Filled With Righteousness

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Mt 5:6 AV)

Being hungry and thirsty for things you need instead of things you want is a grown-up thing.  If you are a child of God, you understand the hunger and thirst for righteousness.  The new man despises wickedness.  The new nature is repulsed by sin.  Yet, the old man clings on and is drawn to it.  The old man cannot put down the drug of evil.  He must have it.  He must consume it.  The new man battles against it.  Sometimes the new man wins.  Sometimes he loses. The losses hurt quite a bit.  The pleasure is short-lived.  The guilty conscience overshadows the soul to the point of despair.  The saint wants to live right to please his Savior and Father.  He wants to live right to please his own soul.  He wants to live right to be free of guilt and shame.  The new man hates failure because it brings reproach upon himself and the Lord Jesus Christ.  It is natural for the saint to hunger and thirst after righteousness.  The promise is sure and reliable.  If we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we will have it.

As I mentioned above, the mark of maturity is desiring what is best rather than what might please.  When we are young, we want cookies and ice cream.  As we mature, a salad sounds a lot better.  When we are immature and undisciplined, sugar and refined carbohydrates are what we crave.  As we get older and the doctor yells at us, we go on a more disciplined and purposeful diet, and cravings change.  We get our sugar from fruits and our carbs from vegetables.  We prefer less fatty meat like fish than we do greasy and fatty stuff.  We prefer an ice-cold glass of pure water with a slice of lemon over a soda pop.  What we hunger and thirst after is a window into our spiritual maturity.

But here is the point.  If you are like me, you fight the battle against that old man every day.  You hate it when you lose.  You don’t know why God puts up with you.  You know you have failed Him more than you can possibly remember.  Asking for forgiveness may make the wounds easier to bear, but deep down inside, the thought of absolute perfection is a desire that defines you.  You pray.  You read.  You study.  You put roadblocks in your way that would frustrate the old man and his filthy desires.  There is success along the way.  There is a victory from time to time.  That one loss; that one indiscretion; that one presumptuous sin drives you crazy.  With weeping of heart, you pray and ask the LORD to forgive you as you also seek a complete and total transformation.  You are not satisfied with who you are.  In some ways, what and who you are makes you ill.  You want Christlikeness and you want it now.  The promise above tells me you and I will have it.  We will have to endure the battle for a little while longer, but death or Christ is coming and we will be filled with righteousness.  The hunger and thirst will finally be met in Him!