To help us understand this beatitude we first have to ask ourselves, what is meant by righteousness? And righteousness means being in complete accordance with what is just, honorable, and Godly. Righteousness are those things that are upright, virtuous, noble, morally right and ethical. You could say that righteousness is a life style that is in complete conformity to the will of God. It is a lifestyle that Jesus not only finds pleasing, but one that he approves of.
Jesus Christ is the one leading the righteous person through life. It is Jesus who is making the decisions that the righteous person will follow. For the righteous believer, all his daily actions, everything that he thinks about, every decision that he makes, everything that he reads and looks at, will be done the same way that Our Lord would have done them. The true believer will know immediately whether something is right or wrong, just or unjust, godly or ungodly. How could the true believer not know that something is wrong when the Son of God is living within him?
Jesus Christ who is dwelling within the righteous person is communicating constantly with the person’s heart, conscience, soul and spirit. The Lord is not going to let the believer just wander into sin. Jesus Christ will be talking to the believer long before the sin is even thought about. And while this is going on the Holy Spirit will be hard at work doing his guiding and his warning. This is why when a righteous believer sins, it winds up being extremely painful, usually leaving the sinner with great sorrow. Sin for the righteous believer is never worth the pain and dishonor he knows that he has brought upon the Lord.
For the true believer, righteousness saturates every single aspect of his life. And every Godly believer knows that he has Jesus Christ living on the inside of him leading and guiding him. Psalms 11:7 “For the Lord is righteous; He loves righteousness; And the upright will behold His face”.
Hunger and thirst are appetites that return frequently and they require that they be met often during the day. Similarly the true believer calls for constant meals of righteousness to do his daily Godly work, just as the living body calls for its daily food. When a believer hungers and thirsts after righteousness he becomes a new man and this new man now bears the image of God. This new man greatly desires to do the will of God for he now has great interest in Christ and all that Christ said and promised.
To hunger and thirst after righteousness can only be perceived by persons spiritually enlightened, and who have our Lord Jesus Christ living and dwelling within them. This child of God not only has an earnest desire to fervently seek righteousness and thus lead a Godly life on a second to second basis, but he wants to be possessed by righteousness, he wants to constantly live in it, to be totally absorbed into it, to be completely saturated in righteousness, for he knows that this way of life is the Godly way of life. And a righteous life is what also fills the true believer with peace and joy. And because of their spiritual enlightenment they realize that nothing can be more perfect, more pure, and more pleasing to Our Heavenly Father then living a life that he totally approves of.
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