Beatitudes - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness...

Matt. 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

We should all be very familiar this this verse. It’s been my life verse verse the past several years and it’s the sign-off of every blog that I write. It certainly has special meaning to me and I’m thrilled to be able to offer some more insight to these powerful words from Jesus.

Of all the Beatitudes, this one might be the easiest to understand. At face value, it means exactly what it says. What I find very interesting is what it doesn’t say. The verse does not say “Blessed are those that are righteous.” The verse tells us that the blessed are those who “hunger and thirst” for righteousness. It is the desire to be righteous that is blessed - not righteousness itself.

Romans 3:10 tells us that There is no righteous person, not even one. Since we cannot be righteous, the only true hope we have for righteousness is merely the desire to “hunger and thirst” for it. This should be an encouragement to us. We are not going to be held to an unattainable standard.

To hunger and thirst is completely natural response from us. However, appetites can be cultivated. We can train ourselves to come to appreciate certain foods and build a tolerance for ones that we want to stay away from. If we have a true saving faith, we should possess a desire to be righteous - an appetite for it. We can cultivate an appetite for the things of God.

If we feed only on the secular, we will crave more and more of the world. If we feed appropriately on the things of God, we will desire more of Him. Diet shapes appetite. What are we feeding ourselves? What are we hungry for?

One way to build an appetite for the things of God is to extend ourselves in the service of others. If we only spend time feeding ourselves, we’ll never hunger and thirst. Serving others builds an appetite for righteousness.

Lastly, we need to believe in the promise Jesus is making in this verse - they shall be satisfied. We all want to be satisfied. If we truly trust Jesus in this, we will believe it when he says that we will be satisfied if we will hunger and thirst for righteousness. This is the only true path to satisfaction. All others ones will fall short. He wants us to trust Him in this. I’m in, how about you?

Stay hungry,

Big E

Matt. 5:6