One Response is worth more than one thousand reactions.
Thank you Facebook Friend for reminding me that my words carry weight... and I should use them wisely, after a well thought through response. After posting a reaction a while back... I was challenged to re-think my statement about a particular topic.
Then, as I pondered my next response...
I read this:
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5 English Standard Version
Define Meek:
Cognate: 4239 praýs (also listed as 4239a/praupathia in NASdictionary) – meek. See 4236 (praótēs).
This difficult-to-translate root (pra-) means more than "meek." Biblical meekness is not weakness but rather refers to exercising God's strength under His control – i.e. demonstrating power without undue harshness.
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
3. The meek are happy. The meek are those who quietly submit to God; who can bear insult; are silent, or return a soft answer; who, in their patience, keep possession of their own souls*, when they can scarcely keep possession of anything else. These meek ones are happy, even in this world. Meekness promotes wealth, comfort, and safety, even in this world.
*(Soul: Mind Will Emotions)
The Meek inherit the earth.
What earth?
The planet and dirt?
No.
The people.
People are earth's greatest treasure. The Meek inherit people, relationships, etc. (eternally, because they will be together in heaven forever).
Human Beings are Spirits with Souls (Mind/Will/Emotion). They reside in bodies; however, do not require bodies to live. They require bodies to interact with earth. There are no such things as ghosts, or formerly living humans roaming the earth. Those are spirits, but not human spirits. Those are fallen angels. Humans without bodies, go straight to heaven or hell (their choice).
Those humans continue to live. Therefore, 1-million years from now I will have only one thing left from this life I lived on earth.
People.
I will be living with people, and the effects I had on them. If my life affected people positively, I will be living with those positive effects for eternity.
Now me? I don't enjoy people. Not naturally anyway. They bring with them these things I don't process well: Emotions.
I enjoy ideas. Concepts. Thoughts. Intellectual Exploration. I can spend hours in a room by myself and not miss interacting with others (unless they bring intellectual exploration with them).
People are my weak point. I say things that people take wrong. I say things that people take the way I mean them, but then I change my position and they don't come with me on that journey.
I find human beings far too sensitive.
Give me an argument for, or against, a topic. I will dissect that argument to it's root precepts, and judge the validity of that argument or position. How you feel about that process of exploration... is none of my business.
Present to me a position that is lacking coherent thought, and I will tear it down to it's flawed components. I will win, intellectually, most arguments.
Then I will lose the very people I was holding the discussion with. So what eternal good did it accomplish.
But... when push comes to shove. People are what matter.
There is no position without people to hold it.
There is no argument without two parties debating it.
There is no idea without people for that idea to affect.
So I'm growing... slowly... to understand that people are more important than ideas. They hold more value than ideas. I am better today than I was 20 years ago; and I hope to be better tomorrow than I am today.
My goal must be to influence people positively, to affect them for the better.
If I am to influence people, positively, I will need to understand this meekness concept.
As I study the word Meek:
Meek is not weak. Not even a little.
Neither is it power wildly out of control.
- When a strong person looses their temper and starts breaking things (or people), they are power out of control.
- When a weak person is stepped on, they have no control.
- Both of these sit in juxtaposition to Meekness.
- Meekness is the state of having the power (being the strong man), but keeping that power under control.
Jesus was meek. He demonstrated gentleness and self control. However, upon occasion he released that power.
Two examples come to mind; (1) when he took a whip, turned over the money changers tables, and drove them out of the temple; and, (2) when he was in the garden and said "I am" and the whole group fell to the ground.
Notice this second example, found in
John 18:6. Jesus didn't yell, shout, raise his voice. He didn't demonstrate His power by using Kung Fu to beat the whole crowd up. He simply said "I Am He" (referencing His God name I AM) and a whole group of people were knocked to the ground.
- Power does not need to be loud or energetic.
He demonstrated meekness when he called the Pharisees "Vipers".
