Righteousness - A Devotion to the Sinless One

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst 

after righteousness, 

for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

Here’s a good description of those who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness:

Jeremiah 2:13 "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,    And hewn themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Remember what Jesus cried out in John 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

Verse 39 tells us He was speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

So, the opposite of hungering and thirsting after righteousness is not looking to God for what we need and looking to other sources – which can’t hold water – which leak.  Our souls were made to hold the Holy Spirit, not anything else.

Remember my secular dictionary’s definition of righteousness? – a devotion to a sinless life.  As I said, that’s a good Pharisee definition.  But, that’s not good enough – Jesus said so in Matthew 5:20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Then Jesus goes on after that statement to give us examples of God’s expectation of righteousness, that includes not just our actions but our thought life. Seems like any sane person would declare after that – why try?  Who then can be righteous?  The disciples asked that question once – Who then can be saved?  Jesus’ answer?  With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So, somehow, righteousness is possible even though this perfection that Jesus teaches, that could be construed as righteousness, is not.

Can’t do it.  Can’t be it – but we are to hunger and thirst for it. 

Righteousness is the recognition and acceptance of God's claim upon man. God’s claim is that He is holy and has the right to demand adherence to His standards.  Now, those who do not believe, look to themselves, to their own righteousness to meet God’s standards.  Those who believe, look to Jesus to meet those standards for them.  The result of that is the placing of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to work in us and through us that righteousness that only He can do. We (you and I) control how much of that righteousness we have.  As the saying goes, you have just as much of God as you want to have.  He has not chosen to take that control; He has chosen to give that control to us.

Here, in this one verse in Matthew 5, we have a guarantee of satisfaction.  A guarantee.  If you want to be soul satisfied.  Not soul thirsty?  I’ve got an answer for you – expose yourself to the things that feed the soul rather than the things that feed the flesh.  Sometimes we can be so busy and tied up in the business of a day, in the demands of the flesh, that our souls become so starved we don’t even recognize our soul hunger anymore.  That’s what happens when someone fasts – starves their body to the point that they no longer hunger.

Feed your soul again and you will have that hunger – and somehow hungering after righteousness, God’s work in and through your life, makes you more hungry, but the hungrier you get, the more filled you are.  I can’t explain that one – But, God has proved it to be true. 

Righteousness is not devotion to a sinless life; it is devotion to the sinless One – Jesus.