Blessed Are Those Who Hunger
And Thirst For Righteousness

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." (1)

Righteousness is doing what is right. The Lord told Cain, "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" (2) Righteousness is of God. "Their righteousness is from Me, says the Lord." (3) The law of God is righteous, "all Your commandments are righteousness." (4) "The righteousness of God is embodied in Christ. We receive righteousness by receiving Him.

"Not by painful struggles or wearisome toil,-- is righteousness obtained; but it is freely given to every soul who hungers and thirsts to receive it. 'Ho! everyone that thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come, buy and eat,-- without money and without price' (5)...

"As we need food to sustain our physical strength, so do we need Christ, the Bread from heaven, to sustain spiritual life and impart strength to work the works of God. As the body is continually receiving the nourishment that sustains life and vigor, so the soul must be constantly communing with Christ, submitting to Him and depending wholly upon Him. As the weary traveler seeks the spring in the desert and, finding it, quenches his burning thirst, so will the Christian thirst for and obtain the pure water of life, of which Christ is the fountain...

"Jesus said, 'The water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life' (6)... To Jesus, who emptied Himself for the salvation of lost humanity, the Holy Spirit was given without measure. So it will be given to every follower of Christ when the whole heart is surrendered for His indwelling." (7)

1. Matthew 5:6.
2. Genesis 4:7.
3. Isaiah 54:17.
4. Psalm 119:172.
5. Isaiah 55:1.
6. John 4:14.
7. Thoughts From the Mount of Blessing, pp., 18-21.