July 9, 2022

Matthew 5: 6 (NIV)

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

A passionate pursuit of godliness is the natural result of true conversion.*

I do not hunger for bananas and I do not thirst for coffee so I will not be ingesting them and therefore will never be filled by them. I do hunger for a good Cuban sandwich and I thirst for Welch’s grape juice so I will do what I must to be filled with them. Jesus wasn’t telling his listeners that they would mysteriously be filled with righteousness; he told them that if they hungered and thirsted for it, they would make the effort to seek it out and consume it. As with food, one does not become filled with righteousness by thinking about it. Imagining that we are satisfied is not . . . satisfying.

So what is this righteousness that Jesus tells us to crave? According to about.com, righteousness is the state of moral perfection required by God to enter heaven. While we can never achieve righteousness through our own efforts, it must be an attainable goal or Jesus wouldn’t have promised that we could have it. According to Romans 3: 22, this guaranteed righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. It is a promise he can keep because it is fulfilled in him.

Are you starving for some righteousness?

We are not saved by faith in faith; we are saved by faith in Christ as revealed in His Word.*