Are You Hungry?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.


Matt 5:6 (NKJV)

I have a confession to make: When I read this verse this morning, my initial response was to put down my Bible and go putter in the kitchen. I didn't really want to deal with the issue of righteousness, let alone consider whether I hungered and thirsted for it. I'd rather get the dishwasher going than consider the call to righteousness issued by Him in whom there is no darkness at all.

Why does the concept of righteousness make us so uncomfortable? After all, the word simply means living in right relationship, with God and with those around us. That shouldn't be so troubling. Isn't life easier when we are not in conflict with people? Doesn't having a clear conscience feel good? Why do we have a problem with righteousness?

The Sunday School answer is that righteousness makes us uncomfortable because we are sinful, but that seems a little too easy and pat to be very helpful. Perhaps the real answer is that, deep down, we understand just how difficult it is to keep ourselves right with other people, and that being right with a Holy God is an even higher standard. We understand just how much selfishness we would have to destroy and just how much pride we would have to swallow, and we understand the enormity of the task.

The sad truth is that for most of us, righteousness is not at the top of our list of priorities. The average person maintains a sufficient level of righteousness to feel good about self, but is not willing to do the hard work of dying to self in order to be truly righteous by God's standards. The average person hungers and thirsts not for righteousness, but for the easy path. After all, nobody's perfect, right?

It would be easy to walk away, comforted by that thought, and go on living in spiritual mediocrity, if not for the promise at the end of the verse: "... for they shall be filled." Jesus said that those who are willing to embrace the impossible task, to give in to their longing for God's holiness, would be given what they crave. They will be given the righteousness that they so yearn for. We cannot achieve righteousness in our own strength or by our own diligence; that is why Jesus died in our place. However, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will persistently seek God's truth and God's presence. They will ruthlessly destroy their own pride and be brutally honest with themselves about their own sin. They will constantly shove themselves out of the way, so that the Holy Spirit can have room to work within them. They will never achieve righteousness, but they will receive the growing righteousness that God builds into us over time as we surrender more and more each day to His grace, until they are filled with Him.

The average person wants nothing to do with such a painful, laborious process. So the key question is, are you and I going to be average, or are we hungry?