My Courage
Hymn #206, v. 2 Scripture Reading: 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
Believers have always gotten a bum rap. We are perceived as weak because Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek.” We are also perceived as weak because we do not fight as others do. We do not raise our voices in parades or go on public crusades against this or that evil in the world. We quietly go about our work and let others play the political game, and often we are passed by for promotions because of it. I can’t recall how many times I sought to move up in the world only to be passed over for some one else. I’d like to think it was because I did my job where others didn’t, and the boss did not want to lose a decent worker. So we are perceived as weak and as people to be stepped on and stepped over.
The real question is how do you perceive yourself in this matter? Do we perceive ourselves to be weak and therefore we timidly go quietly through life? We are not to be weak, nor are we weak. Take the “w” and the “a” and turn them over in the word weak, and we end up with the word meek. Being meek is not being weak.
Consider our Lord Jesus. He was and is the perfect example of what it means to be meek. He was not weak. He was rather courageous. No one can tell me that for Jesus to do what He did was done in weakness. He knew the path He had to walk, and that path led through the hatred of the scribes and Pharisees. The path then led to a false arrest, false accusations, false condemnation and wrongful crucifixion. He knew that this was the will of His Father, and while Jesus asked if there was another way to win our salvation, He did not walk away from it. He went forward. He went forward to the cross. He went forward to suffer not only physically, but also was forsaken by His Father because of our sins. If our Lord’s road ended there on the cross with His death, it would have been a courageous, tragic death. Jesus knew that the road He walked went beyond this, to a glorious resurrection.
In Jesus we see courage like no other. In Jesus we find our courage. A courage to walk the paths our Father has laid out for us. A courage that helps to pass through the hatred of the world. A courage that helps us to endure the many trials and sufferings we must face. A courage that helps us face our moment of death when it comes. In Jesus we have this courage because we also know that through faith in Him our end is not death or the grave, but a glorious resurrection.
How great a courage ought we not have when we set our lives next to our Lord’s? What our Lord Jesus endured was far greater than what we will ever experience in life. Our Lord did not turn from it, but went forward for our salvation and to gain for us the prize of eternal life.
The end glory, eternal life–focusing upon this is what turns us from weak to courageously meek individuals. Jesus is my sure defense, and He is the source of my courage.