EVERYDAY IN THE WORD!
SUNDAY JULY 26, 2026.
SUBJECT: BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HUNGER AND THIRST FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS!
Memory verse: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” (Matthew 5 vs 6.)
READ: Isaiah 55 vs 1 - 3:
55:1: Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, and you who have no money; come buy, and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
55:2: Why do you spend money for what is not bread? and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.
55:3: Incline your ear, and come to Me, hear and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you--the sure mercies of David.
INTIMATION:
To hunger and thirst for righteousness means to have the deep desire to be in right-standing with God. Those who hunger and thirsts for righteousness have a deep desire, and strong wish for God's right-standing with them. Their focus is on wanting God's justice, holiness, and a clean heart instead of worldly things. And they are assured that God will completely satisfy this spiritual longing. If disciples know their sin and weakness, they will also ask God to meet their need for righteousness.
Those who realize their sinful condition and mourn over their sin, hunger and thirst after the justification (righteousness) that can come only from God by His grace. They seek the knowledge of God through His Word. It is the Word of God that will supply the knowledge of how to be justified of one’s sin. God is the source of all righteousness.
Jesus says that in order to experience fullness, a hunger and thirst for righteousness must be present inside a person. Put another way, the people who experience true satisfaction in life are those who have a deep, driving desire to be right before Almighty God.
But Jesus wasn’t talking about natural hunger and thirst; He was talking about spiritual hunger and thirst—a hunger and thirst that everyone experiences, but not everyone fills with what will eternally satisfy. The lost consume the wrong things in the hopes of finding happiness: wealth, status, pleasure, power.
Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, our sin can be canceled and we can stand blameless before the Father. Experiencing this freely given gift of God through regular confession and repentance—a turning away from sin and toward righteousness—will produce fullness in us.
Through his way of life and teaching, Jesus is slowly but surely changing our hearts, teaching us to love one another like he does and leading us to an incorruptible home where right relating—righteousness—will be our daily fare.
Now see, when the poor in spirit continually mourn their sin, the Holy Spirit grows them in meekness—in submission to and trust of God. And as their relationship with the Lord deepens, they hunger and thirst for more righteousness, more of God and less of themselves.
It is not a pretentious longing for righteousness—it is an internal longing that flows from an understanding of one’s utter unworthiness of God’s grace. It is this kind of longing that God promises to satisfy. And with such a promise, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are surely happy, for they will be filled.
Physical food costs money, lasts only a short time, and meets only physical needs. But God offers us free spiritual nourishment that feeds our soul. How do we get it? We are to come, listen, seek, and call on God. God's salvation is freely offered, but to nourish our souls we must eagerly receive the spiritual food. We will starve spiritually without this food as surely as we will starve physically without our daily food.
Prayer: Abba Father, forgive me for chasing after things that do not satisfy. I know only You can fill me with joy and purpose. I long for more of You. May Christ increase in me as I decrease, and may I draw the lost to You with the transformation You work in my heart, in Jesus' most precious Name I have prayed, Amen
PRAISE THE LORD!
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