##### Special Study 15/04/2013

# ABUNDANT PROVISION FOR THE THIRSTY

#### Matthew 5:6

Christ's teaching on the Mount began when He saw in the multitudes their need of the saving revelation of God (Matthew 5:1; 9:36; Mark 6:34). Christ was moved with compassion on the people He saw. Apparently, they lacked the strength, energy and sustaining grace to live the Kingdom life and so He taught them. Jesus said, ' Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. '

The fourth beatitude is, ' Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled ' (Matthew 5:6). The judgement of God on earth and the fear of eternal judgement make the inhabitants of the world to seek and desire righteousness (Isaiah 26:9). Jesus reveals that we, as believers, can be filled with righteousness. And this happens when we are passionate for it. It is possible to be full of righteousness. It is possible to be full, to be filled with (1) the fruits of righteousness (Philippians 1:11), (2) joy (Acts 13:52), (3) goodness and knowledge (Romans 15:14), (4) desired physical blessings (Mark 7:27-30), (5) wisdom and spiritual understanding (Colossians 1:9), (6) the Holy Ghost (Acts 4:31), (7) the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:19). There is no limit to the infilling and fulness of any true believer who is really thirsty for God.

####### 1. THE GREAT PASSION OF THE THIRSTY

######### Matthew 5:6; Psalms 42:1,2; 63:1,8; 84:2; 143:4-6.

' Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness …. ' Hunger and thirst, in the natural, are indicative desires that show you are alive and not dead. Though you might not be saturated yet, but when you hunger and thirst after righteousness, it shows that you are spiritually alive.

True spiritual yearning and thirst for God's righteousness moves the believer into the action of prayer, and into places where he can be satisfied. ' As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God ?' (Psalm 42:1, 2). The spiritually alive manifests a longing, a passion and a desire to possess the nature of God. Like the hart, when your longing for the sustaining water of life is a consuming one, you will leave everything you do to seek it and run after it. Physical thirst has the power to redirect your thoughts, imagination and feelings and get them focused on the possible solution. Then, you passionately seek to satisfy that quest. So also is hunger for righteousness. When the thirst or hunger for righteousness is in you, material things, friends, people, opportunities and privileges will not be important to you at that moment.

Why are many people so indifferent to spiritual things? They are not thirsty and hungry for them because they are satisfied without the river of life. Even when God wants to fill them with His righteousness, He does not find them thirsty. How can they be made thirsty? It is by waking them from spiritual deadness through salvation and restoration. The passion of the thirsty is an (i) individual desire, (ii) internal desire, (iii) intense desire, (iv) increasing desire, (v) incomparable desire, (vi) interminable desire, and (vii) instructive/influential desire.

####### 2. GOD'S PROMISE TO THE THIRSTY

######### Matthew 5:6; Isaiah 44:3; 41:17,18; 55:1-3; Psalms 37:3,4; 21:1,2; 145:16-18; Hebrews 10:22,23.