Righteous!!!

We are bless-ed—Asir and makarios. Being blessed is “a quality of spirituality that is already present” and a “distinctive religious joy which accrues to man from his share in the salvation of the kingdom of  God.” Such a rich and tangible reality that we constantly live in that I have still yet to completely grasp. We are blessed today, yesterday, and tomorrow. It’s not at all conditional.

In light of this, the fourth beatitude definitely stuck out to me this week.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,
For they shall be filled.

With where I am at in school right now, it’s been tough! Classes are hard and extremely demanding of my time and my attention. Going straight from summer into school the last two summers have been rocky transitions for me. Reading through this beatitude definitely opened my eyes to the source of some of this rocky-ness. 

I love how Bailey puts it: “ blessed are those who strive for righteousness with the same earnestness with which the hungry and thirsty seek food and drink.  God‘s righteousness is his acts in history to save. That salvation grants to his people the gift of acceptance before him. They intern tirelessly seek a lifestyle appropriate to the relationship granted to them as a gift.”

I’m coming out of a summer of  focusing and reliance on Jesus and put straight into a demanding, stressful, and busy school schedule. It’s not like Jesus isn’t here too, it’s just that my focus goes to other things and my priorities change when I’m at school. The tireless seeking of Jesus turns into a tireless seeking of grades. It’s not blessed are those who hunger and thirst for success in earning a mechanical engineering degree, for they shall be filled. Nope. I can tell you right now—not very filling. 

I am filled when I hunger and thirst after the person of Jesus! 
I know it! I experience it every summer on the water!

Jesus continue to work on my heart and  help me choose you daily!

Kyle R.



Comments

  1. Miriam HamiltonOctober 1, 2017 at 5:44 PM

    Kyle, the fourth beatitude stuck me as well. Towards the end of this portion of the reading, Bailey comments on those who long to be "satisfied by the community". We cannot be satisfied by the community, but by Jesus alone; thus Bailey writes that "the bless-ed are those whose drive for righteousness, all-consuming, and recurring as the daily yearning to satisfy hunger and thirst." Striving after righteousness is not something that is achieved once, but is instead a continual seeking after God....a relationship!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 3 Failures of the Older Son

Page 168 opens a HUGE can of worms unseen through non-peasant eyes. The older son in the Parable of the lost sonS. Never before have I realized that the older son was not right with the Father from the very beginning!! I mean it makes complete sense as the ending of the parable exposes the older son's wicked heart -- the heart was clearly rotten from the start -- you can only hide so much. The older son fails 3 times in the first half of the parable. He fails to respond in refusal or verbal uproar, he fails to reconcile the younger brother to his father, and he fails to demonstrate loyalty to his father. Failure to respond in refusal or verbal uproar. Bailey says that the older son "should loudly refuse to accept his share in protest against the implications of his brother's request. His silence strongly suggests that his relationship with his father is not what it should be." Wow. Boom. Dead. We expect the older son to do something ! To disagree at the least. Here...
Read more

Fishers of dead things

Fishermen catch living fish and kill them in the process. Fishers of men catch "living" people and kill them in the process....mind blown! Thoughts: 1) " He addressed that whole person rather than mentally decapitating his listeners with a head trip" - Meet people where they are! I, for one, get wrapped up in the knowledge of it all. Of the huge extravagant story or some times sitting on an elevated seat of my own because I already "know God". To know Him is to know the servant's heart and to step down and place our buddies/campers/peers on an elevated seat in order to reach them. - Same goes for the humility of asking for genuine help. Involving the person/camper in the tasks or discussion is your way in! 2) "Listen BOSS MAN! My boys and I are professionals..." - Yew-we this is me. I love this chapter of the Call of Peter because of all the disciples, Peter is my dude. The control-freak, know-it-all, prideful, denying, loser...this ...
Read more

The Surprise Of The Invisible Num-Nums! (AKA- Food)

I completely agree with everything everyone wrote concerning the chapters of women and Jesus.  Incredible stuff for today's day and age.  Even the liberal left of America and their attempt to "elevate those who choose to identify as women," can't touch the depths of freedom Jesus offers men and women in any culture and in any time period. The part that really "made sense of my story" was page 213 "The Surprise of the invisible food." "The women comes seeking well water and carries divine living water with her back to the village.  But before she leaves the well, the disciples return bringing human food from the village, only to discover that Jesus has been renewed by divine food that they as yet do not adequately understand.  It is the sustaining nourishment one receives when one is engaged in fulfilling the will of God and accomplishing his task.  Two kinds of drink and two kinds of food are woven into the story for the reader to note a...
Read more