A Spiritual Appetite

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.

-Matthew 5:6

In Christ we are to have a hunger for righteousness. Notice the terminology the Lord used. We so desire righteousness in our lives that we feel it as we would physical hunger. We know what it feels like to be hungry. Although most of us only know hunger on the short term; we honesty don’t know what it feels like to go hungry for days on end as do so many people in the world. But we do have an idea of what hunger feels like. And really what is it? Hunger is our bodies letting us know that we need food; we need energy so that our bodies can function normally. If we do not eat we begin to grow weak, maybe even faint, perhaps irritable, and over time a person could become extremely sick from lack of proper nutrition.

Jesus was saying that our hunger for the Word of God and for righteousness functions in like manner. Without the Word of God we grow spiritually weak. We cannot function properly as followers of Christ apart from His righteousness in our lives. And Jesus said we are to hunger for it in such a way that we allow the Lord to fulfill that hunger. When we hunger for the things of God, then the Lord will indeed fulfill that need in ever-increasing abundance.