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

Many times the words of the Savior appears to be so simple and easy to understand, but since they are often given as mental pictures we are sometimes satisfied with the first meaning of the teaching that comes to mind.

Most people understand this teaching to mean that we must desire to be righteous. And really, how can this be wrong? But is it the one and only layer of knowledge that Jesus intended to convey with this short sentence? A few hundred years earlier, Jesus, as Jehovah, had said to Amos:

11 Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: (Amos 8:11)

Surely, people who in the midst of this famine want to hear the words of the Lord are truly hungering and thirsting for righteousness. But did you ever ask yourself why Jesus didn't just say Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness: for they shall be filled? Why did he use both hunger and thirst?

To hunger after righteousness is to devour the words of the gospel as we find them in the Holy Scriptures. The words of God and his Prophets, and of Jesus and his Apostles, are right there, for most people in the civilized world very easy to come by, yet there are so few who with the appetite of youth approaches this table, as it were, to partake of the nourishment upon it. To thirst after righteousness is even more acute than to hunger. Though both food and drink is essential for survival, death comes quicker by the lack of water.

To thirst after righteousness is to desire the testimony of the Holy Ghost. As we read the words of the Holy Scriptures we let our hunger lead us to the meal of righteousness. But our hunger should not be appeased by this. Filled with the facts from the Scriptures we should thirst after the wonderful confirmation of the Spirit. Not until the Holy Spirit testifies to the soul of man is he truly filled by all he has read and felt, and the promise of Jesus is fulfilled.

Those who are opposite seek the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and bask in the pride of life.