APRIL 16, Matthew 5:6

Have you ever been hungry before? I mean feeling really hungry? When was the last time you were so hungry that you would be thankful for even a plate of plain rice, or something tasteless? Perhaps in Singapore, not many have been really hungry or thirsty, but in the time of Jesus, having enough food and water was a privilege not all could enjoy.

In this 4th Beatitude, we learn that to be righteous is to be right with God. It is to be spiritually acceptable to God. Here, Jesus compares righteousness to food. You hunger for food and thirst for water. Food is of course essential to our physical life. You hunger and thirst for what you think is essential to your life, such as food. Without food and water, we die. So when our body hungers and thirsts, it actually hungers for food and thirsts for water, because our physical life depends on it. The only person who does not get hungry or thirsty is a person who is dead. This has a parallel in the spiritual realm – you can tell if a person is alive in Christ by whether he hungers and thirsts for righteousness, whether he wants to be right with God.

Jesus is saying to us: righteousness is as vital to the spiritual life as food and water is to the physical life. Righteousness is something so vital to your spiritual life that your spirit, if it knew what it needed, would be crying out, hungering for righteousness. Without righteousness, you cannot live spiritually. So the comparison is between food and water that we need at the physical level and righteousness, which is both food and water at the spiritual level.

Do you have an appetite for righteousness? Do you hunger for righteousness? A sick person has no appetite. If you have no appetite or only a small appetite for righteousness, it might be that you are spiritually sick. Righteousness holds no attraction to those who have a lack of spiritual appetite. If that is the case, pray that God will help you repent of it and renew a right attitude in you.

Thought: Do I crave for God and His righteousness?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, please help me to truly hunger and thirst after You. Help me have a daily desire for the sincere milk of Your Word so that I can grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.