HUNGRY AND THIRSTY!

A blazing hot sun, no shade for miles, empty canteen, dry mouth—and no water anywhere near! You think this is trouble? Hang on, there’s more! On top of everything else, you are hungry. It’s now midday, and you haven’t eaten for about eighteen hours. You are miles from anywhere on what was supposed to be a fun day of hiking.

It’s one thing to be hungry or thirsty but to be both at the same time is a painfully uncomfortable situation and has potentially dangerous consequences. And yet, that’s the level of intensity that Jesus was describing as He sat on the mountainside near Galilee and verbalized what has become known as The Beatitudes. Jesus said that those who are painfully, intensely hungry and thirsty for righteousness would be filled to overflowing. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

This verse is truly one of the great keys to personal revival and personal growth in Him. The key to all spiritual growth is hunger: hunger for more of Him and more of His Word; hunger that causes us to shut the door on some of the noise and demands of life and get up close and personal with Him. The concept is not complicated but often is overlooked, perhaps because we think it’s just too simple.

Let’s look at the verse for a moment:

Blessed means “to experience the fullness of all that God is, to be happy and spiritually prosperous.” Happiness is a by-product of righteousness. This is not a smiley-face type of happiness; it is the joy, the peace, the contentment that comes from a life that has been made right with God. The only happiness that has enduring value comes from being in right relationship with Him.

Food and water are physical necessities and when we find them difficult to get, we can become rather intense in our desire to satisfy our needs. Righteousness (to be in right standing with God) is shown here to be a spiritual necessity. Just as it is not wrong to desire food and water in the natural, so it is fully natural to desire righteousness in our spiritual life.

In Luke 15 we see an illustration of a believer who goes astray in his pursuit of righteousness. The prodigal son thought that pleasure, possessions, and popularity would bring him the satisfaction he craved and so he wandered away from a correct relationship with his father. As he came to the end of his empty pursuit, he made this telling statement: “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough to spare, and I perish with hunger!” (Luke 15:17). The prodigal was intensely hungry and there was no answer for him in the direction his path was taking him.

Could the story of the prodigal be a parable about the contemporary church? Is it possible that much of the discontent in the church today is because the focus has shifted from righteousness to substitutionary things? Twenty million believers have left the church in the last few years. Many of them are now experimenting with or attending a home church, some have left the faith, and some are just wandering in a spiritual vacuum.

I know that this kind of teaching about hunger and righteousness is not the popular fare of the moment. Some of the biggest churches in our land are teaching people how they can have the best life now. Many contemporary churches are teaching people how to manage their time, their money, their businesses, and their families but are not teaching them how to attain and continue in right standing with God. “I perish with hunger!”

Jesus teaches people how they can have the best life ever, how they can be really happy now and for all eternity.

Jesus finishes his poignant statement in Matthew 5:6 by saying, “They shall be filled.” This is a promise of spiritual fulfillment, a promise to the spiritually famished: “Your hunger and thirst will be satisfied!” The word “filled” speaks of being completely satisfied, of being fed to the point that you are “stuffed.” “Filled” is saying that God will make us happy and satisfied in Him. This “filling” that Jesus speaks of has a double fulfillment; there is an initial filling that takes place when the hungry heart reaches out to God, and a continual refilling that takes place as the relationship proceeds. Notice that I said “as the relationship proceeds.” We are to grow in our relationship with Him just as a husband and wife do in a successful marriage.

There is no spiritual disappointment for the hungry heart that is reaching to Him!

Psalm 107:9: “For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness.”