Friday 23rd February
Read Matthew 5:6
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.” (NIVUK)
Food and water are essential for life. Jesus says the good life belongs to those whose true hunger and thirst is for righteousness. Much ink has been spilled defining righteousness, but at its simplest it is the desire that God’s will be done, that things be ‘right’ with and in the world. Those who are gasping for God’s will – his good, perfect and just will – to be fully revealed, they are the ones who will ultimately be satisfied.
D. M. Lloyd-Jones suggests this verse is at the heart of the Christian faith.
“I do not know of a better test that anyone can apply to himself or herself in this whole matter of the Christian profession than a verse like this. If this verse is to you one of the most blessed statements of the whole of scripture, you can be quite certain you are a Christian; if it is not, then you had better examine the foundations again.”
Do you long for righteousness in this way? Not righteousness that allows you to compare yourself favourably with the person in the next pew, but righteousness that pursues vigorously God’s will in the world?
