Hi reader, it’s been a while since I last posted. I have been busy with many different things and haven’t really had the time to continue writing but I still want to continue this blog and this series. Going through this series has been a great joy for me in reminding myself firstly what a joy it is to study the Bible, to be able to read various passages of the Bible and just pull so much out of it. The other thing that this series has really done for me is that it has shown me what kind of culture kingdom culture is supposed to be. Now I say this because in Jesus’ sermon on the Mount, he speaks so much about what he has called his people to be like and the blessings at the beginning of the sermon are exactly that, Jesus has shown that his people are those that see that they are poor in spirit, they see that there is something wrong. Jesus shows that his people are those who see the wrong of the world and allow it to grieve them, to make them mourn and they are not prideful in seeing what is wrong and they stay humble. Now in the next part of the blessing, I want to look at what the response is to the corrupt world in humility that the people of Christ are called to have

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness

Now looking at this statement of who’s blessed the one thing that stands out firstly is that Jesus says “hunger and thirst”, this implies that the thing which these people want is not there but this is not just like a passive, they want it to happen, it is a strong desire that they have that they long to see come to pass. The question then needs to be asked “What exactly is righteousness?” Now if you grew up in church like I did then this is a very common word to hear you may have heard things like, “God is righteous”, “Jesus makes us righteous” and various others. Now to be honest I’ve heard this word a lot but I didn’t always know what it meant, to me it was just another Christian word that people throw around. I find that in many cases there are things that those of us who grew up in church heard so much that we just get used to hearing it and we think we get it but then when we actually go and find out what it means we realise that we were missing out on so much depth of what is going on, this may just be me but if you do identify with me in this it’s good to know that I am not alone. Looking back to the word ‘righteous’ we can see that the word that Jesus is using here as righteousness refers to being in right standing. This would make a lot of sense when we say things like “Jesus made us righteous”, this would be referring to how Jesus brought us into right standing with God

With this, we then look back to who Jesus is talking to. These people are those who don’t have much power, they may have been the less privileged in society and so when Jesus says this it resonates with them, many of them may have been mistreated and they would want justice, they would want to see things placed into their proper standing. Jesus shows them that this righteousness which his people seek will be found in him, this points to a kingdom where righteousness is a core tenant, that the people of Christ seek for righteousness to come and they find their source of the stand of righteousness through Christ. Jesus tells them that they will be satisfied in their longing for righteousness, he shows that it is not a passive longing but rather a longing that can be and will be fulfilled. Now bringing this back to current society we see that this is still something that holds true today, the people of Christ still need to hunger and thirst for righteousness, it is not something that stopped then. In my own generation righteousness and justice a big topics, it is something that many of us hunger and thirst for but I find that our satisfaction for it is not being met in Christ but rather in seeing others whom we deem as evil bear the shame and consequence of their actions. Now what should happen to people who commit evil brings out another whole long topic but what I do want to bring up in this short time is that we need to first go to Christ to find our satisfaction in it, he is the one that needs to be at the root of it all, the one to whom we hold as the one above all.