April 26, 2014
Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
CONSIDER THIS. . .
It’s all about appetite. Appetite is a given. We all hunger and thirst. The question is what do we hunger and thirst for. What do I crave? Religion takes a low view of our appetites, seeking to control and tame them. Jesus has a holy vision of how appetites work and his intent is to call forth our appetites and train them in righteousness. Righteousness is not assessed in external behaviors and performances. Righteousness is that most profound form of goodness the Holy Spirit works to restore in the deepest place in a person. The profundity of the Sermon on the Mount is the way it cuts through the surface layers of behaviors and down to the marrow of our deep dispositions and desires. Holiness must exist in the deepest place or it will exist in no place.
Take a look at Wesley’s take on this:
And it is as impossible to satisfy such a soul, a soul that is athirst for God, the living God, with what the world accounts religion, as with what they account happiness. . . He wants a religion of a nobler kind, a religion higher and deeper than this. He can no more feed on this poor, shallow, formal thing than he can “fill his belly with the east wind.” True, he is careful to abstain from the very appearance of evil; he is zealous of good works; he attends all the ordinances of God. But all this is not what he longs for. This is only the outside of that religion, which he insatiably hungers after. p.31
And what does it look like to be filled? Wesley continues,
The knowledge of God in Christ Jesus; “the life which is hid with Christ in God”; the being “joined unto the Lord in one Spirit”; the having “fellowship with the Father and the Son”; the “walking in the light as God is in the light”; the being “purified even as He is pure”—this is the religion, the righteousness, he thirsts after: nor can he rest, till he thus rests in God. p.31
I’m tired of appetite suppressants and the latest fad diets. I’m ready to cultivate a new set of tastes, a holy appetite. Are you?
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J.D. Walt writes daily for Seedbed’s Daily Text. He serves as Seedbed’s Sower in Chief. Follow him @jdwalt on Twitter or email him at jd.walt@seedbed.com.
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