Blessed are they which do hunger | Matthew 5:6

*Matthew 5:6 — “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”*

Hunger and thirst have never felt like a blessing, but it all depends on what you are hungry for. Men have appetites for all sorts of things. We desire power, pleasure, pride — and the list goes on. But those who hunger after righteousness have tasted something greater than the things of this world and now long for a deeper drink from the only Source that truly satisfies men — God Himself.

What’s your appetite this morning? What do you wish you had more of? Money? Power? Prestige? Or do you long for righteousness?

Solomon filled his life with all the things the world had to offer for the better part of eighty years, and at the end of it he said, “Vanity and vexation of spirit!” His life looked incredibly blessed from a worldly viewpoint, but he was miserable.

For a positive example, listen to Paul the Apostle at the end of his life. He had nothing — no home, few friends — and yet he had peace and the hope of the rewards he had laid up in eternity:

“For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” (2 Timothy 4:6–8)

Your appetite will determine what you work for. Like Solomon, if you have an appetite for this world, you’ll come to the end of your road and realize that the things you chased after all your life only left you more empty. And worse still, the moment you die, they will mean less than nothing.

Yet those, like Paul, who hunger after righteousness and live their lives to be more like our Saviour will come to the end of their road with joy — knowing that this life of suffering will soon be over, and hoping in the promise that all the sacrifices made in this life will be richly repaid with rewards that will never fade away.

Lastly, to hunger and thirst is to feel the lack of something necessary. I have at times bemoaned my lack of righteousness and thirsted for a closer walk with God. That lack has sometimes made me despair — until I read this verse. He reminded me that this longing for Him is a blessed longing. My thirsting after His righteousness is a blessed thirst!

I have tasted of the Lord and seen that He is good, and I am realizing day by day that nothing else will satisfy the longing of a human heart with a God-shaped void. What a blessed revelation! And what a blessed problem to have — to long to be more like Him!

Even greater than the hunger and thirst is the promise He gives to all who do: “They shall be filled!”

Dear hungry reader, He will fill you to overflowing. Dear thirsty reader, He will quench your thirst for His righteousness in days to come. There are seasons of filling and quenching here on earth, though our vessels are leaky. But there is coming a day when I will be given a new vessel — a glorified body — that will be filled with the righteousness and glory of Christ for eternity. Filled to never hunger nor thirst again!

Surely, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”