 |
| Vlad Tchompalov @tchompalov |
It's in sales and marketing, too. They look meek and nice when they're targeting you for their sales quota. After you buy, that's it--they change back to their original self, reassuming their arrogant disposition. No more niceties. No more friendly neighborhood, salesman. It's funnier if you're surprised by it. You should know by now that most times they're just faking meekness. It's an SOP. A norm. Something you should take matter-of-factly.
Most government offices and establishments (some hospitals included) are different. They're just plain arrogant. They treat people high-handedly and rudely, not realizing these people pay taxes or contributions for their salaries. There are kind BIR employees at the West Avenue branch, for instance (I commend them), but some are not. They talk as if people they're serving are employees and they're the big boss. If they get reprimanded, they try to act meekly, but you can be sure it's fake.
It's like feigning spirituality. You're really lost when you pretend to be spiritual. You like nothing secular seen on your FB wall, for instance. In church or at the pulpit (or when you're wearing that religious church attire), you talk in hushed, calculated tones, modulated and poetic. But in regular days you're not really like that. You become schizophrenic--a different person in church than what you really are outside or in unguarded moments. It's what you do when you pretend meekness--like what Pharisees also did. Click here for more details.
Show your true self at all times. If you're naturally arrogant, be it. No use faking meekness. But there's a promise when you admit your shortcomings and want to change. You'd see the principle here:
Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. [Ephesians 4. 25-32].Then relate that to this passage:
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. [James 5.16]Pretended Meekness is Arrogance
See the principle in admitting your fault and being willing to change? The key here is the desire to change. Covering up and pretending will never solve the problem. But don't show your arrogance unabashedly without desiring to be changed. It says, "give no opportunity to the devil." Remaining arrogant gives leeway to the devil. And you should desire change, like how "the thief (should) no longer steal..." And then James says admit your fault or sins to one another and pray. This leads to healing. See?
Talking of true self, a lot of believers do not know who they really are in Christ, so they end up pretending. Like, pretending to be weak and powerless. Or pretending to be ill equipped for a task. It frustrates me when Christians turn down opportunity for ministry in church, saying they're just new believers or they're shy or they're not yet trained. Or they need seminars for this and that before they can be "equipped." This is false humility. Actually, it's arrogance--you arrogantly turn down or disbelieve what Jesus has done for you and what God has put in you in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Remember, you are already fully equipped in Christ for every ministerial task. Click here for my article on this. No need for seminars on this and that. Seminars are sometimes scams.
Yeah, Paul said power is made perfect in weakness, but this is not the weakness that results from ignoring or negating the power God has put in us in Christ--like saying you are unequipped just because you have not attended a seminar or training on this or that. Arrogance like that can never result to perfected power.
Arrogance of the Meek
Yup, genuinely meek people have a certain arrogance in them--what I call Kingdom arrogance, the same "arrogance" Jesus had for the religious leaders and their temple buildings. It's nothing earthly. Earthly arrogance is ego. Kingdom arrogance is treating anything not of the Kingdom as "second-rate, trying hard, copycat," as the famous Cherie Gil dialogue goes. Elijah had it when he mocked false prophets at Mt. Carmel. Elisha had it when he refused to go out to Naaman, and Moses had it when he defied Pharaoh. David, too, when he defied Goliath, and so on.
Were they really arrogant? Nope. They were meek, especially Jesus. But they all regarded God's Kingdom as supreme, so they belittled anything of this world. That's where the arrogance was rooted. A lot of pastors today take pride in their local churches or denominations. That's earthly arrogance. Nothing but ego. The genuinely meek in the Kingdom keeps an air of arrogance when it comes to boasting about God and His Kingdom. Nothing else is greater. The rest is plain garbage.
