THE KEY TO SPIRITUAL GROWTH

A blazing hot sun, no shade for miles, empty canteen, dry mouth—and no water anywhere! You think this is trouble? Hang on, there’s more! On top of everything else, you are lost and hungry because 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 is one thing to be hungry or thirsty but to be both at the same time is painfully uncomfortable and has potentially dangerous consequences. And yet, that’s the level of intensity that Jesus was describing as He sat on the mountainside and shared what have become known as The Beatitudes.

As Jesus laid out the characteristics of who would be “blessed” in the kingdom of God, He said that those who are painfully, intensely hungry and thirst for more of Him would be filled to overflowing. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). The word “filled” means to be completely satisfied.

This verse is truly one of the great keys to personal growth in Him. The key that unlocks the door to spiritual growth is hunger: hunger for more of Him and more of His Word; hunger that causes us to shut the door on 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 is just too simple or too old-fashioned.

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 of enduring value comes from being in right relationship with Him.

Food and water are physical necessities and when we find them difficult to obtain, 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 are given an illustration of a believer who goes astray in his pursuit of righteousness. The prodigal 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 but there was no answer for him in the direction his path was taking him.

The story of the prodigal is a parable about the condition of many in the church today. Much of the discontent in the church exists because the focus has shifted from the pursuit of righteousness to other, less important, things. Twenty million believers have left the church in the U.S. in the last few years, largely because they are spiritually hungry and they have not been taught how to eat.

I know that this kind of teaching about righteous hunger and how to go to the table of the Lord is not the popular fare of the moment. Some of the biggest churches in our land are teaching people how they can have their best life now. Many contemporary churches are teaching people how to manage their time, their money, their businesses and their families, but they are not teaching them how to attain and continue in right standing with God, how to grow in Him, how to sit down at the table of the Lord and eat!

“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 fed to the point that you are “stuffed, 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.

When the prodigal came to his senses and acknowledged his hunger, he did something about it: He went home to where plenty of food was available. If you are satisfied with little or nothing spiritually, then welcome to a life full of the pangs of hunger and the resulting lack of spiritual health. If, on the other hand, you are hungry and ready to do something about it, then God has made you an irrevocable promise: “You will be filled!”

There is no spiritual disappointment for the hungry heart that reaches to Him! You will be filled with a peace and contentment that is beyond the understanding of human reasoning.

“And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord . . .” (Jeremiah 29:13-14).