You have to see your poverty, you have to mourn over it and repent, and then you have to humble yourself and say ‘I will obey the Lord and my life will be for him. I yield to him and give my life to him. Some people do a disastrous thing, and it is a sad mistake. They say to themselves, ‘I need Christ. I need forgiveness. I will go to God I will say, “I have sinned; I will repent”’, but in their minds they are thinking, ‘I need forgiveness, but I am quite a good person. So with what Christ does for me and what I do for myself I should be accepted by God.’ That ruins everything. ‘Nothing in my hand I bring; simply to thy cross I cling. I am altogether lost; I will make no foolish claims.’ Blessed are the meek: that is the spirit in which to come, trusting in Christ alone.
‘What am I going to do? I would like a new job. I would like to be promoted. I would like more money. I would like to do this and to do that.’ Well, these may be noble pursuits, but you must always seek the Lord’s will and guidance. You must always consider your Christian service, where he has placed you, his will, his purpose. That is what it means. ‘Blessed are the meek,’ the people who put the Lord first and submit to him.
Blessed are the people who accept God’s providences. What is my lot in life? I may have many difficulties. I may have to look after people. I may have many burdens for a long time. I cannot duck out of them; I cannot escape them so I feel resentful and unhappy. No, ‘blessed are the meek.’ That is, they accept the providence of God, what he has assigned to them, and they praise him and thank him and seek his help no matter what.
They are approachable by other people. They are not testy and difficult; they are not stuck up. You can go to them for counsel, advice, to hear the gospel. They are people who, in their places of work, any inquirer could approach without embarrassment. These are the ones who help people who are new to the office and help them find their feet. They are at the disposal of others. They absorb injury without getting on their high horse. They are the people who will know the blessing of God in great measure.
You cannot just decide to be meek. It comes by right thinking. You must obtain a sober estimation of yourself, an honest evaluation, for we are so easily carried away. In all my thinking I must trust the Lord. It should be obvious but we do not see the connection. Trust is the beginning of meekness. We need to be grateful to God; that prepares the way for the entrance of meekness. You need a sense of God calling you. You do not need to make yourself a special person; he has made you so. The impediments to meekness are failure to appreciate God’s goodness, leading to fretfulness (Psalm 37). Worse still, I may have a spirit of revenge.