He demonstrated meekness when he was taken by a crowd to be thrown off of a cliff, but then just walked away without a word.
He also demonstrated meekness when he allowed himself to be beaten and hung on a tree, without using his power to stop them.
Gentle Power. Like a large animal (lion or bear) that comes to cuddle with his trainer, instead of mauling him to pieces. That is meekness.
Dis-Order All Around
The United States of America is breaking apart at the seems in these last of the last days. Riots. Mass shootings. Activist Courts going beyond their authority. People angry. People angry at the people who are angry.
The world is spinning out of control.
As it should be.
These ARE the last of the last days. Earthquakes, Disasters, and Governments will continue to spin wildly out of control, more and more, until the end.
This should not surprise or anger me.
It should encourage me. The end draws near, my evacuation draws near.
My wife said the other day that Global Warming is like the earth running a fever. The fever is trying to burn out the virus (sin).
My role as a Christian is to love people, and speak truth.
Both.
Not one or the other, but both.
But what truth?
One Example: Alcoholism
My role in the life of my alcoholic friend is to love that friend. Hug him. Listen when he needs to talk. Help him with food when he's hungry. Be gentle with his broken and hurting heart.
But not for one moment, will I ever consider buying him alcohol.
Furthermore, as the occasion arises, when the door is open and he allows me the privilege, I will tell him, gently and in love, that he is broken. I don't need to tell him the effects alcohol is having on his life, he knows them better than I do.
Even if he would not admit it to me, he wishes he were not an alcoholic. He may think he was born this way, or worse, created this way. He may think there is nothing he can but to be this way. And in the natural... he may be right.
We all... as human being in a fallen world... are broken. Every last one of us.
We are suffering from disorder.
Dis-Order. To be out of order. To be operating in a form or fashion that is not within the order it was designed to operate.
If it's not alcoholism, it's anger, depression, over-eating, un-controlled sexual desires, or any number of other things. We may be broken and disordered in different ways, but are all broken and disordered.
The Reaction:
I may be tempted to lash out at my alcoholic friend. Yell at him for being an alcoholic. I could tell him that God is mad at him for what he is. Tell him it's going to send him to hell.
Really... that's not true. Not even a little.
God does not hate sinners. Not one of them. He hates sin; but, that is because of what it does to people.... it's effect on them.
It hurts God's heart when people are hurting.
God is not mad at sinners, it makes him sad. The penalty for sin is death. Therefore, 100% of human beings die. We die daily. We do and say things we know we shouldn't and can't seem to help ourselves. That is one manifestation of this death we live out in our lives.
The penalty for that death was paid 2,000 years ago. 100% of the penalty was paid.
God is not holding sin again any human being on earth today (
2 Cor 5). He has one mission, and one message. Reconciliation. He has done all that he can do to bridge the gap. There is only one thing that he cannot do.
He cannot accept the gift for me.
I must hear and agree to receive the gift he died to give.
That gift is LIFE.
In the garden, in the start of all things, we had LIFE. Mankind chose knowledge over LIFE, and we've suffered ever since. Jesus came to restore LIFE to us.
I don't need to talk to my friend about his alcoholism. I don't even need to mention his particular brand of brokenness or disorder. The fact is, that if he honest, he knows he is broken, empty, incomplete, disordered. He knows he is lacking LIFE.
The one and only thing I need to talk to him about is LIFE. Free LIFE... Free for all who say "Yes".
Once LIFE comes in... any Dis-Order will begin to be brought into Order. He doesn't even have to try. He doesn't need to struggle with making things better. In fact, the more he struggles, the worse it will be. LIFE does what religion and struggling cannot.
LIFE is the POWER.... I must deliver LIFE gently (Meekly). I am not powerful, but I hold the key to real power (LIFE).
I have One Mission, One Message, One Purpose...
to share LIFE in any form that I can.
Then... I'll let LIFE do the rest.
Growing in Grace... and Meekness... Darrell
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By
Darrell Wolfe
