Devotional: What Does It Really Mean to Hunger for Righteousness?
Question: When Jesus talks about hungering and thirsting for righteousness, is He redefining what true righteousness looks like?
Key Passage: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)
Devotional:
When Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” it touches something raw and real in all of us.
This week at the GoodLion School of Discipleship, we are exploring the biblical meaning of righteousness as not just following rules or avoiding sin, but cultivating right relationships with both God and others.
True righteousness, as Jesus defines it, is relational at its core — it involves aligning our hearts with God’s will and living in harmony with those around us.
We hear “righteousness” and often think, Okay, be good, follow the rules, don’t sin. But if we listen more closely, we realize Jesus is speaking to something far deeper — a righteousness that is about our relationships, both with God and with others. It’s about living in love, fairness, and integrity, not just personal piety.
A longing we all feel.
That ache when we see the world broken.
When we witness injustice. Suffering. Oppression.
This is where we can begin to understand hungering and thirsting for righteousness as a deep desire for both the brokenness in the world and the brokenness in our own lives to be made right.
We crave for wrong to be made right. We hunger for it.
But here’s the thing.
Jesus is also inviting us to hunger for something much closer to home. He’s asking us to thirst for right relationships in our own lives — for our own hearts to be healed and aligned with His righteousness.
Longing for the world to be made right
There’s a hunger inside of all of us. A longing for justice, for peace, and for the wrongs we see in the world to be undone. But this longing isn’t just external; it’s also deeply personal. We long for our own hearts to be made right, for our relationships to reflect God’s love and justice.
Scripture speaks to this again and again.
In Amos 5:24, the prophet cries out, “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”
This is what we want, isn’t it?
We look at poverty, racism, violence, and corruption, and something deep within us echoes this cry. We want justice to flood in like water, wiping out all the mess. We want to see systems of oppression crumble, for the hurting to be healed, for the broken to be made whole.
And we’re not alone in that.
Augustine once said, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”
Our souls are wired to long for God’s righteousness. That restlessness we feel when we see injustice — it’s because we know, deep down, that this is not how the world was meant to be.
But here’s where Jesus does what He always does. He doesn’t let us sit comfortably with that desire for the world to be fixed.
Instead, He asks: What about you?
Longing for us to be made right
This is where it gets personal.
Because it’s easy to hunger for justice out there.
But what about the injustice inside our own hearts?
Jesus is calling us to hunger and thirst for right relationships in every aspect of our lives — not just for justice in the world but for the brokenness in us to be made right as well.
In Matthew 23:26, Jesus tells the Pharisees, “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”
It’s not enough to want the world to change if we’re not willing to be changed ourselves.
And if we’re honest, that’s hard.
It’s easier to point out the broken systems, the flawed governments, the people who are clearly in the wrong. But what about my pride? My impatience? My tendency to gossip or judge?
The hunger Jesus is talking about isn’t just for justice in the world — it’s for personal transformation. It’s for my own heart to be aligned with God’s heart, and for my relationships to reflect His righteousness and love.
It’s a hunger to be made new, to reflect the righteousness of Christ in the deepest parts of who I am.
A deeper hunger, a deeper filling
So when Jesus says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” He’s inviting us into a deeper kind of hunger.
Yes, hunger for the world to be made right — for justice, for peace, and for true reconciliation in our relationships.
But also, hunger for us to be made right — for our relationships to be restored, for our selfishness, pride, and sin to be healed, and for us to live in right relationship with God and others.
This is what theologian N.T. Wright describes when he says, “The call of the gospel is for the church to implement the victory of God in the world through suffering love.” We are called to be part of God’s restorative work in the world. But we can’t offer that suffering love if our hearts aren’t right.
Jesus isn’t just after world-change; He’s after heart-change, and relational transformation. He wants us to be agents of His love, starting with our own hearts and extending to those around us.
And here’s the promise.
If we hunger for this — if we truly thirst for both the world’s brokenness and our own to be made right — Jesus says we’ll be filled.
Filled with His love.
Filled with His justice.
Filled with a righteousness that doesn’t just transform the world, but transforms us, from the inside out.
Because only when we let God make us right can we begin to make the world right.
Reflection Questions:
When you think of righteousness, do you primarily associate it with personal behavior or with relationships? Why?
How might your perspective and actions change if you viewed righteousness as the pursuit of right relationships with both God and others?
Are there any relationships in your life that need reconciliation? What steps can you take to restore them?
Prayer:
“Jesus, help me to hunger and thirst for righteousness as You intend. Teach me to understand righteousness as a way of living in love, fairness, and honesty with those around me. May my desire for right relationships draw me closer to You and to others. Amen.”