Page 41 - Prophetic Word Newsletter Archive 2011

~MAY 2011~ 41

PART FIVE OF

THE BEATITUDES:

“BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO

“THE AND FOR
PERSON HIS
WHO FOR , HUNGRY
LABORS, MOUTH
LABORS FOR THEY DRIVES
FOR SHALL BE FILLED” HIM
HIMSELF, ON.”
Matt. 5:6
Prov 16:26

“HUNGER and THIRST” are two powerful driving forces in man that must be continually and
repeatedly satisfied. It has been estimated that a healthy man can survive about four days without any
water intake and perhaps thirty to forty days without absorbing any solid food. Jesus’ illustration here in
the Beatitudes of a people hungering and thirsting after something other than the necessity of food and
water is quite purposeful. It is an admonition for us as followers of Christ to apply such basic, ongoing
driving forces as “hunger and thirst” to things beyond the physical needs. After Jesus fasted forty days
and forty nights, the Scripture records, “…afterward He was hungry” (Matt. 4:2). It was at this pinnacle of
near-death hunger that Satan sought to tempt Jesus, as the Son of God, with the command to turn
stones into bread (Matt. 4:3). In other words, make the demands of the physical realm to be more
important priorities than that of the spiritual. Jesus responded:

“IT IS WRITTEN, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE BY BREAD ALONE,
BUT BY EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS FROM THE MOUTH OF GOD.’”

Matt. 4:4

This fourth Beatitude identifies what spiritual goal God would have us to pursue with the same intensity
that ”hunger and thirst” produces in the physical realm. We are to hunger and thirst for
RIGHTEOUSNESS. As hunger and thirst is not a one-time necessity in life, neither is the kind of
righteousness spoken of as a Beatitude a one time event. Righteousness is not only an initial GIFT of
Christ, but it is also presented as an ongoing FRUIT in the life of the believer. It is this continual
development of the fruit of righteousness for which we are to “hunger and thirst” with great intensity.