Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled.  

How do you add water to a river in flood? How do you add righteousness to unlimited righteousness? Answer:  you don’t.  The point being that in this statement Jesus wasn’t encouraging us to try to  increase in righteousness through our own efforts.  His shed Blood declares us holy and nothing we can do can add to or improve what has already been fully supplied for us.  Hungering and thirsting for righteousness therefore has nothing to do with the religious observance of rules, Old Testament laws, or denominational traditions.   

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Cor. 5:21 

So what’s it all about? 

Righteousness is foundational to God’s own character (Ps. 89:14).  In the same way  a river runs to the sea and becomes absorbed in its greater being, this hungry, thirsty Bride fervently desires to be lost in God.  This is not desiring to be like God, nor asking ‘what would Jesus do?”.  It is instead to be so thoroughly consumed with Christ, who is called the Righteous (1 John 2:1), that our greatest desire is to become emptied so God can fill us with His Son.   

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. John 6:35 

This is the Bride with dove’s eyes (SOS. 1:15).  Doves are single-eyed;  whatever they focus on has their full and undivided attention.  This is the Bride who is no longer being distracted by the world or controlled by events around her because she has  glimpsed the Bridegroom and He has captured her heart.  Her will is becoming lost in His will, her life absorbed into His Life.  She has become single eyed.   

The fruit of this Bridegroom/Bride communion is goodness, but not the world’s idea of goodness.  Goodness as the world defines it is based on charitable works and “good” deeds that society deems worthy, usually rewarded with some form of acknowledgement or recognition.  But Kingdom goodness is powered by Christ’s own righteousness flowing out through laid down, hungry, thirsty, surrendered vessels.   

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.Ps. 17:15

Stay tuned for more Bride-Atudes!

 © Cheryl McGrath, Bread for the Bride, 2012

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