Matthew 5:5
Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth.
To understand this verse, we must understand the word ‘meek’, which comes from the Greek word ‘praeis’, which means to have the power to exercise strength over someone, but choosing gentle humility instead. Jesus gave the perfect example of this through His own act of humbling Himself. Look at
Philippians 2:5–9 (NIV)
5 … have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
I used the NIV translation here because it captures the meaning so well. As Lord and Creator, Jesus took on meekness. Though he had the right to lord over the people and He had the right to be served and worshipped, yet He chose to lay aside His power to act as God, and chose to come as a servant. He had the right to be exalted, yet He chose to humble Himself, even to the point of being abused by those who chose to use their power against Him. The one with unlimited power allowed others to exercise their limited power over Him for a greater purpose – to die on the cross in order to take away the sins of the very people sinning against Him.
Jesus also said, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”
We can choose to claim our rights and rightful positions in this world, or we can lay aside our personal strength and humble ourselves before God. To the meek, He has given His strength because the meek person allows the Lord to be the one who exalts.
Without meekness, we are limiting the blessed life God has designed for us. In our human way of thinking, this is a great challenge. We tend to say, “How dare you… insult, push ahead of me…” and any number of other of offenses. Our human nature wants to fight what is ours. Meekness is taking a humble approach, trusting in God to lift us up. Each time we face these types of situations, we are faced with a choice, fight for what we can get, or roll it over to the Lord’s shoulders and let the Lord bless and exalt. This won’t always be on our timetable. In 1 Peter 5:6, we are promised that if we humble ourselves, God will exalt us in due time. We must allow for God’s timeline.
Another challenge to meekness is our position. In ministry, I have seen many pastors begin with a heart for people, and over time get caught up in their own sense of self-importance. Pride displaces humility, and then people feel the need to show their own authority and power, often to the point where they lose focus on the true work God has called them to do. Then ministry becomes no better than serving the world, though we may use the name of God. Anyone who points to themselves is no longer pointing to Christ.
This also happens to people in the world. Sometimes when someone is exalted to manager, they lose focus and become demanding, difficult to work with, and authoritarian.
In each of these cases, the person has lost sight of meekness. Even when it comes to working in the world, the Bible says that in all things, we are to work as if we are doing it for the Lord. Meekness never loses sight of humbling ourselves before God, and doing everything as if we are doing it for Jesus. It’s hard to act like a tyrant if we are doing our actions to Christ. It’s hard to have a bad attitude or a lazy attitude when we are walking with Jesus and doing our work with gratitude toward Him.
Meekness is looking at the Lord and taking on the attitude of obedience and service. A pastor looks at his ministry as God’s gift to him, and his work is focused on loving others in Jesus’ name. A secular manager will have a hard time acting like an authoritarian if they look at those under them as people led to him or her by Jesus. If we are leading as if Jesus is daily entrusting others into our care, we’ll stay focused with meekness. That is when we are meek and looking at serving others through our position, instead of demanding service.
As an everyday member of the church, or working in a company, meekness changes our attitude. We are serving God through our works. We are receiving our works as a gift of God to us, and we are applying our work as an act of allowing God to work through us. Meekness is entrusting our hearts to the Lord, knowing that He will lift us up. Anyone who steps on our toes or acts disrespectful to us becomes an opportunity to trust in God’s promise to repay us and lift us up.
That is when we stand in the promise, Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. All these things are gifts of God’s blessing when we allow Him to handle our place in this world.
Eddie Snipes, August 2025