Meekness is Not Weakness

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Matthew 5:5

In our culture, meekness has come to mean weakness. But that is not the biblical view. A wild horse which has been broken is no less strong, but he has been made useful to man.

Jesus was meek, but by no stretch of the imagination was He weak. Jesus was and is God.

What did He mean, then, when He said that the meek will inherit the earth? He was speaking of an attitude, a form of humility that is sorely lacking in our culture. A famous baseball coach once declared that “nice guys finish last.” One of the best-selling books a few years ago was Looking Out for Number One. A recent decade was described by some sociologists as the “me decade.”

No person is meek by nature. It is the work of the Spirit of God. Moses was meek, but he was not meek by nature. God worked meekness into him over a forty-year period. Peter was certainly not meek by nature. He was impetuous, saying and doing the first thing that came into his mind. The Holy Spirit of God transformed Peter after the resurrection of Jesus. Before his conversion, Paul was not meek. His job was to persecute Christians! Yet Paul wrote to the church at Galatia, “The fruit of the Spirit is . . . gentleness, goodness . . . meekness.”

It is our human nature to be proud, not meek. Only the Spirit of God can transform our lives through the new birth experience and then make us over again into the image of Christ, our example of what pleases God in the way of meekness.

Our Father and our God, thank You for dealing gently with me in my life. Instead of the wrath I deserve, I receive Your love; instead of punishment, I receive grace; instead of destruction, I receive salvation. Help me to be meek and gentle, too, so that I reflect to my world the qualities of Jesus. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).