The Beatitudes 4

Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.

Hunger and thirst represent strong desire. The implication here is that only a genuine desire for righteousness is ever truly satisfied, or indeed can be fully satisfied. People pursue all kinds of other desires: money, power, popularity, education, status, etc. But these desires are never completely fulfilled because of our competitive nature. We will always find someone who is richer, more powerful, more popular, better educated, more prominent, etc.

But the hunger and thirst for righteousness is different. True righteousness can’t be divided into degrees; it can’t be quantified. We either are, or we’re not. Being righteous has nothing to do with being good. The Bible is clear that our good works are worthless when it comes to making us righteous. We are guilty of sin, and no amount of effort on our part can erase the debt we owe.

So how can we ever be righteous before God? How can our hunger and thirst for righteousness ever be filled? Thanks be to God who sent His Son, Jesus, to pay the price we couldn’t pay. He took our unrighteousness upon Himself to enable us to receive His righteousness. So all who confess Jesus as Lord and believe that He arose from the dead will be saved, not due to their own righteousness, but because of Christ’s righteousness imparted to them.

The righteousness of Christ is complete, so it is impossible for one person to receive more of His righteousness than someone else. All Christians are equally righteous in God’s eyes. There can be no competition. The ground is level at the cross.

We see a wonderful illustration of this in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well recorded in John 4…
7When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” 8(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.£ )
10Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”

What is the gift that God longs to give to every human being? Righteousness.
Who was asking the woman for a drink? Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.
Why will those who hunger and thirst for righteousness be filled? Because the righteousness Jesus gives will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Let’s pray that…
· We will forsake hungering and thirsting after things that, good as they may be, cannot satisfy.
· We will be successful in directing others to the Source of this living water.