# 38 2016 Dev. Mt. 5:6. The purpose of these devotionals is to draw closer to God by memorizing selected passages of Scripture. Further, to view the passage in context and grow spiritually by applying His Word to our daily living with family, friends and others. All passages are taken from the NIV.
Matthew 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”.
This intro is the context for verses 3-12, verse 6 is part of “The Beatitudes”. The meaning of this word is: “a state of absolute bliss” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary). On this earth that state is the result of God’s grace and human kindness. Therefore, Jesus starts out with the attitudes and the ethics of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Righteousness here points in two directions that come together in faith alone: one, it means being right, morally right, without sin or guilt, a desire for ourselves but also for others. Two, a quality of justice we receive by faith, making right or justifying Ro. 4:1-7. Certainly to desire righteousness is a standard of not only human kindness but is God’s imperative because the lack of it oppresses many millions of people. Think of a world where wrong is right depending on who it benefits. We see it in the lack of political concern for poor neighborhoods, for poor quality schools, for disparity of race and for police action that sometimes is unjust. Further, the lack of righteousness (that includes lack of justice) is not limited to secular society or politics. It also raises its ugly head in the Christian community to the point that Christianity, at certain times and places, is something other than the true followers of Jesus who receive righteousness by faith.
That was often the experience in Jesus’ day by Jesus and his followers at the hands of the religious establishment of that time. Reformed (Presbyterian) thinking hold the Pharisees as part of the “Old Testament Church” although they had strayed far from the truth.
Therefore, Jesus makes this statement strong: “hunger and thirst” a matter of life and death, a fundamental need for our physical lives. Jesus makes “righteousness” and “justification by faith” a matter of life and death, it is a fundamental need for our spiritual life and for our physical life in the long term because separation from Jesus (God) results in death both spiritually and physically.
Jesus includes a rich blessing: to desire righteousness translates into being filled with the results of righteousness, the goodness of God. The blessing is in the future tense, God’s blessing is on going, not a one-time meal but being constantly filled forever. Amen and Amen!
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