What does your heart hunger for? What does your spirit thirst for? What is that thing that if you had it, that dream that if you achieved it, that reward that if you gained it, you’re sure you would now be satisfied, you’re sure your restless heart would finally be at peace?

There are many things we hunger for, but only one so very good that Jesus promises to satisfy it: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” he says, “for they shall be satisfied.” Here is a hunger so good that it should take preeminence above all others; here is a hunger so right that it should subsume all others; here is the one hunger that is so close to the heart of God that he promises it will be satisfied.
But what is this “righteousness” that we are to long for? The root word is used about 600 times in the Bible so it’s obviously quite important. Like so many other words, it can be translated in different ways—sometimes as “righteous” or “righteousness,” and other times as “justice” or “justified.”
The word is associated with salvation so that in God’s sight we are either righteous or unrighteous—either saved or unsaved. It’s associated with sanctification so that behavior can be righteous or unrighteous—either consistent or inconsistent with God’s will. It’s associated with justice so that society itself can be righteous or unrighteous—either promoting peace and equality or partiality and favoritism. And it’s associated with the future, the fullness of the kingdom of heaven when righteousness will permanently conquer unrighteousness.
So the question is, when Jesus says “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” what kind of righteousness does he mean? I think it’s best to see him as including all of these dimensions because they are so closely linked to one another. While personal holiness may have been foremost in his mind, surely he would not wish for us to disentangle that dimension from the others. After all, it’s impossible to long to be saved but not sanctified; it’s unnatural to long for holiness but not heaven. And so there is a hunger within the Christian soul that is very deep and very wide: A hunger for righteousness expressed in salvation, in holiness, in justice, and in heaven.
And what is God’s promise toward those who have such a hunger? “They shall be satisfied.” The hungry shall be made full. The thirsty shall be quenched. But here’s the thing: Of these four hungers, only the hunger for salvation is completely satisfied here and now. In the moment we are saved, we are fully justified. We can never be more righteous in God’s eyes than we are right now, and never less righteous. And that’s because when God looks at us, he sees the perfect righteousness of his perfectly righteous Son.
But we can be more holy than we are right now; we can see more justice than we do right now; we can have a deeper longing for heaven than we have right now. And so we need to observe something interesting about these appetites. As God begins to meet them, he also increases them. The fuller we get, the hungrier we get. The more we drink, the more we thirst. Our longing for righteousness doesn’t diminish over the course of our Christian lives, but grows all the more! Our growth in holiness makes us crave even more holiness. We are glad to see advances in justice, but it increases our longing for perfect justice. We have a deep longing for heaven, but the closer we get the more we yearn for it.
We will long and yearn and hunger and thirst until the day God finally fulfills the great promise he makes in the book of Revelation. In that day…

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore;the sun shall not strike them,nor any scorching heat.For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,and he will guide them to springs of living water,and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

All those tears we’ve shed over the sins that made our salvation necessary, God will wipe them away. All the hunger we have to be holy even as God himself is holy: God will satisfy it. All the thirst we have to see justice extend from sea to sea, from pole to pole: God will quench it. All the craving we have to live in a world where there is only ever righteousness forever: God will grant this most precious desire. We will eat, we will drink, we will feast, and our hearts will be at perfect peace. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

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Today at Westminster you can save on Rosaria Butterfield’s new book (foreword by Kevin DeYoung): Five Lies of Our Anti-Christian Age.
Today’s Kindle deals include newer and older Christian books as well as extensive list of general market history and biography.
(Yesterday on the blog: Remaking the World)
I Set My Hope On Jesus (Hymn for a Deconstructing Friend)
Here’s a new hymn from Matt Boswell & Matt Papa that I think you’ll enjoy. They have also just released an EP with several excellent tracks that you can find on your favorite music app.
Why we aren’t as bad as we could be
“We know that bad things happen in the world around us. But we also know that things could be a lot worse than they are. We know that all people sometimes say, do, and think terrible things—including Christians. But we also know that no one is as terrible as they could be.” Why is this?
The Day I Lost My Marbles
Stephen tells about the day he lost his marbles (quite literally) and then draws out an important lesson from it.
The plateau curve
I think Rush Witt makes some important points here about pastors and longevity in their local churches. Basically, he encourages them to be willing to step aside when the time is right.
How Can I Become a Humbler Calvinist?
John Piper offers counsel on becoming a humbler Calvinist.
Want Rest? Start with a Humble Heart
Meanwhile, also on the subject of being humble, Sarah Hauser explains the connection between humility and rest. “Sometimes praying for rest is like praying for patience. If you’ve ever prayed for patience, maybe you’ll know what I mean. When I need to be more patient (pretty much all the time), what I really want is for God to shower me with loads of supernatural patience. … But my experience has been that instead of being infused with patience like I’m on an IV drip, what God often does is provide opportunities where I can practice patience. I want the quick fix, but God wants deep heart transformation.”
Flashback: Six Reasons Why Adultery Is Very Serious
Why is adultery such a serious matter. Christopher Ash provides six reasons in his book Married for God and I am going to track with him as we go.

Dear praying believers, be of good cheer. God will either give you what you ask, or some thing far better. Are you not quite willing that he should choose for you and me? —Robert Murray M’Cheyne

It does me good to pause from time to time to read an account of a person coming to faith. It never ceases to fascinate me how many different paths we take to that one door and it never ceases to encourage me to read about another person’s experience of coming to the end of themselves before finally entrusting themselves to the Lord. God is endlessly creative in the ways in which he draws his people to himself.

The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever

Ashley Lande spent much of her life looking for The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever. That search led her down many different paths, but the one that most compelled and attracted her was psychedelics. She revered them and related to them almost as if they were a god, the means through which she would come to complete self-understanding, complete wholeness—the means through which she would achieve transcendence.
From the first time Lande tasted a psilocybin mushroom she was hooked and eventually graduated to LSD and other psychedelic substances. She was never a junkie as she might have been had she pursued hard drugs, but she was addicted nonetheless—addicted to the experience, to the effects, and perhaps most of all, to the conviction that these drugs would eventually bring her a kind of salvation.
There was no single thunderclap moment that broke her commitment to drugs and made her loyal to Jesus. Rather, it was a succession of small moments—faithful Christians living godly lives, faithful churches speaking gentle truths, and a faithful husband who was on a similar journey but a few steps ahead. In the end, she began to understand that she had made herself her own god and realized this was an utterly futile pursuit. “Suddenly my grande pursuit of enlightenment through psychedelics seemed to position me no better than a junkie. I wasn’t a seeker, or a sojourner, or a pilgrim courageously plunging into unmapped worlds. I liked getting high. I loved drugs.” As soon as she was willing to admit the futility of her own attempts to be enlightened and instead trust in Jesus, she was saved—wonderfully, miraculously, and radically saved.
Though I have read many conversion memoirs over the years, I had never read one quite like Lande’s. The writing is top-tier and so is her self-understanding. She probes deep into her actions and gazes deep into her soul to explain what drew her to psychedelics, what she thought they would do for her, and why they eventually and inevitably let her down. She offers insights into the intersection between the New Age movement and the use of drugs. And she explains why the Christian faith offers hope and assurance that are reliable and compelling.
The Thing That Would Make Everything Okay Forever is a thoroughly enjoyable read and, like any great memoir, turns the reader’s attention far beyond its author and to the One who is ultimately the Author of her story and all of ours as well.