Blessed are Those That Hunger and Thirst After Righteousness

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. – Matthew 5:6

As Christians, our righteousness comes from the blood of Jesus first and foremost. We have all sinned, and the way I tend to look at sin is our tendency to do things that bring death to this world. We have an “eat or be eaten” mindset that results from our “knowledge of good and evil.”

We are intimately aware of our ability to create as well as destroy, and we know that all of mankind has this ability. We fight over what we will create and we destroy those who stand in our way. We destroy others out of greed, self-preservation, fear, wrath, vengeance, and so on. We do not use our knowledge of evil uprightly, as God does, but in a self-serving manner. So, we are worthy of death.

Without the blood of Jesus covering us, we have no hope, and we have no plea before God that we can make on the day of judgement that can justify all of the death we have wrought in the earth. We deserve death, but in God’s mercy, we have a way set before us that can bring us to life—even everlasting life.

Having received so great a gift as this, we are to grow in our love for life and our desire to bring life-giving things to this world. However, we soon see that the world hates life because life is truth and the world loves death and lies. They want to call their evil and dead ways good, and all who challenge them are hated and destroyed.

However, since we have overcome the fear of death, we will bring truth and life anyway. Or at least, that should be the mindset we strive to keep.

This is the righteousness we hunger and thirst after, or we should.

We see how depraved this world is, and we so disparately long for something better. We want righteousness. We want a more righteous world and we want to be more righteous ourselves. We look forward to a coming Kingdom in which righteousness dwells, and we know there will be no more death, sorrow, or pain there! The whole earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and there will be no more killing among us.

By the Holy Spirit, we receive the beginning of this inheritance as adopted sons of God through Jesus Christ. By His Holy Spirit, we can learn what is good and true. We can find strength to overcome sin, even knowing that many will hate us and want us dead. We can overcome the weakness of our self-preserving flesh overtime as we find rest in the promises of God in Jesus.

By the Holy Spirit, we learn what a truthful and appropriate “knowledge of good and evil” looks like as we wield the forces of destruction and life in an upright manner. There are things to tear down and there are things to build, but without the right perspective, we will do things backwards.

The wisdom of God is foolishness to man, but by His Spirit we can learn. We can learn to destroy things that destroy as we “wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, and rulers of darkness in high places.” We do not destroy as man does. We also do not bring life as man does. We learn to have the mind of Christ as He redeems us by His Spirit as well as His blood.

It seems that the Spirit of the Lord has been much neglected by this world and by His church. They have so little power, and that is sad.

I want more power too. More power to discern good and evil, not according to the foolishness of man but the wisdom of God. I want more power to use this knowledge—which is the sword of the Spirit—in righteousness and truth. I want more power to lay my life down willingly and gladly, with joy and not fear, knowing that I can overcome this world because Jesus overcame first.

We need a revival of the Spirit among believers. We need to hunger and thirst after righteousness. We need to regain a focus on what the Kingdom of Heaven is really about instead of our carnal ideas that have polluted it. We need to regain focus on what the rest of Jesus is really about instead of our legalistic gatherings that have polluted it. We need to regain a desire for the commandments of God in Jesus Christ: to love God and love others with all our might—and the teachings of Jesus that show us what this means.

Let us be hungry and thirsty, knowing that we are in desperate need in this time that loves evil and hates good, that pollutes all righteous judgment, that despises Jesus and His ways, that uses Him for carnality and not Spiritual knowledge, that has made His cross of none effect in many ways.

His blood is a gift given without repentance, and all who trust in His blood sincerely will be saved. I believe that and I condemn no believer. However, there is much to be gained by His Spirit: much that has been neglected over the many generations of the faith.

We need to be exceedingly in awe and thankful for His mercy that transcends all that has gone astray, with faith in His ability to do something about it. We need to hunger and thirst after righteousness, and we will be filled.

This article is part of a series that considers the Parables of Jesus. Right now, we are looking at the statements Jesus made during His Sermon on the Mount, to which He referenced in His Parable of the Building on Rock and Sand.