Devo for 09/08/2024 service- Message by Pastor Clint Sprague

Staying with the beatitudes in the series, “The Way That Leads to Life,” Pastor Clint spoke on Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”   He talked about the vital truths about living a meek lifestyle.  I am sure, as men, this one may have been hard to receive.   Society in America over the last 75+ years has been ingrained in us to fight for what we believe in.  That we have to always show toughness and willingness to go to battle over our feelings.  Never let someone get something over on you.  To do otherwise makes you weak.  

But as Pastor Clint said: “Meekness is not Weakness.”  I think we can all agree this seems to go against everything society says men should be.  If we were all truthful, we may find ourselves even trying to justify times we may not have been especially meek in our responses.

While studying this, I found a commentary by Guzik where he explained that the Greeks considered that the meek person was not easily pushed around and described the definition of the word meek, in Greek culture, this way:

“It is impossible to translate this ancient Greek word praus (meek) with just one English word.  It has the idea of the proper balance between anger and indifference, of a powerful personality properly controlled, and of humility.”  

Pastor Clint also mentioned that meekness was strength under control.  He pointed out that the power, or force, of meekness, comes from keeping our focus on a higher purpose.  That comes from submitting our strength to God and yielding to Him.  But that is not always easy.

During his message, Pastor Clint posed some questions that got me thinking.  The questions were, “Do we have our strengths under control, and do we have any strengths that we need to yield to God?”

I must admit I struggled with his questions: what does it mean to have my strengths under control?  What strengths are we talking about?  The answer for me came as I studied for this devo.  

I put the answer I got in bold above. The two statements can be combined to say: Keeping our strengths under control is to keep our powerful personalities properly controlled. Our personalities, which have been “learned” from our life experiences, can easily get in the way of operating out of meekness.  The term personalities can be described as a characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving, including anger, sadness, an offensive spirit, values, or any other traits, drives, or emotions that make you unique.  Our personalities can be hard to control. It takes discipline to overcome the bad parts of our personalities that keep us from responding in meekness.

So, I encourage you all to get into the presence of God and ask Him these questions:

-Father, show me any personality traits that keep me from walking in meekness;

-Father, show me the ones I need to yield to You.

Then, allow Him to guide you through learning to respond in meekness rather than react. Better yet, find some brothers in Christ and discuss this with each other!                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Don’t forget to invite God into your day!

1 Peter 2:18-20

Matthew 11:28-30