Meekness and Rest

Meekness and Rest

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. - Matt. 5:5

By A.W. Tozer
World Invisible.com
April 7, 2015

The meek man is not a human mouse afflicted with a sense of his
own inferiority.

Rather he may be in his moral life as bold as a lion and as strong
as Samson; but he has stopped being fooled about himself.

He has accepted God's estimate of his own life.

He knows he is as weak and helpless as God has declared him to be,
but paradoxically, he knows at the same time that he is in the sight
of God of more importance than angels.

In, himself,,, nothing; in God, everything.

That is his motto.

He knows well that the world will never see him as God sees him
and he has stopped caring.

He rests perfectly content to allow God to place His own values.

He will be patient to wait for the day when everything will
get its own price tag and real worth will come into its own.

Then the righteous shall shine forth in the Kingdom of their Father.

He is willing to wait for that day.

In the meantime he will have attained a place of soul rest.

As he walks on in meekness he will be happy to let God defend him.

The old struggle to defend himself is over.

He has found the peace which meekness brings.

Then also he will get deliverance from the burden of pretense.

By this I mean not hypocrisy, but the common human desire to
put the best foot forward and hide from the world our real inward
poverty.

For sin has played many evil tricks upon us, and one has been
the infusing into us a false sense of shame.

There is hardly a man or woman who dares to be just what he
or she is without doctoring up the impression.

The fear of being found out gnaws like rodents within their hearts.

The man of culture is haunted by the fear that he will some day
come upon a man more cultured than himself.

The learned man fears to meet a man more learned than he.

The rich man sweats under the fear that his clothes, or his car,
or his house will sometime be made to look cheap by comparison
with those of another rich man.

So-called "society" runs by a motivation not higher than this,
and the poorer classes on their level are little better.

Let no one smile this off.

These burdens are real, and little by little they kill the victims
of this evil and unnatural way of life.

And the psychology created by years of this kind of thing makes
true meekness seem as unreal as a dream, as aloof as a star.

To all the victims of the gnawing disease Jesus says,
"Ye must become as little children."

For little children do not compare; they receive direct enjoyment
from what they have without relating it to something else or
someone else.

Only as they get older and sin begins to stir within their hearts
do jealousy and envy appear.

Then they are unable to enjoy what they have if someone else
has something larger or better.

At that early age does the galling burden come down upon their
tender souls, and it never leaves them till Jesus sets them free.

Another source of burden is artificiality.

I am sure that most people live in secret fear that some day they
will be careless and by chance an enemy or friend will be allowed
to peep into their poor empty souls.

So they are never relaxed.

Bright people are tense and alert in fear that they may
be trapped into saying something common or stupid.

Traveled people are afraid that they may meet some Marco Polo
who is able to describe some remote place where they have never
been.

This unnatural condition is part of our sad heritage of sin,
but in our day it is aggravated by our whole way of life.

Advertising is largely based upon this habit of pretense.

"Courses" are offered in this or that field of human learning
frankly appealing to the victim's desire to shine at a party.

Books are sold, clothes and cosmetics are peddled, by playing
continually upon this desire to appear what we are not.

Artificiality is one curse that will drop away the moment we
kneel at Jesus' feet and surrender ourselves to His meekness.

Then we will not care what people think of us so long
as God is pleased.

Then what we are will be everything; what we appear
will take its place far down the scale of interest for us.

Apart from sin we have nothing of which to be ashamed.

Only an evil desire to shine makes us want to appear
other than we are.

The heart of the world is breaking under this load of
pride and pretense.

There is no release from our burden apart from the
meekness of Christ.

Good keen reasoning may help slightly, but so strong is this vice
that if we push it down one place it will come up somewhere else.

To men and women everywhere Jesus says,
"Come unto me, and I will give you rest."

The rest He offers is the rest of meekness, the blessed relief
which comes when we accept ourselves for what we are and
cease to pretend.

It will take some courage at first, but the needed grace will come
as we learn that we are sharing this new and easy yoke with the
strong Son of God Himself.

He calls it "my yoke," and He walks at one end while we walk
at the other.

A.W. Tozer - The Pursuit Of God



Aiden Wilson Tozer (April 21, 1897 – May 12, 1963) was an American
Christian Pastor, Preacher, Author, Magazine Editor, and Spiritual
Mentor.

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/tozer/5f00.0888/5f00.0888.09.htm