Sometimes the suffering you or I go through, is not for us at all but perchance for some one else. Sometimes we don’t even know where the prayers we send up may be directed. Sometimes the sins of another person will keep us in agony, and the one in sin may not be suffering at all. It may be the one who is praying is doing so in the other persons behalf and the other person doesn’t even know he is walking on shaky ground. A prayer may take a long time before it finally reaches it’s destination. But be assured, when one truly prays in the spirit someone will be affected.
This message has to do with righteousness, character, self -control, or discipline. Call it what you will, but it has to do with walking close to God. It has to do with fitness and preparation, before we are ready to carry the message with passion and power that Christ wants and expects of us. It must be dealt with before we can be considered a disciple: His follower.
It has to do with the fourth declaration of the beatitudes: the call to righteousness.
It would be nice to sit here and write about all my righteousness, the things I have accomplished, my good deeds, etc. But the truth is my righteousness is only filthy rags. However, one thing I am gradually learning is a hunger and thirst to find righteousness. Obviously, I will never reach it in this body, but it has become something that I long for. My body hungers and thirsts and my soul agonizes for this righteousness that can only come from God.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6
Notice that it is not the one who attains righteousness that is pronounced blessed, but the one who hungers and thirsts for it. God knows the real you. He sees the mixed impure motives behind your good deeds.
It is a great comfort to know that God meets us at the point of our aspirations, not at the point of all the supposed successes, superficial achievements and accomplishments that we have attained in our present state of mass confusion. He is far more interested in our intentions than any of our successes. No matter how far we fall short from perfect righteousness, God will reward us if we hunger and thirst for it. We will be filled.
“I am the bread of life,” Jesus said, “He who comes to me will never be hungry; he who believes in me will never be thirsty” John 6:35.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.
The reason for much of the disorder and conflict in our world can be traced back to someone settling for something less than God himself. The problem is not that we want too much, but rather we easily become satisfied with cheap substitutes of God, which in reality is idolatry.
Today we are threatened with many types of pollution. Water, air, and noise pollution threaten our physical environment. But it is the pollution in the heart that threatens our spiritual environment. It is contaminated by toxic substances like pride, covetousness, lust anger, gluttony, envy and sloth all deadly sins that contaminates our heart and blinds us to the presence of God.
Every time I begin a true search for righteousness, I fall short and come up empty. I am left wondering what I can do in my distress and agony to reach the heart of God. And the more I search, the more I realize just how far from the measure I really am. I can only turn to and scrutinize the words of our Master Teacher penned by the Apostle Paul:
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Romans 3:10-12
True righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Romans 3:22
How could on possibly improve on such profound and prolific measures.
Dock Caton 11/28/2011
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