No More Junk Food

Matthew 5:6 (KJV) Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

I have to confess there are times when I am hungry and begin to rustle through the kitchen for something to satisfy my longings. I don’t want to take the time to cook or make something complicated, I just want to eat. I will open the pantry, the refrigerator, look in the bread box, and cabinets but can find nothing to eat. Now we all know there was plenty to eat in those places but I didn’t want to go to the trouble. So, having gone through my exhaustive search I pull out the bag of candy and have a snack. It is just enough to relieve the hunger and trick my mind into thinking that I have eaten. Healthy? No way! Am I really full? Absolutely not! Will I be back in the kitchen looking for something? Before you can even ask the question.

Unfortunately, we are not only guilty of this with our physical eating habits but in so many other areas of our life as well. Commercials fill the air waves with “time saving” gimmicks that promise to make our lives easier and fulfill our needs. Being hungry or needing help and reaching out for the wrong thing will never truly satisfy. Instead we waste valuable time and effort on that which can give us only fleeting satisfaction.

When we hunger and thirst for righteousness there is a deep, yearning in our soul that cries out to be satisfied. Some try to fill that hunger with legalism and think that in their rules and regulations they will be filled. The Pharisees were caught in this trap and history tells us that they were never satisfied but had to always find new laws, new rules, new regulations to follow. None of these ever truly made them righteous. No human effort ever could.

Others tried to dismiss their hunger with excuses for their sinful behavior. Grace became an excuse to be unrighteous and no amount of grace applied could ever fill the longing to live right before God. Instead of becoming the satisfaction that God had meant for grace to be in the lives of men it became the opposite of what it was intended to be. They had frustrated the grace of God.

God’s law and His grace are both important parts of salvation. Used properly they can build us up in the faith and help to create a strong, healthy body. It’s important to remember that when we hunger and thirst for righteousness there is only one who is righteous, Jesus! We must take the time to gather all of the ingredients for this meal.

The Law is our school master that brings us to Christ.

Grace is the door wherein we can enter into this new life in Christ.

The Church is the means by which the Holy Spirit teaches us of Christ.

As we hunger and thirst for righteousness we must never forget that the main thing, the only thing that matters is Jesus! He put it this way,

“Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever." John 6:53-58

Hungry? Thirsty? Only Jesus can satisfy that longing down in your soul.