The meek live to serve and long to bridle their lust for power. “The ‘politics’ of the Kingdom, says Scott Bessenecker, “has more to do with meekness, submission and dying to self than it does with exercising authority to increase my share in this life (emphasis mine).”
Some outside observers evaluate all these counterintuitive commands about meekness, doing good to our enemies, and forgiving trespassers, as weakness, even masochistic. But anyone who thinks it’s weak to be meek should try being meek for a week! (Say that out loud for full effect.) Ironically it takes a lot of strength to be meek. Not the kind of strength you get in the gym, but the kind you get on your knees––so to speak.
Meekness is not the default position of our broken humanity. Even regenerated humanity doesn’t arrive at meekness involuntarily. You don’t just wake up one morning, make a resolution, and succeed at it. You don’t achieve a broken spirit so much as receive it in post-crucifixion resurrections. The harsh reality is that meekness requires dying. That’s why so few of us pursue it.
This is an excerpt from a book I hope to publish in the near future on the Sermon on the Mount called: What In The World? Some Moral, Social, and Politically Disruptive Implications of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
barney wiget 