A Good Hunger and thirst

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
 
WE all know about being hungry and thirsty. Some of you have experienced significant times of hunger, and you work to care for those who wonder each day, “Where’s the next meal?” We all, too, need a constant source of good drinking water. When we cannot eat or drink to be satisfied, our main focus of all we do is to ease our hunger and thirst. Sufficient food and water is vital for a strong, healthy physical, mental and emotional life.
   Such is Jesus’ illustration of eating and drinking kingdom truth. As you know, we must read, hear, study and live the Bible’s truths. Yet, Jesus is teaching us there is something more. Our hunger and thirst must begin with Jesus.
   To help us understand this, let’s shift our focus to another day when Jesus taught on the shore of Galilee. John 6 tells us he fed 5,000 men and their families there with a few loaves and fish. What would it have been like for you to be there? You would have literally eaten of Jesus’ compassionate power. Then the next day, with stunning simplicity, the Son of God transformed bread, mankind’s most basic food, into “he” – into himself. The transcendent -  above the world – God has come to the world to declare, “The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”  (John 6:36) Do you read that? God’s bread is “he” from heaven. Does that mean, that “he”, Jesus, is going to feed the world? Yes, he will with himself.
   So you don’t miss the point, Jesus stretches your ability to believe even more, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35) He told the same to the woman at the well in Sychar (John 4). It seems the more he says, the more reasons you have to say, “Who can believe?” What would you do? All you know for sure is that the bread was real bread, satisfying and nourishing. How can this one man fill your hunger and thirst? That was the disciples’ and everyone’s dilemma that day? What was this rabbi saying?
    You are blessed to know now that Jesus is your satisfying food and drink to fill you with himself – the essence of God – for eternal life. You can thank God for his consuming grace to draw you unto himself. To be filled with righteousness in this life, our limited minds require steady consumption of God’s unlimited essence. Each rising of the sun must stir a rising hunger for the Lord God’s presence and a thirst for his knowledge. Hunger and thirst for Jesus, the Bread of Life, the Living Water. Savor his eternal goodness. Live nourished in God’s full storehouse of truth.
 
Prayer: Thank you, Holy Spirit, for placing the Bread of Life on my heart. I pray I consume him daily to know and savor the sweet taste of his salvation on my soul. In Jesus’ name, amen.