P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

When Up is Down

Do you ever wish people would say what they mean and mean what they say? That’s easier said than done, because words often mean different things to different people. The problem is further complicated by the fact that words are constantly changing their meaning. For example, believe it or not, there was a time many years ago when the word girl was defined as a young person of either sex, while a harlot was simply a fellow. To be lewd once meant to merely be ignorant, and a villain was simply a farm worker.

In Shakespeare’s time nice was defined as foolish, and rheumatism was a head cold. My, how things have changed! And because they have, maybe we need to take another look at certain words and readjust our thinking accordingly. For instance, let’s do that now with the Fruit of the Spirit called meekness.

What comes to your mind when you think of the word meekness? Some immediately think of a Walter Mitty-type of person, a wishy-washy character, a little dowdy and uninteresting. Who today would want to be called meek? In fact, we wouldn’t want to see that description on our job evaluation. Would you be likely to receive a job promotion if your boss considered you a meek sort of person?

Humility, another word for meekness, might seem vaguely desirable but not really attractive. It might get you to heaven, but it won’t help get a pay raise here. Humility sounds somewhat spineless, incompatible with intellect and a vigorous spirit. But actually the reverse is true.

Some famous people we commonly associate with humility—Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Albert Einstein and Mother Teresa---were not timid individuals. Humility is not a hang-dog, doormat personality. It’s not a “Yes, dear, anything you say, dear” attitude. Rather, humility is a tough, free, confident characteristic.

The mistake we make in our understanding of meekness, as the Bible defines it, is who meekness relates to. Meekness is not our attitude toward each other, it’s our attitude toward God. Whoa! Let me repeat that last sentence. Meekness is not our attitude toward each other, it’s our attitude toward God. This is why meek people like those I just mentioned had such great and free spirits. If meekness related to our fellow man, then we would bend at a stronger person’s will. If this were true, Christians could never take a position of leadership or even live with any degree of dignity in a community. So when Paul speaks of the Fruit of the Spirit being meekness, he describes one’s attitude toward God, not toward man.

However, when our attitude toward God is one of meekness, our attitude toward man is flavored with the same spirit. Meekness, then, becomes not a spineless wavering but a force causing us to stand and do the will of God in the face of every foe and in every situation.

Jesus is the perfect example of lowliness and meekness. He said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11: 28, 29 NKJV). Meekness was one of Jesus’ sweet, endearing characteristics. No pomp, no false pretensions. No sudden anger, no hatred. No revenge. Yet no person ever endured more wrongs or suffered them more patiently than He. Jesus was not oppressive, harsh, or overbearing, not even in dealing with His enemies. He was the very opposite of a bully. Domineering people tend to be thoughtless, inconsiderate, and destructive. They operate with about the same breeding, tact, and culture as a wild boar at a tea party. Jesus was the very opposite. Nobody, nothing, not even the bloodthirsty men who hounded him, ever broke the calmness of His life.

He never jumped on the bandwagon of some passing fad or popular cause, because He said His kingdom was not of this world.

It’s true, some people thought evil of Him, but this didn’t frustrate Him. He had a calling and a mission too big to allow little people and trivial circumstances to put Him off track.
Relentless efforts to damage His reputation didn’t ruffle Him, because Philippians 2:7 tells us He had already “made of himself of no reputation” (NKJV).

“He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7 NKJV).

Jesus was willing to put all the wrongs He suffered into the hands of His Father, who is the Righteous Judge. And this brought Him internal peace. There was nothing the world could do to Him that could upset Him.

One of the most well known of Jesus’ sayings is the one recorded in Matthew 11:28, 29 (NKJV): “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.”

On the surface, these verses seem to be saying that, if we’ll just come to Jesus, He’ll give us rest, as though rest were something that’s passed on to us by the touch of a magic wand. But notice, in these verses Jesus is not promising an outright gift of rest, rather He’s saying He’ll show us how to get rest.

When someone says something we think is funny and we laugh, we don’t say that the person gave us laughter. We say they made us laugh. Laughter was the result of something we thought was humorous. In the same way, an accident doesn’t give us pain, it causes us pain. Both laughter and pain are part of the great law of cause and effect.

When Jesus says He’ll give us rest, it means that He’ll show us how to get rest. You could say He’ll give us the recipe for rest. We know this is the case, because He continues by saying “Learn of me, and you will find rest” (v.29). Rest, then, doesn’t come as a gift, rather it comes as a process.

Consider this thought for a moment: We tend to think that the blessings God has promised to give us are something like winning the lottery. Now, it’s true that, as the apostle James says, every good and perfect gift is from above. But the gifts that God promises us are the results of our putting to use the principles of God’s Word in our lives.

Let’s go back to the text again. Jesus promises rest. Assuming that our premise of cause and effect is true, then, if there’s a cause for rest, there must also be a cause for the unrest that afflicts us so often.

If we’ll be honest with ourselves, we’ll have to admit that much of the unrest in our lives is caused by pride, selfishness, and ambition. The inner peace we’re all trying so hard to achieve is impossible where there is wounded vanity and unsatisfied selfishness.

Now watch what happens. Jesus tells us that we can learn two things from Him that will make a large number of our problems go away because they’re the exact opposite of pride and selfishness. He says to “learn of me, for I am (1) meek and (2) lowly.” Do you see? The antidote for pride and selfishness is being meek and lowly.

Friend, the kingdom of heaven is the opposite of selfishness. Jesus lived and taught humility and meekness. He said, “And whosoever exalts himself shall be abased, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Matthew 23:12 NKJV).

And James wrote, “ Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he will lift you up.” James 4:10 (NKJV),

You see, in the kingdom of God, up is down, and down is up. When we lift ourselves up in pride, we’ll sooner or later be put down. But when we humble ourselves, He said He will lift us up.

A swimmer was scuba diving way down in an underground river somewhere in Florida. Suddenly he noticed that his air bubbles seemed to be floating downward. Now, everyone knows that air bubbles don’t float downward, they always float up. The diver realized then that there was a problem with his sense of orientation, probably from lack of oxygen. He could no longer discern up from down, and he knew he had to get out of there in a hurry. But which way should he go? Which way was really up? His mixed-up senses told him to ignore the bubbles because he felt they were going down. But his training told him to follow the bubbles, because bubbles always float to the surface. With no time to spare, he decided to put his feelings aside and go with his training. And so he plunged and kicked, following the bubbles. Even though it seemed he was going deeper and deeper, he was actually rising; and soon he was back on the surface and was safe.

We are, as it were, swimming in a sea of confusion. We must decide to follow either our hearts or our heads. Our hearts have been conditioned to this selfish world, and we seem to want to put ourselves first. Our feelings tell us that meek people don’t go anywhere. But Jesus calls us to grow the fruit of meekness in our lives. Friend, the decision is yours. My prayer is that you will chose to follow Jesus.

This is Lonnie Melashenko reminding you that it’s always true, God loves you.