This is the sixth of an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes.
Each part features a hymn to a familiar tune.

Jesus’ fourth beatitude is this:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (Matthew 5:6, NASB)

We are not self-sufficient, self-contained beings.
We have needs outside ourselves:
food, water, and air,
shelter and security,
relationships and fellowship,
purpose and meaning,
knowledge and wisdom.

We are needy, and
the Source of all things is God.
We need God in absolutely every way.
We are inherently, completely, eternally, inescapably dependent on Him.

But we have broken our relationship.
We have turned away from Him and
have tried to supply our needs through other sources.
But all these sources are
secondary and shallow,
temporary and painfully inadequate.
We have aspired to be gods,
self-sufficient and
self-contained.
But we are not and
can never be.

This is especially true of our greatest need,
a need we rarely face and only vaguely realize:
We need help to be who we ought to be.
Our most desperate need is our inward weakness.
On our own, we cannot think or act as truth demands.
We sense this weakness,
but we don’t want to admit it to ourselves or to others.
We don’t grasp how broad it is or how deep it goes.
Our own will-power is no match for this weakness,
and none of our reasoning or acquired wisdom can enable us to conquer it.
We are deeply wrong, and
we cannot make ourselves right.

Father, You are completely right, and
we long to be right as You are right.
O God, we are hungry for it.
We are thirsty for it—
so
very
thirsty.
We’ve tried and tasted everything else, and nothing satisfies.
Nothing can touch this hunger, this thirst.
All that we’ve tried is like drinking dust:
it only makes us more thirsty.

Our God, we hear Your invitation:

Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost. (Isaiah 55:1, NASB)

We come to You.
We turn to You, thirsty for Your own Spirit to fill us.
Jesus said:

“If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive. (John 7:37-39, NASB)

As we come, we find that You are not far away.
Before we ever thought of coming to You,
You came to us.
You gave Yourself to us,
You who are the Living Bread.
Jesus said:

“I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” (John 6:35, NASB)

You Yourself are the Water of Life.
Jesus promised us this:

“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13-14, NASB)

Almighty God, our Creator, our Father,
You Yourself are what we long for.
You Yourself are what we need.
We hunger and thirst for Your rightness.
We hunger and thirst
for You.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: We Taste Your Life and Long for More
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics