"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
To put it simply, to live righteously is to live a life that is in line with what God requires of us. What does it mean to "hunger and thirst after righteousness"? It means to desire to live as God wants us to live in spite of all of the temptations around us. We know what hunger and thirst is, because we experience both every day of our lives. As children of God, we need to be careful what we hunger and thirst after. The world gives us a lot to satisfy our appetites. John pointed this out in 1 John 1:16: "For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." We need to ask ourselves what we have the greatest appetite for, what the world offers or what God offers? Understand, though, that it is not our righteousness that we hunger and thirst after, rather, it is the righteousness that is given to us by God. This righteousness is not only concerned with what we do not do, but with what we do as well. We have not done enough when we stop doing wrong things, we must also hunger and thirst to do right things. How can we live this kind of life in the midst of all of the temptations that we face? Well, there is a promise here that if we hunger and thirst after righteousness, we will be filled. Filled with what? We will be filled with the Holy Spirit, Who will help us to not do the things that we should not do and to do the things that we should do. Jesus promised that when He ascended to the Father, He would send the Holy Spirit to indwell and fill His people. What will He fill us with? Galatians 5:22-24 tells us: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23. Meekness temperance (self-control): against such there is no law." When we hunger and thirst after God's righteousness, His Spirit fills us with the things listed above. We are not living righteously if we are not filled with His love, His joy, His peace, etc. Is this the kind of life that we hunger and thirst after? This righteousness will not only make us better Christians, it will make us better human beings! Our aim should not be to be self-righteous, but to be filled with God's righteousness as spelled out in Galatians 5:22-24. Consider what you are filled with and then you will know whether you are truly "hungering and thirsting after righteousness." Bro. Joe
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“For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and He ponders all his goings.'”
Don’t you agree that it is a sobering thought that God sees everything that we do? That is what our text reveals. It is even goes on to say that “He ponders (our) goings.” This can also be translated the Lord “examines all our ways.” That is even more sobering – at least it is to me. Be honest, it is sobering to you too. (lol, or “oh me.”) What does God see in our lives? (I will use “you” with the understanding that I’m including myself.) Does God see you making excuses for making bad decisions? What I mean by this is, does God see you making decisions that are obviously not in His will for your life? A decision to sin is always a bad decision. We are faced with these decisions every hour on the hour, minute on the minute, or second on the second. Our eyes are bombarded with sinful scenes today everywhere we turn. That is why we need the leadership of the Holy Spirit every minute of the day. I do not mean that we need to obsess about this, but I mean that we need to stay prayed up and read up enough to turn our eyes, minds, and bodies from sinful decisions. (Don’t you agree that this makes us glad that God is a forgiving God?) This leads me to, instead of making excuses for bad decisions, let’s just ask for God’s forgiveness, accept His forgiveness be thankful that He does forgive. Does God see you making excuses for being quiet when you should speak up, and for talking when you should keep quiet. This is a two-edged sword. Let’s just say that there are times when we should speak up for Jesus, and then there are times that we should “shut up for Jesus.” We need to speak up when it is obvious that we can do some good; on the other hand, we need to shut up if what we say will only lead to a meaningless argument. Here again, we need to seek the leadership of the Holy Spirit, and speak up when He prompts us and stay quiet when He does not. We also need to pray that we will be wise enough to know the difference. I will deal briefly with this final point: Does God see you making excuses for bad behavior. There is bad behavior that is just plain old sin, and there is bad behavior that may not be sinful but is useless, and doesn’t do any good. Hey, you know what bad behavior is….stay away from it. (Please understand that I mean me too!!) Amen, Selah, and oh me. Bro. Joe “But you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you: and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
This was a promise and challenge that Jesus gave His disciples just before He ascended to the Father. It was a promise of power to witness, but it was also a promise for every aspect of Christian living. I want to share with you some areas of our lives that we receive the power of the Spirit. Acts 1:8 promises the power to witness. The first way that we witness is to live the Christian life, and be lights in the darkness. When we speak to someone about Christ, we are promised the power of the Holy Spirit. We are not doing this on our own, and we are to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit. He knows those to whom we should witness, and again, we need to follow His leadership. We receive the promise to live the abundant life that Jesus promised in John 10:10: “The thief comes to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” The Holy Spirit is present in our lives to enable us to live the Christian life. He gives us the victory over the sins that easily cause us only heartache and loss. I know that I can look back on my life and wish that I had followed the leadership of the Spirit. I have a feeling that I am not alone in this regret. The abundant life is to live for Jesus, serving Him in the gifts that the Holy Spirit has given us. I cannot possibly tell you all that the abundant life involves, but I want to share a text with you that will give you a good idea of what the abundant life is like. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) I think that you will agree that these “fruits” or gifts would result in abundant life. We have received the power to overcome. We have received the power to overcome Satan and his many temptations. We have been given the power to overcome sin. Sin destroys our lives and keeps us from really living the abundant life. The Spirit enables us to refuse to be overcome by sin. We have received the power to overcome ourselves. This power is important. Most trouble caused in Christian fellowship in churches by many members have not overcome their own self-importance. Believe me I understand this temptation in my own life. Perhaps you need to understand and see this tendency in your own life. This article falls far short in detailing the importance of Holy Spirit living in our lives. I hope that you read something that will help you to effectively live the Christian life. Bro. Joe “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil…”
This prayer that Jesus taught us to pray helps us deal with inevitable temptations and gives us the promise of deliverance from them. We are introduced to temptation in the beginning of the Bible with Adam and Eve. A temptation is a test that we have to deal with in daily life. Satan will put us to the test in all kinds of circumstances. We need to recognize Satan’s presence when we are tempted to do something that we know is wrong. Satan will make it look inviting as though we have to do what he is tempting us to do. There is no limit to the temptations that Satan will put in our way. Furthermore, we do not have to wonder if Satan is going to tempt us. There is no human being in the world that will not have to face temptation. We just need to recognize when he is tempting us to do wrong. Some things we are tempted to do, or not do, do not always appear as evil. Satan is good, or should say bad, at that. Perhaps, you are dealing with a temptation now, something that you really want to do. Read on: Jesus told us that when we face temptation, we should ask for His deliverance: “deliver us from evil…” This means that we do not have to fold in to the temptations that we face, for deliverance is available through the Lord. When Jesus was tempted in Matthew 4, He met each temptation with quotes from scripture. In Ephesians 6:16, Paul gave some guidance on meeting and being delivered from temptation: “In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one.” Jesus delivers us from temptation through scripture, faith and prayer. I don’t think that I have told you anything that you did not know, but these are tools of deliverance that we should actually use in meeting daily temptations and our deliverance from them. Deliverance does not come from our strength, but by the strength of the Lord. Jesus is bigger than any temptation that we might meet, and we need to hide behind Him. He sincerely means to deliver us from evil. He actually died on the cross in order to give us the strength to overcome temptation. He has sent the Holy Spirit to live within us to give us the strength that we need for deliverance. The good news is that we are not defenseless in our encounters with temptation and with evil. We need to use the faith and power that only the Lord can give us. Deliverance from temptation is abundantly available through Jesus. Bro. Joe “I know, O Lord that a man’s life is not his own; it is not for man to direct his steps.”
