“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
I released mankind from the heavy burden of sin by giving you the gift of righteousness, My righteousness, in Christ Jesus your Lord. Yes, righteousness is a gift from Me received by faith. It is a gift won by the One who died to set you free from sin and shame, remorse and blame, to a life of beauty, peace, and honor before Me. It is of Me that you are in Christ Jesus and I have made Him wisdom to you and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, not by your own works of righteousness but by His so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” 1 Corinthians 1:30.
Moses told the people, “It will be righteousness for us if we are careful to observe all this commandment before the LORD our God, just as He commanded us.” Deuteronomy 6:25. But after Jesus died for your sins and I raised Him for your justification, Paul proclaimed the good news that, “Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Jesus, forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is made righteous (the word in the Greek language in which the New Testament was written is “dikaioó (δικαιόω),” meaning to be declared righteous as a legal act) from all things, from which you could not be made righteous through the Law of Moses.” Acts 13:38.
And this is seen with the eyes of your heart, as it is a change that takes place in your heart (spirit) when you put your faith in Jesus your Lord. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” Romans 10:9-10. In Christ Jesus I offer you the gift of My righteousness so that in Christ you are starting your walk with Me where the work of the Law, which was to become righteous by obeying every one of My laws without fault, was accomplished. In other words you are starting your race to your destiny at the finish line of the Law. And I gave you that advantage in Christ Jesus.
And that is the next Beatitude in the Sermon on the Mount we are studying today: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6. Filled to the attainment of perfect complete righteousness. “God made Jesus who knew no sin to be sin on your behalf, so that you might become the righteousness of God in Him.” 2 Corinthians 5:21. And there is no righteousness higher, purer, or equal to Mine and in Jesus I have given it to you. “Planted in the house of the LORD, they will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green, to declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Psalm 92:13-15. Do not ignore so great a salvation that is so easy to receive though it cost Jesus every drop of His blood and suffering for you the chastisement of the divine wrath upon sin.
Those who had hearts towards Me under the Old Covenant hungered and thirsted for righteousness but no matter how hard they worked for it, they always would slip into sin and fall back into unrighteousness. And at that time, the remedy was to offer the burnt offering, the sin offering, the peace offering and the guilt offering to cover that sin but it did not remove it and cleanse it out, but that was only for those whose sins were unintentional.
By treasuring My Word in their hearts, many became very close to walking in righteousness, such as Jacob’s son Joseph and Daniel. But David who had many temptations around him, after his sin with Bathsheba, wrote, “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.” Psalm 51:1-2. He was hungering and thirsting for the gift of righteousness before Me and he knew he could not do it on his own. I had to do it. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10. And his longing, “How blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit!” Psalm 32:2.
He was crying out for a savior. Like Paul, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Romans 7:21-25. And the conclusion? “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1-4.
You were all, through Adam, taken captive by his sin so that death came to all men through him. He corrupted the seed from imperishable to perishable and your spirits were dead to Me and alive to sin. “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:4-7.
This fulfilled the prophecy I spoke to Ezekiel, “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” Ezekiel 36:25-27. And also My prophecies to Jeremiah, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the LORD, “When I will raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and succeed, and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The LORD our righteousness.’” Jeremiah 23:5-6. And also, “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31:33-35; Hebrews 8:1-13; Hebrews 10:17.
Righteousness is now the beginning point of those who have received Jesus as Lord. For if anyone is in Christ by faith, then he is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” 2 Corinthians 5:17. It is from there, forgetting what lies behind, that you press on to your high calling in Christ. “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10.
You have now the righteousness for which those under the Law of Moses hungered and thirsted for, trying somehow to attain it on their own. But now like faithful Abraham, your faith has been credited to you as righteousness. In Jesus, I have cleansed and purified you from all stain of sin and filled you with My grace, My own divine life, so that sin no longer can reign over you. I have filled you with My nature and righteousness.
When you were baptized into Christ, I clothed you in Christ with the garments of salivation and the robe of righteousness. “I will rejoice greatly in the LORD and My soul will exult in my God! For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Isaiah 61:10. The bride of Christ, you are now a member of the Church, the body of Christ on earth.
Live the story I wrote for your life while you were still forming in your mother’s womb. Adam and Eve were created righteous in My image and according to My likeness, but they left their story in Me to write their own story and lost the glory so naked they be, striped of the robe of righteousness, confined to their own in their knowledge of good and evil, the fruit that brought death to their relationship with Me. But in Jesus, I clothed you in My glory once more, clothed in Christ with the garments of salvation and the robe of righteousness, and now you can live the true story for your life that I had written from eternity. And that is the parable of the prodigal son.
“For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:17.
I love you. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled to overflowing with My very own righteousness. You are with Me always in Christ and everything I have is yours, including My righteousness.
For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. For Moses writes that the man who practices the righteousness which is based on law shall live by that righteousness. But the righteousness based on faith speaks as follows: “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. Romans 10:4-10.