Satisfaction for the Hungry and Thirsty

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6). Food and water are necessities, not luxuries. Our physical life depends on food and water, our spiritual life depends on righteousness. First, we are what we eat. This is not only true of the body but also of the soul. We are basically spiritual beings. We are created in the spiritual likeness of our Creator. The outer man depends upon food and water, the inner man depends on righteousness. The inner man has spiritual appetites that must be satisfied. How many spiritual meals do you miss per week? The inner man has a sense of sight. Paul prayed for the Ephesians that the “eyes of their understanding might be enlightened.” Our Lord lamented that His disciples had eyes, but the saw not. God’s counsel to the church at Laodica was that they anoint their eyes with eye-salve that they might see. For us “salve” is the Word of God applied by the Holy Spirit. The inner man also has a spiritual sense of hearing. “Who has ears to hear, let him hear.” Christ’s sheep hear His voice and they follow Him. They will not follow the voice of a stranger. Immature Christians are “dull of hearing,” because they do not exercise their spiritual senses. There is a spiritual sense of taste. “O taste and see that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:3). The soul has its hunger and thirst; these desires were built into man at creation. God has put eternity in our hearts, and the temporal cannot satisfy the spiritual. Christ is the answer to the hidden thirst in ones life; Jesus Christ is the bread of life. “I am the bread of life; he that cometh to Me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on Me shall never thirst” (John 6:35). Christ came to give life and that in abundance. “Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst” (John 4:13-14). The presence of hunger and thirst is a good thing. Hunger and thirst are evidences of life. Dead people have no appetites. The kind of appetite we have is an indication of the kind of heart we have. The believer who hungers and thirst after righteousness is giving evidence not only of life but of health. One of the first signs of sickness is loss of appetite. When the infection of unconfessed sin is at work in the life of the disobedient Christian, he loses his appetite for spiritual things. 1 John 2:15-17 warns that our spiritual appetite can never be satisfied by the world (It takes a lot to feed an ego). Christ said “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work” (John 4:34). Jesus fed on the will of His Father, this is what satisfied Him. If we love the will of God then fulfilling the will of God will bring great pleasure. What are the hungers in your life? If the fleshly appetites are stronger than the spiritual you are a carnal Christian. Second, Jesus tells us that the way to be satisfied is to hunger and thirst. It is a hunger for holiness that fills the soul and satisfies the appetite of the inner man. The people of Israel “lusted exceedingly in the wilderness… and God gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul” (Psalm 106:14, 15). Some became sick and other died as a result of their lusting. We learn in Psalm 81:16 that had Israel listened to God’s word and cultivated an appetite for His will, God would have “fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock.” What is holiness? To the Pharisees, holiness was conformity to rules; it was an external thing that completely overlooked the needs of the inner man. A mere external piety, born of pride and nurtured by the praise of men, is not holiness. If the beatitudes teach us anything, it is that holiness begins in the heart. The words holy and whole belong to the same family. To be holy involves wholeness. Sin divides and destroys. Holiness unites and builds. Holiness is the basic attribute of God. As God’s children we should desire holiness in our lives (1 John 5:1-2). What have you been eating and drinking, spiritually? Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings

Bible Doctrine Series-Jehovah-Tsidkenu

Jehovah-Tsidkenu—“the Lord our righteousness’ (Jeremiah 23:6). The Hebrew word Tsidkenu means “righteousness, or rightness.” Jehovah-tsidkenu is given in Jeremiah 23:5-6 “’Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, ‘When I shall raise up for David a righteous Branch; and He will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land. In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely; and this is His name by which He will be called, ‘The Lord our righteousness,’” Throughout the Bible we see the provision of a just God for the sins of mankind. God did not save Noah because he was sinless. Noah and his family were delivered because he refused to walk in the wickedness of the world; instead he walked with God. Can two walk together except they be agreed? There is no particular goodness noted in Abram when the Lord called him from his country and relatives to a new land to make him a great nation, to bless him, or to become his God. It was not until he was promised an offspring of his own and believed God that the Lord accounted his faith as righteousness. This has been the way of the Lord down through the ages—without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6); whatever is not of faith is sin (Romans 14; 23). Our righteous God who establishes truth has proclaimed that the Lord Jesus is our righteousness; apart from Him we can do nothing. The New Testament shows us that eternal life is the free gift of God given through the Lord Jesus (Romans 6:23). The only response He asks is our exercise of faith to what we have heard from the word of Christ. Jehovah-tsidkenu is the Lord our righteousness. God expects us to live out the righteousness we have been given at salvation; it must take root in our souls and bodies. Paul sums it up nicely in Romans 6:11-13 “Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God." Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings.

The Truth about the Breastplate

The second piece of armor is equally important, but can be put on only after the truth is accepted and believed. It's called the "breastplate of righteousness." What exactly is this? This is righteousness that Christ has given to us through His own perfect life. (Theologians call this "imputed righteousness.") The breastplate wards off the accusations of Satan. If the enemy is not foisting some lie off on us, he takes a second stance in which he accuses us. He tells us we're "vile," "foolish," "rejected," and even "hated by God" because of our sin, bad attitudes, and evil actions. He says we're "not worthy of God's love" and that God Himself has given up on us." These are both lies and accusations meant to destroy our confidence and hope in God. Sins and failures provide Satan with much ammunition. God's constant assurance, though, is that if we will confess those sins, He will cleanse us. How can that be? Because of Christ's righteousness. Jesus lived a perfect life in our place. When God looks on us, if we are His children, He sees Jesus and all His goodness, wondrous deeds, and perfection. We are covered with the robe of His righteousness (Zechariah 3:1-5). That is what it means to put on the breastplate of righteousness. It's not our personal goodness and "perfection" that makes us acceptable to God; it's Christ's. Therefore, when we put on this piece of the armor, we protect ourselves against Satan's accusations. We are righteous in God's eyes because of Christ, not because of our keeping the rules, great acts of mercy, or giving to the church. What does this righteousness do for us? Ultimately, it means there is no death sentence hanging over us. We are not condemned by God because of our sin, but forgiven and completely accepted by Him (see Romans 8:1). And as Paul wrote, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). I saw the power of the breastplate of righteousness in Kendra. When I first meet her, I thought, "This woman really has her act together. She is single, in her thirties, has a master's degree in psychology, and is the director of a progressive woman's ministry." I really wondered what she was doing in my office. As her story unfold, she shared with me that she felt "emotionally crippled." Through a veil of tears she explained, "I accepted Christ in my mid twenties. During my high school and especially my college years I was extremely promiscuous. I've received the Lord, and He is changing my life. Yet I still feel defiled and dirty. I often ask how He can use me. I know the Bible says I am forgiven of my sins, but I don't feel clean." With tears, she listened as I shared the truth of the breastplate of righteousness and told her, "Today you are righteous. You are as pure and clean as Jesus Christ, because He was the One who cleansed you." Working deep inside her, the Holy Spirit opened Kendra's heart to receive that truth. She wrote to me later, "That day in your office was the second most profound day in my life. On that day I received in my heart the truth about the breastplate of righteousness, that I have been declared righteous and made, through the blood of Christ, as pure and clean as Jesus Himself. I now know I am clean and I feel clean. The devil has no right to use my sinful past against me, because in Christ I have no sinful past; I am redeemed." It's a powerful, emotion-filled truth. We are righteous, pure, and clean in God's eyes, now and forever. If I could instantly impress this on all my clients, I would be out of business! Dr. Ken Copley is available for counseling, conferences, and local church meetings.