It is difficult for we successful Americans to admit that our lives are not "our own." But in our Christian walk we have to come to that conclusion, for we serve a Lord who wants to direct our steps. Why should we not direct our own steps? First, we are not smart enough to direct our own steps, at least not as smart as the Lord, who sees everything in our lives, including where we step in life. It is sort of like driving in the fog, we probably know the route, but we can’t see the pitfalls along the way because of the fog. Satan is in the “fog" business. He likes to blind our eyes to what the Lord wants of us. We need to prayerfully seek the Lord’s guidance in order to “clear the fog.” The Lord knows where our best steps should be made. Satan knows where the worst stops are and he is a master at making them look good and inviting. Before you make your life’s crucial steps, make sure they are in line with the Lord’s direction for you. Second we are not alert enough. It is not humanly possible for us to know where all of Satan’s snares are. Peter gave the classic warning to us about this in 1Peter 5:8-9: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 9. Resist him, standing firm in the faith…” Through the Lord’s leadership, we will know where the pitfalls of the “roaming devil” are, and will lead us away from them. Paul wrote about this in 1 Corinthians 10:13: “No temptation has seized you but it common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear.” The key is that we look for the Lord to direct our steps away from the pitfalls. Third, we are not holy enough. I don’t want to criticize your spirituality, but no person is holy enough to stay out of Satan’s way. Satan knows every step that we take, and he knows what our weaknesses are and he will lead us in the direction of our weaknesses. You don’t need to guess how I know this! We need to be spiritually alert enough to know what our weaknesses are and when we are being led in their direction. We will know this when we seek the Lord’s direction and ask Him to direct our steps. David probably never expected to commit adultery with Bathsheba, nor did he expect to have her husband killed – but he did. This man that was called “a man after God’s own heart” was caught in a weak moment and Satan moved in and trapped him. When we least expect it, Satan will put temptation in front of us, and we will need the Lord’s direction to avoid it. We need to watch our step because we need the Lord’s help in making the right steps. Bro. Joe “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” 37. “Nay we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.”
When things go wrong, as we know that they will, what are we to think? Is God mad at us? Has God forgotten us? Observe the word of God: “All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.” Further: “We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.” The adverb “together” covers a lot of events in our lives. Through all of the “togethers” we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.” We need to remember this when we are going through those seemingly impossible temptations that we encounter. (Remember that “through God all things are possible.”) Let’s look at some of the greatest temptations that people face today. Could it be the sin of pornography? We are told that church people are affected by this as well as those outside of the church. It is so available, that all people, even children, can watch it. If this has a grasp on your life, remember that in Christ you are more than a conqueror. Could it be the sin of alcoholism? The brain and cells can be so saturated by alcohol that it seems to be a necessity. Remember that you are more than a conqueror if you will turn it over to Christ. Could it be the temptation of sexual lust? Sex is a gift from God, but we know that we can turn it to nefarious purposes. There is no end of the temptations that we face, but through Christ, God has made it possible for us to be forgiven and live in victory. There is an answer for us to help us overcome life’s temptations found in James 4:7-8: “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands you double minded.” This does not mean that we can mouth the words in seeking forgiveness and healing, Notice it says “Submit yourselves therefore to God.” After submission to God comes the power to resist the devil. He flees due to the authority of Christ in your life, not through your own power. In the process you are to “draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.” It is in this process that God is “working all things together” in our lives to give us victory. We are not helpless pawns in the hands of Satan. Jesus gives us victory through His blood and His forgiveness. Seek Him! Bro. Joe “A prudent (wise) person sees the evil, and hides himself; but the simple (foolish) pass on and are punished.” KJV “The prudent see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and suffer for it.” NIV
The teaching in this proverb is that a wise person knows when to stop when he, or she, sees danger. I thought of some ways that we can apply this lesson to our lives. When we face temptations to sin, we need to stop, pray, and ask Jesus to give us the wisdom and the moral strength to stop instead of going on to our hurt. A foolish person will plunge into sin without giving a thought to what the result might mean in his, or her, life. Once we give in to Satan, we do not have an “undo button” to erase bad decisions. We can thank God that Jesus will forgive us, but there will be scars. I heard Dr. R.G. Lee give an illustration of the effect of sin in our lives: He said that you can pull a nail out of a fence post, but there will be a blemish in the post where you pull it out. Perhaps the Lord has led you to this article to help you say “no” to temptation and not plunge into sin. We need to stop, think and pray when we are going through the inevitable trials of life. If we are not careful, we will give in to the temptation to blame God for the trial. If we are not careful, we will give in to self-pity. I can tell you from experience that “pity parties’ do not result in any good. Every moment that we spend giving in to self-pity is a wasted moment. I think of people who just go through life feeling sorry for themselves, making their own lives miserable, and making everybody around them miserable. A prudent, or wise, person will stop, think and pray and ask God to be with him, or her, through the trial. When we do that, we come out spiritually and mentally stronger than when we give in to life’s inevitable trials. We need to stop, think and pray when we are dealing with difficult people. After fifty-six years in Christian ministry, I know a little about dealing with difficult.people. I found that if I would stop and pray for them, I would not give in to an argument. I have learned at least four things in my experience with difficult people: (1) There are some people who are just difficult and you have to love and accept them as they are. (2)I have learned that God has brought difficult people into my life to teach me to be patient. (3)I have learned that some of these people are trying to teach me something about myself. (This is the most difficult one to take.) (4) I have learned to stop, think and pray when I might be the difficult person. (This is another hard one to take.) I guess I could list many more lessons that I have learned from this proverb, but the three that I have dealt with here will give us all something to work on for the rest of our lives. Bro. Joe “Then I went down to the potter’s house and there I will cause you to hear my words. 4. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter.”
