“Blessed are the gentle because they will inherit the earth.“
Matthew 5:5
Holy Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible, Black/Burgundy, Leathertouch, Personal Size Bible. Holman Bible Pub, 2014.
The gentle are fortunate and happy! Gentleness is one of the more understated virtues. How does one practice gentleness? One does not practice gentleness like one practices an exercise. It is no less focused but more focused across a wider set of objectives. One can mourn specifics. One can practice emptiness and poverty in spirit through intentional sacrifice and receptivity in prayer. The practice of gentleness is a small fire kindled in the morning that dwindles as you sleep only to be stoked again at sunrise the next day. Gentleness is an energy that permeates all other action taken throughout the day. This is a controlled flame, brilliant but contained.
Of all the beautiful attitudes, gentleness is the most illusive. This is more or less a tactic, or a way in which one goes about doing an activity. To explain, I will draw an analogy from the stage. While staging a scene in the world of the theatre it is not uncommon to hear the director ask for a “new choice.” What the director is asking for is usually not an end but a new means. The director wants to see the goal accomplished by a new path. They want to see a new tactic taken to accomplish the scripted objective. Gentleness is a tactic that, when practiced, exudes our actions in all we say and do.
COMPARE
“Look, the LORD has proclaimed to the end of the earth, ‘Say to Daughter Zion: Look, your salvation is coming, His reward is with Him, and His recompense is before Him.'”
Isaiah 62:11
Holy Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible, Black/Burgundy, Leathertouch, Personal Size Bible. Holman Bible Pub, 2014.
WITH
“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout in triumph, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your King is coming to you; He is righteous and victorious [and has salvation] humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”
Zechariah 9:9
Holy Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible, Black/Burgundy, Leathertouch, Personal Size Bible. Holman Bible Pub, 2014.
AND
“Tell Daughter Zion, ‘See, your King is coming to you, gentle, and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.’”
Matthew 21:5
Holy Bible Holman Christian Standard Bible, Black/Burgundy, Leathertouch, Personal Size Bible. Holman Bible Pub, 2014.
Strong’s Greek Lexicon informs us that the Greek “Praÿs”, translated as gentle or meek, means to have a “mildness of disposition.” This is the disposition that radiated from Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. As the people cheered Him and honored Him as a conquering hero, Jesus remained gentle, meek and humble. This is so important! So much so that it is prophesied at least twice in the Old Testament and unfolds nearly word for word in Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-38 and John 12:12. If gentleness was foretold of Jesus’ character and all of the accounts of the Good News felt it necessary to include these manifested traits, do you not think that Jesus-followers should apply that attitude in our own lives?
Meekness or gentleness hinges on our commitment to trusting God. Do we really trust Him? Do you? Do I? It comes down to asking probing personal questions. In the Layman’s Bible Book Commentary series, Sunday School curriculum author, Clari M. Crissey, defines meekness. Crissey poses that it is primarily an issue of perspective, how a “person sees his or her limitations and so puts dependency on God” (31). Our trust in God can be measured by the weight of our dependence on Him. A railing is only good if you trust it to hold you. It may be strong on its own, but, unless you grab it when falling, it will do you no good. God is the guiding rail of our lives. He wants us to depend on Him at all times. The gentle person relies on the Lord at all times.
“On earth now,” Cirssey writes “the violent and tyrannical often have possession.” This is a bleak reality. This is life as we now know it. The redemption of earth has begun. The new creation is certain. We currently live in between. Crissey is encouraging though, and does not stop at the earthly reality. She goes on to describe the extreme reality of the “new land of promise,” the new creation that “will be inherited by those whose trust is in the greatness of God.” This is why I always end each article the way I do. We must always remember that God’s greatness is equal to His goodness.
Jesus constantly upsets the world’s order of operations. The beautiful attitudes show the vast rift between the human appraisal of things versus the standard of the new creation. In his Layman’s Bible Book Commentary on the Gospel according to Luke, Robert J. Dean highlights the counterproductive nature of Jesus’ identifying markers. Dean alludes to the Biblical image of Jesus flipping temple tables saying “Jesus turned everything upside down” (50). This was not a performance or a show but “to make an important point: the kingdom of God is the ultimate good.”
“Jesus exemplified meekness in his own life. He was the kind of person who could huddle up with children for a laugh or drive thieves and moneychangers from the temple courts. He was just as comfortable in the house of the poorest widow or the palace of the king. He could could have called ten thousand angels to save him from the cross, but he bowed his head in submission and died for the sins of humanity. He had power under control.“
(Kinnard, p. 68)
Kinnard, G. Steve. The Gospel of Matthew – The Crowning of the King. Illumination Publishers International, 2004.
