how to hide behind “humility”

The Word for today:
Numbers 14:10-45

mark this:
Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:3/ESV)

Scripture tells us that Moses was very "meek" (ESV) or "humble" (NIV), more than all people who were on the face of the earth. (Numbers 12:3)

Scripture says the same about Jesus:
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls. (Matthew 11:29)

But we know that Moses and Jesus were forceful characters. So which one is it—were they meek or forceful? The answer is “both,” because meekness is not weakness.

Biblical “meekness” is a matter of being obedient, subservient to the will of God.

Meek as a whip.
Action prompted by the fear of the LORD is meekness. If God were to tell you to shatter the stone tablets of the law on the nearby rocks—and out of fear of the LORD you shattered them, that’s meekness.

And if God were to tell you to overturn every table in the temple and drive out the traders with a whip—and out of fear of the LORD you did, that’s meekness.

And if a believer, who had long ago become part of the woodwork, were directed by the LORD to step forward, to lead, perhaps to lead with audacity—

And if that believer declined audacity because (in his mind) audacity isn’t “humble,” then he’s not meek or humble, he’s just disobedient.

Much of the humility I’ve witnessed in the church is just a convenient smokescreen for cowardice. It’s a “virtue” claimed by men who fear man more than they fear God. But the two meekest men in scripture were a tablet-breaker and a table-turning whip-wielder.

Human meekness is about not making waves. Biblical meekness is about parting the sea, or telling the raging waves to sit down and shut up--if that’s what God tells you to do.

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