The question is: Will God use broken vessels? According to what Jeremiah wrote in the text above, He will. The gist of what Jeremiah wrote was that when a nation, or as in our case, an individual, goes against God and repents they can be used of God again. There are many people who do not feel that they can be of use to God because of past transgressions. This might be an excuse on their part not to serve the Lord, or it might be that they genuinely feel that they are unusable. One thing is certain; if they have repented they can be used again, just like the marred pottery in Jeremiah 18:4. This would include you and me. We forget that God’s forgiveness is complete and if our confession and repentance was genuine, God has forgiven it and expects us to forgive ourselves. This doesn’t mean that there will not be scars, but scars are a sign of healing. I want to use some examples from the Bible of how God used “broken vessels.” Of course you know that David comes to mind. In one of his sermons in Antioch in Acts 13:22 Paul wrote: “And when He had removed (Saul) he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom He also gave testimony and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill my will.” The point is that David’s sin did not disqualify him from being recognized as God’s servant. Paul obviously wrote this many years after David died. In fact, Jesus referred to Himself as the “root and offspring of David” in revelation 22:17. If you know the rest of the story about David, you know that things did not go easy for him after his sin with Bathsheba, but he was still used of God after that, and was well-spoken of in the Bible. Another person who comes to mind is Simon Peter. The person with even a minimal knowledge of the New Testament knows that Peter denied Jesus. Before Jesus’ arrest, Peter had declared that, in essence, he would defend Jesus with his own life. Of course you know that when it came time to stand up for Jesus he didn’t do it, but he denied even knowing Jesus. Surely, God couldn’t use such a person as this. But in events after His resurrection, Jesus challenged Peter to “feed my sheep…” On the Day of Pentecost, after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter stood and preached a bold sermon about Jesus and His resurrection and three-thousand people were won to Jesus. God used this “broken vessel” to win many people to Himself. We think of Paul as a mighty man of God who wrote a third of the New Testament and started many churches. But we need to remember that before his conversion on the Damascus Road, Paul had been the number one enemy of Christ’s church in Jerusalem, and sought to go beyond that, but God intervened and he was saved on the Damascus Road. Paul never forgot that he had persecuted the church, and actually referred to himself as “the chief of sinners,” but no one can doubt that this “broken vessel” was used mightily of the Lord. That brings us to you and me. If you are like me, you can’t claim to have lived a faultless life. You might not consider yourself a “broken vessel” but you are a “sinner saved by grace.” Some of you reading this might describe yourself as a “broken vessel,” but like the piece of pottery in Jeremiah 18:4 you can be “made over” and be used of God. Don’t give up on yourself, and certainly don’t give up on God. Bro. Joe “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
We do not read far into the Bible before we discover that evil is going to be a problem for all of mankind, and womankind, lest women feel left out. In fact, we don’t get more than three chapters into Genesis before we see evil raise its ugly head. Evil is present because of on evil personage – the devil. All you have to do to spell devil is to add a d to evil. We have to deal with evil from the time we are born until we leave this earth. Paul knew that evil could overcome us, so he exhorted us to overcome evil with good. The first thing we need to know about evil is that it does not look like our concept of evil. We think of evil as something ugly and deranged. Even pictures of our concept of the devil show him to be an ugly red creature with horns and a pitchfork. That concept is not what we find in the Bible. Paul wrote about Satan in 2 Corinthians 11:14: “And no marvel: for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.” The devil is smart enough to not make evil look bad, in fact, it sometimes looks very good. Think of how the old serpent Satan made the forbidden fruit look to Eve. It was almost as if she had to have that fruit to find fulfillment in life. No, evil does not always resemble what we call evil. The pornography industry is making billions