The heavenly reality is the exemplary reality. The reality that Jesus taught and lived out when He walked among us is the reality that we should allow our lives to be conformed to. Meekness and gentleness sums up the attitude Jesus adhered to throughout His ministry. As Dr. Kinnard notes above, Jesus had “power under control.” Gentleness is the result of self discipline. Each and every moment of the day must be brought under the strict discipline of Jesus. We can apply this discipline of gentleness to our condition because Jesus took it upon Himself and fulfilled it perfectly.
What then is self discipline? I can best sum it up as submission to God in all matters of faith and life under the authority of His Scripture under the guidance of His Holy Spirit. To discipline the body in all gentleness and meekness we must engage with God where He may be found, in the Bible. In the pages of the Bible are all the riches whereby we come to find and know God, specifically in the person of His son as He is found there (2 Tm. 1:8-12; 3:16).
“We call you for this purpose to the Christ, for submission to Him is submission to the Kingdom of God. Come, not merely that you may kiss a scepter and be under a King, but that you may make the Kingdom of God the goal of your endeavor, the passion of your life, that to which you devote all your energies. Here is the true throne. Here is the true state. Here the true empire to which men should give themselves.“
(Morgan, p. 148-149)
Wiersbe, Warren W. Classic Sermons on Christian Service. Hendrickson Publishers, 1990.
Itinerant Bible Teacher and the late pastor of London England’s Westminster Chapel, George Campbell Morgan (1863-1945) spoke clearly of the humlity’s focus. The focus of our submissive energies the our participation in the kingdom of God on earth. The domain of the green and golden globe belongs to the gentle. In Christ, the creation mandate is renewed with the regenerate life. The meek and gentle are called to fill, subdue and rule over His creation (Gn. 1:28). We are to shepherd, garden and tend the earth as stewards of God’s green country.
At no point in time should this mandate be seen as an end in and of itself. This is prevalent among those in the reformed-to-calvinistic communities today. The creation mandate must only be pursued inasmuch as it brings glory to God. This mandate is not a logic to be seen through invariably to broken and threadbare conclusions. This mandate, when applied correctly, helps humble hearts and condition ears to the voice of God in all His providence. It helps humans see the world around through the lens of Jesus’ inaugurated kingdom. It allows us to see our individual role in shepherding, gardening and tending our own provided plot in the clear light of God’s grace and mercy.
“Have you ever lamented, expressing your sorrow before God for the condition of your innermost life? There is no thread of self-pity left, only the heart-rending difficulty and amazement which comes from seeing what kind of person you really are.“
(Chambers, June 10th)
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: an Updated Edition in Today’s Language: the Golden Book of Oswald Chambers. Discovery House Publishers, 1992.
Take this time to focus on Oswald Chambers’ words. When it comes to matters of private devotional practice, Chambers has proved Himself to be timelessly wise. To understand gentleness as a walk of life, one must understand the practice of humility.Above, Chambers notes that humility is linked directly to one’s ability to lament the condition of their “innermost life.” What does it take to reconcile our sins as believers in Jesus. Even the regenerate fall short. Even the reborn stray from the built up paths of rightness. “I can only be right with God” writes Chambers “if I accept the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ as an absolute gift” (June 20th).
Only such acceptance and application of Jesus’ own set-apart and sinless nature to every broken and splintered part of our character can fix our standing with God. This is the process of sanctification. This is what it means to be set-apart. Every day and every hour we must trust in Christ to apply His right standing with God to our lives. We must do this in a sober spirit of humility in the face of the seriousness of the fall. This is a friendship with Jesus in which He is the favored party. He found us when no one would claim us. “Our friendship with Jesus is based on the new life He created” Chambers illustrates “which has no resemblance or attraction to our old life but only to the life of God” (August 25th).
What kind of life is this? Chambers called it the meek and gentle life in which we are “completely humble, pure and devoted to the life of God.” Is this true of my life? We must look within and allow the Holy Spirit to evaluate and convict our hearts. This gift is perfected and personified on the cross of calvary. On the cross hangs a man of all meekness, all gentleness and all humility. He submitted Himself to every task God planned for Him. He asks us to follow along behind Him. He asks us to walk in His footsteps. Will we follow? Will you? Will I? Yes, I pray!
This is costly grace. This is costly sanctification. This is a costly holiness. To be set apart for the cause of Jesus will cost everything you have and are and will be worth every breath of your life. Kingdom living begins with the next breath. The next thought. The next step. Take it for Jesus. Take it for His kingdom. Take it for the glory of God. What is the basis of this holiness? What is the marrow of the bones of the Jesus-follower. Chambers said that it is “based on agonizing repentance, a sense of inexpressible shame and degradation, and also on the amazing realization that the love of God demonstrated itself to me while I cared nothing about Him” (October 20th). These are the seeds of all meekness, all gentleness and all humility. Accept and apply them this instant. Begin today.
“Remember, God is as Great as He is Good!”
Noah R. Hunt
POIEMA: Created for Truth 