SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/29/2020
9:26 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Result of Spiritual Hunger”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew 5:6
Message of the verse: “6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be filled” (HCSB).
In our SD from yesterday we looked
at the object of spiritual hunger and now today we want to look at the results
of spiritual hunger. I will now quote
from the NLT for verse six and I think that you will see the result of
hungering and thirsting for righteousness:
“6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for
justice, for they will be satisfied.” The highlighted portion of verse six from the
NLT is the answer to the question of what the result of spiritual hunger
is. John MacArthur writes “Chortazo was frequently used of the
feeding of animals until they wanted nothing more. They were allowed to eat until they were
completely satisfied.”
What Jesus’ pronouncement is that
those who do hunger and thirst for righteousness will be given total
satisfaction. It is God’s work in the
giving of satisfaction, as MacArthur writes “as the future passive tense
indicates: ‘they will be satisfied.’ Our part is to seek; His part is to satisfy.”
Now we have been talking about
paradoxes in a few of our SD’s on the beatitudes and we will see one here
because though saints continually seek God’s righteousness, always wanting
more, and never getting all, thus they nevertheless will be satisfied. I suppose that Moses was satisfied when the Lord
put in the cleft of the rock and allowed His glory to pass by the backside of
Moses, which is something that Moses desired for a long time. The word “suppose” may not be correct as
perhaps it was Moses’ desire to see God’s glory with his eyes, yet that would
certainly have killed him. Moses now has
the opportunity to see God’s glory in heaven as all true believers will someday
too. Think about something that you
truly love to eat, perhaps a Thanksgiving day meal with all of the trimmings
and then a great desert. You feast on it
and yet afterwards when you are hungry again you still want more. It is the very satisfaction that makes us
want more. We want to eat more of those
things because they are satisfying. Now
the person who hungers and thirst for God’s righteousness finds it so
satisfying that he wants more and more.
The Psalms are full of God’s satisfying
those who seek and love Him and we want to look at a few at this time. “For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has
filled with what is good” (Ps. 107:9). “The
young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the LORD shall not be
in want of any good thing” (Ps. 34:10). “The
LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want…You prepare a table before me in the
presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows”
(Ps. 23:1, 5).
In
the book of Jeremiah he predicts the great blessing of Christ’s millennial
kingdom as he assured Israel that in that day “I will fill the soul of the
priests with abundance, And My people will be satisfied with My goodness,"
declares the LORD” (Jer. 31:14). In the
NT book of John and the fourth chapter Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the
well in Sychar that “but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall
never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of
water springing up to eternal life.’”
Again in John’s gospel and this time in 6:35 Jesus will tell many of
those who had eaten the bread and fish through His miracle the following “"I
am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes
in Me will never thirst.” We see in
these two metaphors total satisfaction from water and from bread which both
speak of what Jesus gives to His children.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I learned in this section that I am to desire
to be hungry and thirsty for righteous and then it is God who will make me
satisfied.
My Steps of Faith for Today: To hunger and thirst for righteousness, to
have the Lord give me contentment, humility and joy as I study His Word.
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