This is a great and frightening parable which I only fully appreciated when I found it included in a book when i was studying psychology at London University. If a new Christian does not fill his life with the things of God his life will become filled with worse things than were there before his conversion! So it is essential that from the very moment that we are converted that we immediately start to fill our lives with those "things which are of good report."
"Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ!" 2 Peter 3:8.
For the promise is that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled to satisfaction.
Have you ever been REALLY hungry? In our affluent world many people are actually starving, but for most of us to be really hungry would be an unusual experience!
When I was a lad I heard on Victory night that for the first time in years Edinburgh Castle was to be floodlit. I really wanted to see it! Edinburgh was almost fifty miles away, and the only way that I could get there was on my bike, an up-market bedstead on wheels that needed constant oiling, like the tinman in the Wizard of Oz. So I carried an oil can wherever I went! I set out late in the evening, my mother having packed sandwiches and put them in my saddlebag, and halfway across Scotland I felt a little hungry only to find that my leaking oil can had saturated my sandwiches. My first reaction was to throw them over a hedge. My second instinct was to keep them. The castle was all I had ever dreamed. I gazed at it like a glass fairy castle floating in the clouds. Then I went on to my ever-faithful Aunt Kate who lived ten miles beyond Edinburgh. Only to find the family was all on holiday. I was STARVING! And ate my oil drenched sandwiches! I have never been so hungry - before or since!
Jesus says that being really starving for righteousness is the only way! Growing in grace is the long haul motivation of the Christian life at every stage. The newest convert can aspire after righteousness. The oldest veteran must! If we give up we lose out!
But what is RIGHTEOUSNESS? It is a word that defies description outside its setting. Some dictionaries define it as "Upright".
Jesus spoke of a Pharisee who, if nothing else, was an upright man. He was not unjust, did not practice extortion, did not commit adultery, and gave conscientiously to his church! But it was the man who was crying "God be merciful to me, a sinner" who went down to his house justified. The comparison is not clear cut. Jesus did not say that the tax collector was righteous, just that he had a head start on the man who was upright!
I have heard of an upright agnostic, even an upright atheist. But I have never heard of a righteous agnostic - or a righteous atheist either!
The Collins dictionary is a secular
dictionary and describes `upright' in two words, `honest and just'.
But when it defines `righteous' it adds the word Godly. The watershed
is `Godly'.
Even in the Bible the word righteous has varying shades of meaning from the sense of being made right with God - justified - to a quality of character of being holy.
Jesus is described as righteous. "We have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." 1 John 2:1.
Noah is described as righteous. "God spared not the angels...but saved Noah, a preacher of righteousness." Peter 2:5.
Zacharias and his wife Elizabeth are described as righteous. "They were both righteous before the Lord walking in all the commands and ordinances of the Lord blameless." Luke 1:6.
Righteousness is for all who seek it. "Let no man deceive you, he that does righteousness is righteous!" 1 John 3:7.
Righteousness is a command! "Live soberly, righteously, and Godly in this present world!" Titus 2:12.
James tells us that God honours righteousness in His people. "The prayer of a righteous man avails much!" James 5:16.
Over 40 Psalms speak of righteousness, of which we will share three samples.
"The righteous Lord loves righteousness."
Psalm 11.67
"Blessed is he that does righteousness."
Psalm 106:3.
"Open to me the gates of righteousness;
I will go into them and praise the Lord." Psalm 118:19.
So also do no less than seventy Proverbs, of which we share two.
"The righteousness of the upright
shall deliver them." Proverbs 11:6.
"Righteousness exalts a nation."
Proverbs 14:34.
If we obey what Jesus described as the first and greatest commandment to "love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind" (Matthew 23:37) we are counted as righteous before the Lord.
The chorus from one of our musicals says
"To be like Jesus this hope possesses me...in every thought and deed....this is my aim and creed...His Spirit helping me...like Him I'll be!"
Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness.... for they shall be filled!
