Hey, don’t we all know what it feels like to be so thirsty you can hardly swallow your spit or so hungry it makes you hangry? We also know that without drink and food we will die.
Since I’ve been working at Feed the Hunger, Inc. the past year, I’ve had many eye-opening and heart-hurting experiences and true stories about real children and adults who live daily in hunger and thirst. Drink and food are physical necessities.
But we also have spiritual necessities where if we don’t nourish ourselves with God’s Truth and prayer, we will become weak in our knowledge of God and dehydrated in our faith.
So, when anyone is hungry or thirsty, he or she will go and find something to eliminate that feeling. They will even hunt for it. People will do almost anything for our physical necessity.
What if we seek and pursue God just like we and others do when we’re starving? What if we did everything we could to “be morally right”, or righteous, in order to please, obey, worship and love God? Sometimes the “right things” to have and do according to the world are not necessarily, or anywhere near, the rightness that God sees and wants us to pursue. It is better to pursue righteousness, by craving for God’s Word and will, than to pursue a good, Pintrest life.
You, my friend, are righteous when God sees you as His own because of what His son, Jesus, did for you on the cross.
I’ve been leading an online Bible study for several years and currently we’re in the process of reflecting on Jesus’ beatitudes. Let me tell you, I learn much from the women who comment and share their thoughts about God’s Word, and what God has been teaching each other.
The day we were focusing on this same passage, I asked the women to share their thoughts when they read how those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be blessed because they will be filled with it. There were several replies, and all were insightful.
One woman stated:
“This passage is filled with promise! God wants us to seek Him, know Him and become righteous – in right standing with God. All because of what Jesus did on the cross. Now we have to DO our part and that is to seek. He then does his part and that is to fill! What a promise! He did that for me this week in a couple of very specific ways. I’m so humbled and grateful.”
Another wrote:
“It is so easy to recognize the physical hunger for food and physical thirst for water and without a second thought- reach for the cupboard or spigot. Why is it so difficult for me to readily reach for – without a second thought – the only source that will fill me completely – God’s Word.”
And this gal was preachin’ it:
“We all eat and drink differently don’t we? Some eat 6 small meals a day, others 3 meals a day, some snack all day and some just one large meal. What if we spent the same amount of time in God’s word or praying as we do eating, drinking or thinking about food or drink? Now that’s a sobering thought for me!”
So maybe that’s something for you to ponder, too, my friend.
How hungry and thirsty are you? How much do you want to be filled with your Father’s righteousness – where He sees you the way He created you to be?
Jesus says those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will be filled, to the tippy-top, even overflowing. The feeling of being “right” in God’s eyes is a priceless gift and I DO want to experience that 24/7!
Let’s think about God, His goodness, His righteousness in our lives as much as we think about and partake in the snacks and meals we eat and drink each day…and splurge with even more!
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