I was once speaking with one of my friends about the relationship of Christian teaching to Christian conduct. He wanted to write an article about how doctrine and devotion are related, and I agreed with his idea wholeheartedly. When it comes to Christian teaching, what you believe does affect how you live. And if it does not, something is terribly wrong spiritually. 

The third point of advice in Christ's statement about how to discover God's righteousness is that a man must desire it intensely. In Christ's words he must “hunger and thirst after righteousness” if he is to be filled. Oh, how quickly these words pierce to the spiritual heart of a man! And how quickly do they separate real spiritual hunger from mere sentimentality and vaguely religious feeling! 

Now, the verse is most specific about how one can obtain this happiness. The reason why so many people are unhappy spiritually is that they will not accept God's remedy. What must man do? The answer has three parts. First, he must desire righteousness. Second, he must desire a perfect (and, therefore, a divine) righteousness. Third, he must desire it intensely. That is, he must desire it enough to abandon all hope of achieving salvation by his own efforts and instead cling to the efforts made for him by God. Each of these points is suggested explicitly in the beatitude. 

Now the third beatitude goes on to teach that the meek "shall inherit the earth." What does this mean? Well, it is not a promise that the children of God will own oil wells, or blocks of downtown Manhattan, or orchards in southern California. It is a promise for the future. And yet it’s not entirely future either. 

I believe that this trusting attitude before God was the primary sense in which Christ used the word “meek” in this beatitude, and I base my belief on the fact that the beatitude itself is quoted from a context in which that thought is prominent. I know that someone will say, “What? I thought Jesus originated the Beatitudes, that he made them up." Well, it is true that he did make most of them up, but not this one. This beatitude actually comes from the thirty-seventh Psalm. It comes at the end of a long list of commands that encourage a person to place his trust in God.