I am on vacation, fly fishing in
Kentucky, through July 12. While I am away I am re-posting my Meditations on
the Beatitudes.
Blessed Are Those Who Hunger for
Righteousness
“God blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they
will be satisfied.”
Matthew 5:6
There are again echoes of Psalm
37 in this Beatitude, as well as David’s Psalm 17. In Psalm 17, David begins by
calling out to God, “Answer me when I
call, O God of my righteousness!” (Psalm 4:1 NASB). David was in a right
relationship with God because God called and anointed David to be King over
Israel. God made David righteousness, that is, in a right relationship with
God.
It has been my experience that
Christians fall into three basic groups with regard to their understanding of
righteousness. The first two groups constitute the vast majority of all Christians.
One group hasn’t yet grasped the concept of a relationship with God and thus is
more focused on trying to be ‘good enough’ to please God, than on resting in
Abba’s acceptance of them. The second group just assumes righteousness comes
with being saved and they don’t spend much time thinking about righteousness,
much less hungering and thirsting for
righteousness. The third group is those who Jesus blesses with the promise
they will be satisfied.
In Psalm 17, we see an expression
of David’s trust in God. David is not in denial; he knows he has adversaries
and that his adversaries are enemies of God. However, David fully expects that
God will vindicate him. He trusts God to be both judge and the executor of
divine judgment. This is the same trust the Apostle Paul proclaimed when he
wrote, “for I know the one in whom I
trust, and I am sure that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him
until the day of his return” (2 Timothy 1:12). Why did both David and Paul
exhibit this level of trust? Because they worshipped the God of (their) righteousness!
When Jesus speaks of
righteousness in this Beatitude, he is not talking about the righteousness of
the world that can be earned through good works. He is saying I am called to a
different kind of righteousness. This is the righteousness that comes through
faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. In this
righteousness, the life of Jesus becomes visible in my life as I live in a way
that expresses the merciful, forgiving, reconciling will of God.
Jesus is blessing those who
hunger, who long, and who thirst from the depths of their souls to be made
right with the God of all creation. Because of the immeasurable love of Jesus,
I am now and forever more in a right relationship with God: “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to
be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through
Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, I can rejoice with the psalmist in
saying:
“Because I am righteous, I will see you.
When I awake, I will see you
face to face and be satisfied” (Psalm 17:15).
Sē’lah
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(Selah is a word that appears in the
Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my
correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about
these things.)
These
meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his
way of life. The meditations are
published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/
and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may
subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by
subscription.
Publications by Alex M. Knight:
·
Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New
Testament and Psalms has been
published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.
·
The second
edition of First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.
·
Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been
released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Unless
otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible,
New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of
Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.
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