Devotional Song: Go to this link … Please go to this video link to hear the group, London Fox Singers, singing the old hymn Meekness and Majesty, … reminding us that we must serve our Lord in Christlike meekness.
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Highlight Passage – NKJV: Matthew 5: 5 [NKJV] …
5 Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
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Highlight Passage [Context] – NKJV: Matthew 5: 1-10 [NKJV] … Go to this link …
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Reference Passage #1: Matthew 11: 29 [NKJV] …
29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Reference Passage #2: Galatians 5: 22-23 [NKJV] …
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law.
Reference Passage #3: Ephesians 4: 1- 2a [NKJV] …
22 I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, 2 with all lowliness and gentleness, …
Reference Passage #4: Colossians 3: 12-13 [NKJV] …
12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.
My Journal for Today: Could I get a strong “Amen!” to the assertion that all real Christians desire to be reshaped and reformed into Christlikenss. Don’t you want to be more like Jesus today than you were yesterday; or even more tomorrow than you are today? Of course, you do!
Well, if you were going to start today to SERIOUSLY pursue CHRISTLIKENESS, where would a good place be to launch this reshaping process? Wouldn’t it be trying to see how Christ described Himself? Of course it would be.
Just look no further than in Matthew 11: 29, which is the only place in the New Testament where Jesus uses adjectives to describe Himself; and He says that His heart is MEEK (sometimes translated “gentle”) and HUMBLE (sometimes called “lowly”). And these two qualities go together like fraternal twins. But let’s just focus on the one quality of “meekness” or “gentleness” from today’s Our Daily Bread discussion.
“Meekness” is not exactly a personal characteristic which our western culture embraces very strongly. All too often it is equated with “weakness;” and we, especially us males, more often desire to become strongly independent or controlling leaders, rather than to shrink into the Western-world concept of being “MEEK.” But that’s a mischaracterization of what the Greeks meant with their concept of “praos” (i.e., meek) or “praotes” (i.e. meekness), which is how Jesus, Himself, or later, the Apostle Paul, used these descriptive terms in the passages quoted above.
Actually, in the English language, “meekness” had an older connotation of “power brought into control,” much as the old English phrase “meeking a wild beast,” which meant, as in the attached photo, bringing a strong animal, like a horse, under control. When we think of Jesus being meek, it’s not hard to see that His self description of “meekness” was totally appropriate from the Greek; because here was GOD in the flesh, able to call down legions of Angels at any time; He was being marched unjustly to the cross; but He “meekly” and “humbly” went to His death so that we all could have eternal life.
And when we’re willing to control our human desire for independence and control, and submit our will to God’s will, we are letting that fruit of the Spirit, “meekness” (see Gal. 5: 23) predominate over our human default of strongly trying to control a situation. And that is the pursuit of CHRISTLIKENESS.
So, today, let’s do all we can to be more like Jesus; and … let’s shine his light of MEEKNESS as we move through our day today, yielding our will to His.
My Prayer for Today … Lord, give me more of Your meekness as I encounter life today. … Amen
Blogger Note: Everyday during this year, my daily devotional blogs are influenced by the reading and study of the online devotional blog entitled Our Daily Bread [TGIF], distributed online via email by RBC Ministries. If you GO TO THIS LINK on the date of my blog, you’ll find a link to read the Our Daily Bread blogs; or you can subscribe to the blog via email at that site.
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