1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian 5 - Blessed are those who hunger and thirst | Page 6

end of the day, like Jesus says in Matthew 16 v 26, “…what is it if you gain the whole world but
lose your own soul?” At this point I need to clarify that I have personally nothing against
people who have nice things, but my problem comes when those “nice things” come
between you and God and you just cannot see it.
Even in church life today, we see people who hunger and thirst for the wrong things. The
desire for better music and more entertaining forms of doing church are things that make
people leave churches because the “show” is better at the church down the road. People like
this need to question their motives and sometimes may need to look a little further than
their noses. Even some of the good things that church has to offer can be corrupted to
become the “end” instead of the “means”. Sometimes fellowship, the thirst for knowledge,
the desire to do good things (as good as all of these things are) can distract us from the core
values of God. Sometimes the “what” of our ministries can overwhelm the importance of the
“why” of our ministries and the “for whom” of our ministries, and although it appears so
good and noble from the outside, can at the end of the day, get us into trouble.
God promises that those who hunger and thirst after righteousness will be filled. The word
“righteousness” is indicative of a Christ centred life where God Himself stands centre stage
and everything else that we desire stands subject to the overwhelming desire to know Him.
Prayer Thought: Today would be a good day for you to honestly and prayerfully evaluate the
place that your possessions hold in your life. Remember that God will not settle for second
place, He never has and He never will. As you pray today won’t you honour Him as being your
all in all and number One over everything.

Thursday
Reading: Psalm 42 / Matthew 13 v 44 – 46
Over the next three days we will be looking at the DESIRE FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Today I would like for us to consider righteousness as an EXCLUSIVE desire.
Let me be so bold as to say that there is absolutely no substitute for righteousness. We can
try and satisfy this desire with other things which may look promising, but which at the end
of the day are non-entities. Nicky Gumbel in his presentation on the Alpha program speaks
about how the Chinese have an exclusive desire for rice. You can give them