I thought about taking a day off from the blog, but then when I got on here to tell you that I was going to take a day off from the blog, I realized that if I told you that I was taking a day off from the blog – on the blog, then I was really not taking a day off from the blog.  So I was thinking about taking a day off from the blog, but decided not to take a day off from the blog after I got here and started blogging.  I hope you enjoyed it!  God Bless & Press On!

Our goal today is to learn how to make hunger and thirst for righteousness work! To make it work you have to walk backwards through the first three Beatitudes! You cannot hunger and thirst for the things of God, unless you surrender control.  You will not surrender control, until you face up to and are sorry for your sin.  You will not face up to and be sorry for your sin, until you die to self. It all begins with dying to self!

Life is not about me! That really is a hard pill to swallow!  Life is about ETERNITY WITH GOD and my getting prepared for it.  God gives us our lives so that we might have the opportunity to make a choice to have a relationship with Him that will last forever and always.  “I” get in the way – way to much!  This is why it is so important that we learn to “die to self!”  If I stop and consider reality, then reality tells me that I am nothing without Jesus. If I am nothing without Him, then what am I with Him? When I learn to change my thinking, then my living will follow by understanding that me and my sin get in the way of God’s great plan.  When I start to grasp the cost of my sin, then I will be sorry for my sin and look for a way to gain victory over this thing that gets in the way of God’s amazing plan for my life.

I am a sinner! I don’t like to say that, but it is so freeing when I do, because it is the truth.  My sin gets in the way of God’s plan, so I/We/Somebody has got to do something about my sin.  This is why Jesus came – to pay the price that I could not.  God does not want to hold sin against you.  God wants to forgive sin and give you victory over it.  We cannot have victory without admission, confession and repentance!  Admit your sins – own up to them!  Confess them to God and ask for His forgiveness!  Repent – change your direction and give God the glory!  By the way this is what it means to MOURN in the Beatitudes!  When we come to this place of admission, then it should not be to far of a jump for us to come to the place of surrendering, giving up, letting go of control.

I get in the way! I have got to learn to do what God wants me to do and stop doing what He does not want me to do.  I need to be MEEK!  I seem to get this one reversed!  I don’t do what He wants and I do what He does not want.  I used to think that this meant that I needed to take my hands off of the steering wheel and let somebody else drive, but I think what it really means is that I need to listen to and follow the directions that I am given.  What good is a GPS if you are not going to listen to what the little man or woman tells you?  What good is God going to be able to do your life if you will not listen to and follow His directions?

You don’t have to be in control! You are never really  in control anyway!  Even when you think you are in control, it is just an illusion – because at any moment the next thing around the corner could be the thing that change’s everything!  Surrender control, not by throwing up your hands and doing nothing, but by listening for and responding to the still, small voice of God.  When you get to this place, you can’t help but to hunger and thirst for the righteous stuff of God!

Have you ever been hungry? I mean – really hungry?  I mean so hungry that you can’t think about anything else?  The Bible says in Matthew 5:6 “Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.”

What does it mean to hunger and thirst for righteousness? Before we talk about what it means, lets take a few moments to look at what it does not mean.  It is not about gratifying lust, accomplishing goals or satisfying ego.  Now stop for just a moment to realize and admit that this is exactly where we expend most of our energy on most days.  We have some lust that we are trying to gratify, some goal that we are trying to accomplish or an ego that we want to satisfy.  And the big problem is that day after day we give ourselves to the pursuit of gratification, accomplishment or satisfaction only to come up short and still looking for the something that is missing!  Come on and admit it – a lot of days we feel like a rat running on a spinning wheel inside of a wire cage!

God has something better! He wants to provide us with satisfaction, but it requires something on our part.  It requires that we be hungry and thirsty.  A hungry/thirsty person has an all-consuming passion for food and drink and that is it – nothing els matters!  A spiritually hungry person has an all-consuming passion for the right stuff of God and everything else is icing on the cake.  A spiritually hungry person is a person who has come to the realization that nothing else in life will do, if I don’t pursue God and His plan of blessing for my life.

What are you hungry and thirsty for today? Be honest with yourself and with God.  You may not be hungry and thirsty for the righteousness of God and that is okay if you will admit and do something about it.  If you are not really hungry and thirsty for the right stuff of God, then take some time to ask God to help you to get hungry and thirsty.  Seriously – take some time right now to ask God to help you to be hungry for more of Him.  Pray this prayer: “God help me to be hungry and thirsty for you!” Keep praying this prayer all day long!

Join me back here tomorrow and we will take a look at three steps that we must take to hunger and thirst for righteousness!  We can do this!