Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be filled.
Matthew 5:6
Both the NIV (above) and the KJV use the word filled when translating Matthew 5:6. If you are familiar with this passage (part of the Sermon on the Mount), filled probably rolls right off your tongue.
But I like the ESV translation: satisfied.
If you’re a woman of a certain age, hearing the word “satisfied” may prompt a recollection of familiar lyrics from the Rolling Stones:
I can’t get no satisfaction….
I try and I try and I try and I try….
I can’t get no….
The Stones weren’t singing about the Gospel and our need for Jesus – but the words are an apt description of our thirst souls trying to quenched by what the world offers. Nothing in this world brings lasting satisfaction.
Our Savior’s words, hunger and thirst, resonated with a first-century audience in a way that’s unfamiliar to 21-st century listeners. We come in from a walk and declare, “I’m absolutely parched!” and when lunch is 15 minutes late, we cry, “I’m starving!” But are we? Really?
First-century folks were all too familiar with deprivation. Living from one meal to the next meant that hunger and thirst were constant companions.
There was no need for Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers, Planet Fitness or Pilates classes. Life not only kept their weight down, it kept them on the edge of starvation.
They knew hunger. They knew thirst. So, when Jesus said, “hunger and thirst for righteousness,” they understood what He meant: yearning for, longing for, and constantly thinking about righteousness.
Today the word “righteousness” is perhaps associated with legalism. We protest it. We stiff arm it. We cry, “Pharisee!” when we hear it.
We want to leave it behind in the Old Testament, maintaining that it has no place in the age of grace.
But Jesus told us He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.
He died for us because we could not be good enough to be righteous on our own, but He never said we shouldn’t want to be righteous and try to be righteous. There’s such freedom in knowing we don’t strive for righteousness to become saved but because we are saved.
The real question is: Do I want to be righteous?
Do I want to live for the One who died for me?
Do I believe that real satisfaction can be found in righteousness?
Paul said it well in Romans 7:7, “For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last…the righteous will live by faith.” That’s a righteousness worth striving for – worth hungering and thirsting for.
What do you crave? What are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for?
If you can honestly say, “It’s not righteousness…” but you answer with a bit of regret – you wish you were thirsty for righteousness – then make this your prayer:
Lord, make me thirsty for your righteousness.
Help me to live by deeper faith.
Help me find satisfaction in You alone!
Mollie Duddleston of Cross Church returns in this week’s devotional video, with a message from the well-known biblical account of the woman at the well. Please watch as Mollie reminds us to drink from the well of living water so that our lives can be springs of living water that don’t run dry.
