Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness

by Steve Bastin

One of the most remarkable statements ever made is found in the opening remarks of Jesus as he sat on the mountain to teach his disciples.  We sometimes refer to his message as the “Sermon on the Mount.”  The opening words are often called the “Beatitudes.”

Among those opening remarks are these words:  “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”

Satisfied.  There is no better feeling in all the world than “satisfied.”  It is a feeling when something good has been completed.  It is a feeling that all is well because I am exactly where I always wanted to be.  Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will experience the feeling of satisfaction.

I know what it is to be hungry.  I know what it is to be thirsty.  I remember a time when I was working on a farm as a teenager.  We had eaten a huge meal at noon and then returned to our work.  It was a hot afternoon and I had been on a tractor for hours.  As the hours passed my thirst grew greater and greater.

There was no water on the tractor to drink, but I knew where there was a well house with cool, clear water.  It was over the fence and about a quarter of a mile away.  Yet as the thirst increased, my desire to keep working waned and the water “called me.”

I jumped off the tractor, climbed the fence and walked to the well house for a drink.  There was an old quart jar sitting on a ledge and I filled it with water and drank it.  I filled it again and drank another.  I still was thirsty.  (The water had not yet worked through my system, but my stomach was full of water.)  I may have drunk a third quart.  My memory fails me at this point.  What I do remember is being filled all the way up with water.

Returning to the tractor, I resumed my work.  But there was a problem.  A bouncing tractor and an overfull stomach, do not get along very well.  But I had satisfied my thirst.

Jesus tells us that we ought to want righteousness as much as we want to satisfy our hunger and our thirst.  Nothing less than such a hunger and thirst will compel us to pursue a course that is right with God.

Sin is easy.  Sin is fun.  Sin, usually, brings an immediate reward of satisfaction.  It tempts us.  It lures us.  It promises us that it will not hurt nor harm.  In the end, the promises of sin are an illusion.  The satisfaction for which we longed remains unfulfilled.  Sin does not satisfy.  It is the opposite of righteousness.

Eve hungered for knowledge.  She hungered to “be like God.”  She wanted what God had said she could not have.  She ate the forbidden fruit and gave some to Adam as well.  Sin loves company.  One does not usually enjoy sin in solitude, but the sinner seeks someone with whom they might share their “happiness.”  In the end, Eve was not satisfied because sin cannot bring satisfaction.

Jesus began his ministry with baptism at the hand of John in the Jordan River.  Why did Jesus need to be baptized?  The Bible gives Jesus’ answer to that question:  “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

God had sent John to baptize the Jews.  Mark tells us that “all the country of Judea was going out to him, and all the people of Jerusalem.”  Jesus was a Jew.  It was the right thing to do.  Righteousness is found in doing exactly what God has said to do.  Jesus understood that principle.

When one decides to pursue righteousness, that decision will carry over into one’s speech.  Ever since Hollywood brought vulgarity into movies in 1939 with one vulgar word in “Gone With the Wind,” we have continued to see a downward spiral.

If everyone is doing it, it must be all right, right?  Yet the Bible still says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  Please tell me which four letter vulgar word gives grace!

There is much more that the Bible has to say about our language.  Our language reflects our values, our beliefs and our basic outlook on life.  Language is a window into the soul.  Be careful what you say.  Your speech tells others what is in your heart.  Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”  If there is filth in your heart, there will be filth in what you say.  Hunger and thirst for righteous talk.

Instead of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, we live in a world where people want to invent their own standard for righteousness.  The last time we looked, the world was still God’s creation, not man’s.  God created.  God decrees what is right and what is wrong.

When God restricted sex to a man and his wife, he placed a restriction at which millions have snubbed their noses.  People have always chafed at God’s restrictions.  Every perversion known to man is included in the legislation that God gave through Moses.  (The 18th chapter of Leviticus gives explicit details for those of you who are wondering.)

Now we have those who call God’s rules “homophobic.”  It is said that love makes sex all right.  God says, “Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.”  Since love will not do as a standard for making sexual relationships righteous there is now a changing of tactics.  Marriage has now been redefined so that men can marry men and women can marry women.  God’s plan for marriage included the propagating of the human race.  The last time we looked, neither two men nor two women are capable of having a baby. But if one calls such a relationship “marriage,” then one can argue that the Bible definition of sexual immorality and adultery no longer apply.

What we seem to have is a world that is determined to be righteous by defining whatever they are doing as righteous.  When Jesus proclaimed a blessedness for those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, he was not blessing those who ignore God’s standard for righteousness and go about creating their own standard.

Paul wrote of those who “being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”  People setting their own standards of right and wrong is nothing new.  The Bible is full of stories of people engaging in such shenanigans.

Pursuing the righteousness of God will bring a blessing.  Those who follow such a practice are walking in the footsteps of Jesus.  They will be satisfied.  God will bless them.  Their future will be with God.