Sun 9:30a Class; 10:30a Worship; 11:35a Communion
Bible Bites
Are You Hungry?
"Righteousness" of God (Romans 1.17) is "the quality of one pronounced "righteous" by the eternal judge according to His norm of right" (Lenski). It describes the state of a man in an acceptable relationship to God; a state made possible by forgiveness, hence dependent upon Jesus Christ. It embraces, then, all that God requires a man to be, and makes possible for him to be, through Christ.
And Jesus says, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled" (Matthew 5.6). Hunger and thirst are used here to express longing desire. Jesus reverts to the fundamental driving forces in man to describe the urgency, the impelling nature of this craving to be as God wants us to be. Further, the grammarians tell us that these words are "durative present tenses" signifying that the hungering and thirsting continues. Continual longing for an acceptable standing before God — even as we are being "filled" — is required of all who would have the Lord's blessing.
Reread the first column, and give it some careful meditation. If you have an ounce of perception, this should make you shake in your boots.
Are we hungering and thirsting for righteousness?. There is no need to ask the "oncer", the socialite or sportsman who serve God when it is convenient, the traditionalist who is a "Church of Christer" because "all my people were 'Church of Christ'". Don't bother the sleeper; his answer is as loud as his snoring. But the question reaches out to another class of professed Christians.
Many who give freely of their time and energy "hunger and thirst" for a better nursery school, or greater humanitarian services, or a "church image" of which they can be proud. Some give great sums of money, "hungering and thirsting" for a beautiful "sanctuary". Reread, and carefully check the meaning of “righteousness"!!
The digression that prevails among "us" today did not develop among people hungering and thirsting for righteousness. It answers "our" question!!
— In "Plain Talk", July 1969
