"Blessed are those who hunger and
thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Matthew 5:6
NIV
In the
world, 20,000 people die of hunger each day. In this same world, over 1 billion
people live on under $1/day. No wonder, so many are hungry.
In the United States: Approximately four million
low-income children under the age of 12 experience hunger each year and an
additional 9.6 million children are at risk of hunger. Almost 100 billion
pounds of safe, edible food – meat and poultry, fruit and vegetables, milk and
eggs – are thrown away every year by retailers, restaurants, and farmers while
twenty-five million Americans are hungry, including 12 million children. On
average, an estimated 18 percent of the requests for emergency food assistance
have gone unmet.
The word
Jesus uses for “hunger” refers to the
desperate craving that a starving person has for food. He is so
famished that he becomes desperate for a dinner. The word “thirst” means to
painfully feel the need for water. This is more than just needing a sip, it
means to be parched and dehydrated to the point of pain.
Isaiah 55:2-3 as God wonders why we fill our lives with things that were never
designed to be fulfilling: “Why spend
your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does
you no good? Listen, and I will tell you where to get food that is good for the
soul! "Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, for the life of your
soul is at stake.”
1 Peter 2:2 NIV Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may
grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good. Peter said that we need to have a craving for spiritual things, for the
things that are going to help us grow in our salvation.
thirst represent the necessities of physical life. Jesus’ analogy demonstrates
that righteousness is required for spiritual life just as food and water
required for physical life. Righteousness is not an optional spiritual
supplement but a spiritual necessity. We can no more live spiritually without
righteousness than we can live physically without food and water.
Jesus declares that the deepest desire of every person ought to be to hunger
and thirst for righteousness. That is the Spirit-prompted desire that will lead
a person to salvation and keep him strong and faithful once he is in the
kingdom. A starving person has a single, all-consuming passion for food and
water. Nothing else has the slightest attraction or appeal; nothing else can
even get his attention. Those who are without God’s righteousness are starved
for spiritual life. But tragically they do not have the natural desire for
spiritual life that they do for physical. The tendency of fallen mankind is to
turn to itself and to the world for meaning and life.
and thirst is not a one-time thing but a continuous longing, continuous seeking.
As with the other beatitudes, the goal of hungering and thirsting for
righteousness is twofold. For the unbeliever the goal is salvation; for the
believer it is sanctification. More
specifically, to hunger and thirst
after righteousness is to do whatever it takes to be in a right relationship
with Jesus.
weakness of our hunger for God is not because he is unsavory, but because we
keep ourselves stuffed with other things.”
If you’re stuffed
with other things, you’re not hungry, are you?