Passage of the Day: Ephesians 4: 1, 2 – [see focus in underlined/bold portion] As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
My Journal for Today: When John MacArthur compiled his devotional for this date in Strength for Today, he spent another full day dwelling on Christ’s meekness as a role model of attitude which all Christians must emulate; and along with humility, they are the baseline attitudes to live a life worthy of being a “Christian,” which we started off the year studying in Eph. 4: 1. And if you go to my journal blogs for the last two days, I looked at the cultural pitfall of “meekness” as this character trait would be if exercised in our world today. It would be the round peg in a square hole. Meekness simply doesn’t seem to fit into the attitude mindset of today’s post-modern world.
However, and it deserves repeating and further discussion, if Christ saw Himself as meek [Matt. 11: 29] in His humiliation of setting aside His glory as God to become a man [Phil. 2: 6 – 7], then we, as Paul charges in Phil. 2: 5, must emulate Him as our role model of meekness. As Jesus walked this earth, he embodied “strength under control,” which is the operational definition of meekness. And his righteous anger, as we pointed to yesterday, didn’t appear when he, Himself, was attacked verbally or physically. Only when Jesus perceived that His Heavenly Father was being vilified by man’s sinfulness did Jesus raise His righteous anger to a level of taking angry action like cleansing the temple [again see Matt. 21: 12 - 13].
The image of Jesus dying on the cross, quietly, yet assertively, forgiving those who crucified Him, is the personifying image of meekness; and it’s one we can bring to bear as we live our lives to be like Him. If you’re reading this, I don’t know your track record as a Christian in the area of meekness; but I can say, with certainty, that I’ve got a long way to go to be able to walk in the Holy shoes my Lord, Jesus, when it comes to this character quality of meekness, … or relative to humility for that matter. I need prayer and more intentional discipline to allow God to mature His grace-given fruit of love, gentleness, kindness, and patience in my soul so that my responses when I’m confronted or challenged will be more like my Savior’s meekness.
Yes, there must be some growing for me to walk truly worthy of my Lord in meekness.
My Prayer Today: Help me, Lord, to be a kinder and gentler Christian, … molded in Your Image. Amen
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