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Saturday, June 16, 2018

Home Church Videos: Staking Our Claim on Freedom in Christ ~ Part 17 ~ The Valley of Freedom ~ Step Four - Hunger & Thirst for Righteousness


“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”[1]

How does it make you feel to know that God blesses those who are free to hunger and thirst for the righteousness they do not have?

Many people who think they are already good enough for God, while many others face their shortcomings by trying to do better. Neither is blessed no matter how much they think so.

On the other hand, the poor in spirit who have mourned their unrighteousness, who have meekly come to the end of themselves in trying to fix it and see in Christ the one on whom they can depend, freely let their hearts hunger and thirst for the righteousness they see in him.

The fact that this righteousness is offered as a free gift of grace to all who respond to Jesus in faith makes the hunger and thirst for this righteousness the most hopeful thing in the whole wide world.

It is God’s own promise to carry on (what the Bible calls sanctification) to completion (what the Bible calls glorification) the good work God has begun in his children (justification).[2]

All of this is to say that his determination to make a creature in his own image and likeness,[3] has already fixed the sin-problem that stood in the way,[4] so that now even the gates of hell cannot stand against the church Jesus is building.[5] And, one day, this church will be presented to Jesus as his bride,[6] completely pure and blameless in his sight,[7] to live forever in the satisfaction of love-relationship greater than anything us humans have ever known.[8]

No wonder God’s Book encourages us with such words as this:

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.[9]

That is the righteousness we long for even now, and this home church video should encourage you to let your hunger and thirst aim in that direction.






© 2018 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)



[1] Matthew 5:6
[2] Philippians 1:6
[3] Genesis 1:26-27
[4] II Corinthians 5:21
[5] Matthew 16:18
[6] II Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19:7-9
[7] Philippians 1:10
[8] John 3:16 compared with John 17:3
[9] Jude 1:24-25

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