Saturday, October 4, 2014

Blessed Are The Meek: For They Shall Inherit The Earth

“Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.”  (Matthew  5:5)

The meaning of meek in Hebrew is “to be molded” and “to be controlled.”  Being meek is to submit to God’s will.  Not man’s will. His hand is our molder because he is our potter and we are the clay.  “Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.”  (Luke 22:42). Man has his will.  God also has his will. But it’s God’s will that prevail.  When we desire, we must first seek God.  “Delight thyself in the Lord;  and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”  (Psalm 37:4).  “In all thy ways acknowledge him,  and he shall direct thy paths.”  (Proverbs 3:6).   In God’s will we  have peace.  In his will is our peace.   We must accept  all things  that work within us to have inner peace.  It is all God’s plan .  There is always a reason and good things that will happen to us if we always submit to God’s purpose.  There is  no such  thing  as chance or luck. “All things work together for good to them that love God.  To them who are called according to his purpose.”  ( Romans 8:28).  

Even  in pain and suffering.  God did not promise us a trouble-free life.  He said that “in this world we shall have tribulation.” Meekness is not so much of questioning and asking or cursing or challenging or blaming  God.  Meekness is more of loving, suffering, acceptance, and contentment.  There is a saying that “God will not bear us a problem we cannot bear.”  A turtle once said:  “no matter how heavy my bearings are, it’s God’s choice to make me carry my shell for it’s the only way I will be protected.”    After we have surpassed the sickness and problems  in our lives, we become an inspiration, to others by telling them not  to fear and not to loss  faith and hope  because we have been through that kind of illness.  Job said “I know that thou canst do everything.” ( Job 42:2). So there is always a reason for every thing that God did for us.  “ Many are the plans in the mind of a man,  but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established.”  (Proverbs 19:21).  “In every thing give thanks:  for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”  (I Thessalonians  5:18)

According to Millard Erickson: “ If we have fully understood who and what God is, we will see him as the supreme being.   We will see him the Lord, the one who is to be pleased and whose will is to be done.   This reminder is needed in our day,  for we have a tendency to slip from a “theocentric” to an “anthropocentric”  ordering of our religious lives.   This leads to what be called “inverted theology.”  Instead of regarding God as our Lord, whose glory is the supreme value and whose will is to be done, we regard him as our servant.  He is expected to meet all of our perceived needs and to answer to our standards of what is right and wrong.   We need to learn from Samuel,  whose response when the Lord called him was,  “Speak, Lord, your servant hears.”   He did not see this as an opportunity to pour  out his concerns to the Lord,  saying “Listen, Lord, your servant speaks.”  When we adopt the latter stance,  we in effect make ourselves God.  We presume to know what is right and what is best.   In so doing,  we take upon ourselves a great responsibility:  to guide our own  lives.   But it is God who knows what is best in the long run.   He is the Almighty and loving Lord.   He has created us, not we him,  and we exist for his Glory,  not he for ours.   We will stand for him in the last judgment,  not he before us.   If we have truly understood God’s nature,  then with Jesus our first concern in prayer will not be for the granting of our desires.  It will rather be “Hallowed be thy name,  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,  on earth as it is in heaven.”


(From Andrew M. Famero’s Exhortation at the Harry Fetalsana’s residence during the Joint Fellowship of Men, Women and Youth)

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