of dollars by making evil look good. I am reminded of a country song that was on the charts in the 1970’s, entitled “It Don’t Feel Like Sinning to Me.” The song was about a woman who was having an illicit affair and since it didn’t feel like sinning, it was alright. Go ahead and confess that evil does not always, or rarely, look like our concept of evil. To be fore warned is to be forearmed. The second thing we need to know about evil is that we will always have to deal with it. The devil would not leave Jesus alone, and he certainly will not leave us alone. He tempted Jesus to do his bidding on what we have come to call “The Mount of Temptation.” In one of the temptations, he told Jesus to behold all of the kingdoms of the world, and he would give them to him if Jesus would fall down and worship him. Aren’t we glad that Jesus refused to do his bidding!!!! Perhaps the devil thought that this was a weakness within Jesus. It wasn’t a weakness within Jesus, but it is within us. The devil knows our every weakness and he will play on our weaknesses all day long. That is why we need to bathe our days in prayer. I’m not sharing something here that I have heard about; rather; I am sharing something that I know firsthand all too well. He loves to destroy the witness of a Christian, and he does it all of the time. The third thing we need to know about evil is to share Paul’s admonition in this verse pertaining to evil, i.e., “overcome evil with good.” One way we can interpret this is that if the devil tempts us to dislike, or hate, someone we should make every effort to love them. I will warn you that the devil will not make this easy. Another way to interpret it is that if you want to say something hurtful and spiteful to someone, instead say something kind and uplifting. Again, this will not be easy. I could go on and on giving illustrations of how we can overcome evil with good, because there is no limit to the ways that we can do this. Jesus told us that when people say ugly things to us we should bless them instead of react in kind. I don’t know about you, but this has been a hard lesson for me, and I still have to work on it. I guess that the best thing to say is that when our minds turn toward evil we should turn them toward good, and depend on Jesus to get us through it. Become aware of the evil around you and overcome it with good. Bro. Joe I had always known that I had a spleen, but I had never given it a lot of thought. I probably knew its function back in the late fifties when I was a Navy Hospital Corpsman, but that was a long time ago. When I had my recent colon surgery the doctor told me that he couldn't get my spleen to stop bleeding, so he had to remove it along with the cancer. That's when I learned that I wish I had my spleen back. It is part of our immune system. I've got to be careful about being around people with communicable diseases. That means that I will no longer scoff at things like flu and pneumonia shots. I've even had a meningitis shot. Why am I taking your time to write about my spleen? It occurred to me yesterday that we do not have a spiritual spleen; therefore, we need to get immunized against spiritual diseases. God has provided some things to immunize us against the devil. First, there is the word of God - the Bible. (Here I go again telling you to read your Bible.) We can't help but be out in the world around all of its temptations and we need to read and know the word of God to help in our defense. Even Jesus used the word of God to combat Satan during his forty day temptation. Second, there is prayer. We need the protection of prayer every moment of every day. Prayer will prepare us to meet the temptations that we will inevitably face. Third, there is the fellowship of the saints. We need to be accountable to somebody and our fellow Christians can help us overcome temptation. If we know that we have to give account to someone, we will be more careful about what we do. Fourth, there is the armor of God that Paul writes about in Ephesians 6. Among other things, he writes about the belt of the gospel of truth, the breastplate of righteousness and the shield of faith. All of these help to keep us immune to Satan's great ploys. (Read Ephesians 6:10-20 to get the full picture.) God has given ways of escape. Like I now have to take flu and pneumonia, etc. shots seriously for my physical health, we need to take seriously the things that God has given us to maintain spiritual health. There are many more of these spiritual "shots" but these should suffice to help us stay well.
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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