I love dialogue; add to this list. May we embrace God's call of meekness.
4 comments:
At church last night, the speaker spoke on how to have a "thriving" church. I thought of you the whole message!
I love your list. Makes the words much more understandable. Have a great day!
Great study! My additions to the list:
Controlling...letting others be themselves
Judgmental...accepting
Dominating...treats others as part of a team
Maybe I've told you this already...maybe not...can't remember. I am teaching through the book of Esther...one chapter a week....in my ladies Sunday school class. Last week I brought out how Haman was so stuck on himself that he could not think of anyone that the King would want to honor more than himself. I said that even though it's bad to think way too highly of yourself that, at the other end of the spectrum, it's also not good to always be degrading yourself. After class one of the younger ladies came to me and said that she had been reading last week about "humility" and that she found a good definition was not that someone thinks "little" of themself, but that they just "don't think of themself at all". She went on to say that while I was teaching our lesson she thought about how not only thinking too MUCH of ourselves but also thinking too LITTLE of ourselves is a symptom of PRIDE. Whether we think too much or too little, we are still thinking of me, me, me and that is pride....which is the exact opposite of humility. I don't know just how that goes along with today's subject of meekness but anyhoo.... :)
Love ya,
Marilyn
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