The Beatitude Attitude, Part 3
(NRSV) Matt 5:6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”
The Amplified Bible says:
“Blessed and fortunate and happy and spiritually prosperous (in that state in which the born-again child of God enjoys His favor and salvation) are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness (uprightness and right standing with God), for they shall be completely satisfied.”
I think the beatitude regarding righteousness is my favorite. In the strictest sense of the word, righteousness means right standing before God. Warren Wiersbe in “Live Like A King” says, “There is no shortcut to holiness. We must begin with hunger–a hunger for holiness, a deep desire to be more like Christ.”
I truly believe God desires for us to seek after Him with reckless abandon. I believe He wants us to become desperate to get to the Word of God and open it and immerse ourselves in it.
Remember the prodigal son? You know, the one who ran away, not the one who stayed home. (That’s another story.) When the prodigal son began to hunger and thirst for material possessions, life as he had known it was over. He lost everything, and when he was hungry, he fed with the swine. But when he was starving, he returned to his father, and he was made whole.
Wiersbe goes on to say when we hunger and thirst after righteousness we are causing the inner man to function as God made him to function. You see, because of original sin there is a struggle between good and evil. We cannot win the struggle over sin without the Holy Spirit.
We tend to think in terms of right and wrong, but those are subjective measures that change with time and culture. God speaks in terms of good and evil which are everlasting. God gives us choices. There is good and evil–God says choose good. There is life and death–God says choose life. There is sin and there is holiness–God says ‘Be holy as I am holy.’
Psalm 27:4 says: “One thing I have required of the Lord, this is what I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.”
Psalm 42:1—“As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul longs for you, O God.”
Hungering and thirsting after righteousness brings us into a new relationship with God. We leave the ordinary and reach for the divine, which is only possible through God and with God. And then we will be filled.
There is an old song whose lyrics include “I’m drinking from my saucer ‘cause my cup has overflowed.” The sentiment comes from Psalm 23:5 where the table is set and the cup is so full of blessings that it overflows.
So today I pray that as you hunger for righteousness your cup will overflow to the point where you are drinking from the saucer.
In the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
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Seeking Holiness 