How’s Your Appetite?
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“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
—Matthew 5:6
Have you ever been so hungry that you felt like you were starving? Or so parched and dehydrated that you would do just about anything for a sip of water?
Hunger and thirst are not mild desires. They are persistent and desperate. They create an intense longing that presses us toward what we believe will satisfy them.
Is it any wonder that Jesus uses hunger and thirst to describe the heart that longs for righteousness?
What we want deeply enough eventually shows up in the way we live. It captures our thoughts. It influences our choices. We find time for it, return to it, and sacrifice for it. Often, our ordinary habits reveal our deepest desires long before we ever put them into words.
Jesus shows us that one of the defining desires of life in His kingdom is a deep hunger and thirst for righteousness. To understand why, look at the Beatitudes that come before it.
The poor in spirit know they are utterly dependent upon God. Those who mourn grieve sin and the devastation it has brought into our lives and the world. The meek have surrendered their insistence upon having their own way.
And when we begin to see ourselves, our sin, and God rightly, our desires begin to change.
We start to hunger and thirst for what is right.
We yearn for truth where there is deception. We long for justice where there is injury. We crave faithfulness where there is compromise. We want our thoughts, words, relationships, decisions, and desires brought increasingly into alignment with the character and will of God.
But the more we understand righteousness, the more obvious the problem becomes: we cannot produce the righteousness God requires.
Jesus did.
He perfectly fulfilled God's law, living the righteous life we have failed to live. At the cross, He bore the judgment our unrighteousness deserved. When we are united to Christ by faith, His righteousness becomes ours. God does not overlook our sin or lower His standard. In Christ, both are answered.
But if we already possess Christ's righteousness, why does Jesus bless those who still hunger for it?
Because the grace that changes our standing before God also begins changing our hearts.
God promised, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). By His Spirit, the believer begins to desire what God desires. We become increasingly dissatisfied with sin, not because we are trying to earn God's acceptance, but because we have been made His.
That order protects us from turning the pursuit of righteousness into another attempt to prove ourselves. We do not pursue righteousness to become accepted. We pursue it because in Christ we already are. It’s the Spirit’s work within us. The righteousness credited to us becomes the righteousness we increasingly long to see formed in us.
Jesus' words invite examination of our own appetites.
We can hunger and thirst for approval. Comfort. Control. Recognition. Success. Security. Possessions. Distraction. Even good things can become substitutes when we look to them to give us what only God can give.
Our cravings matter. What we hunger for most, we worship because we pursue what we love.
We don’t always see these appetites for what they are, but our habits can often expose them. Habits form us and shape us, revealing our values and motivations. What do your habits say about yours?
What consistently receives your attention? What do you reach for instinctively? What are you unwilling to go without? What occupies your mind when things are quiet?
“Keep your heart with all vigilance,” Proverbs 4:23 tells us, “for from it flow the springs of life.”
We cannot give ourselves a new heart. God does that. But because His Spirit is at work within us, we are not helpless spectators of our desires either. We can turn away from what spoils our appetite for God and return to His Word. We can pray when desire is weak. We can obey when obedience is costly. We can continually place before our hearts the goodness of the One we want to desire more.
Scripture's invitation is beautifully simple: “Taste and see that the LORD is good.”
Lesser appetites begin to lose their hold when we taste something better.
And God presents to us Himself.
This is why Jesus makes such an extraordinary promise to hungry and thirsty people: “they shall be satisfied.”
We will not reach sinless perfection in this life. We will still battle competing desires and ache to see righteousness prevail in places where sin appears to be winning. Full satisfaction awaits the day when Christ makes all things right.
But even now, God does not leave that hunger unanswered. As we behold Christ in His Word and walk by His Spirit, He is already forming in us the righteousness we long for. It makes us want more.
The more we taste His goodness, the less satisfying our substitutes become. The more we know His holiness, the more we long to reflect it. The more we know Christ, the more we want our lives to look like His.
There will always be something competing for the appetite of your heart.
But Jesus promises that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness will not hunger forever…
They will be filled.
Reflection Question
Not all appetites are bad. Where have you been looking to something good to satisfy a hunger that only God was meant to fill?
📖 Further Reflection
📖 Psalm 42:1–2
📖 2 Timothy 2:22
📖 1 Peter 2:21–24
Prayer
Father, Thank You that my righteousness before You does not depend upon my ability to make myself worthy, but upon the perfect righteousness of Christ. And thank You that Your grace does not leave my desires unchanged. You know the true appetites of my heart. You know what captures my attention and where I look for satisfaction. By Your Spirit, make me increasingly hungry for what You love. Show me where I have been feeding desires that spoil my appetite for You, and help me to turn from them. Draw me again to Your Word, Your presence, and Your goodness. Teach me to taste and see that You are good until lesser things lose their hold and I increasingly desire the righteousness of Christ who has made me His own. Amen.
