Good Saturday morning! Did you ever have a storage space in your home that just cried out to be filled at times? I have one in the bathroom that is too high for convenience, but still wants to be filled. So I fill it up with rolls of toilet paper. A person can't be too prepared you know! The clerk at Walmart commented, "That's a lot of toilet paper..." I told her that you never know when a college marching band might drop by your house. Yes, right there on the spot, not later after I got home. My brain was up and functioning this morning. Ouch, that mug is quite warm, meaning that I had better drink my hot coffee before the mug becomes filled with something less savory. We like to have filled things for the most part. A filled bladder is another matter entirely. I have heard that there is a subtle relationship between an empty coffee mug and a filled bladder, but who cares what the experts have to say. Down the hatch on a Saturday!
Jesus promises to fill us with righteousness if we hunger for it. As I have grown in Christ, I like that promise more and more. Wouldn't you want to be filled with righteousness like Jesus? The problem is in the confusion over just what righteousness is. In my younger days during the "Me" show, I would have thought that being filled with righteousness was when everything went my way. I remember not quite understanding why I could never seem to get filled with 'righteousness' in this manner. After all it sounded right. Later, when the Holy Spirit pointed out all of my sin, I couldn't understand how I could ever be filled with righteousness with so much sin in my life. The line from Jesus goes something like: Filled with joy are those who hunger and seek after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. You probably read the "filled with joy" part as "blessed". When I learned that the Greek word for blessed means to be filled with joy, I started putting that into each of the Beatitudes and it meant so much more to me. You could also say 'happy' in place of 'blessed'. What a blessing it is to be filled with joy by hungering for and seeking something we don't have!
So much on this earth that we hunger for does not satisfy. How many CEO's, athletes, and entertainers have returned some of their salary or fees because they have been satisfied by money? How many drug addicts have stopped because their urge has been satisfied for good? What is more sad than a big lottery winner who keeps buying more tickets? How many RF fanatics have stopped buying more RF stuff due to a surplus of satisfaction? Right, none. Some have tried to stop, even going as far as to join an RF Anonymous program and swear by a higher power, but none have just stopped cold turkey. I hear that the affliction is terrible, ranking right up there with the worst of narcotic habits. And never get between a big lottery winner and RF fanatic who is on a mission to the hobby store. You don't want to be trampled by a need like that!
We can have a little fun with our lack of satisfaction with the things of this earth, but underneath we do have a hole in our beings that only God can fill. Why this terrible hunger? Adam became separated from God by his sin; we have been trying to fill the void left behind ever since. The only way to be satisfied is to put back what was lost. When we lost God, we lost our righteousness. The way to regain that righteousness is to find the righteous One and ask Him to fill us. The temporary things of this earth will never fill the place left by God in our hearts. Seek, search, look for, and thirst for God's righteousness; you will be satisfied!
Bucky
No comments:
Post a Comment