Lamb wrapped in Grape Leaves with Potatoes
If I’m full of myself, I’m not likely to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness.
We love to be right. We often like it better when someone else has been wrong and we get to feel superior for a moment. It’s not surprising that the word gloat and bloat are different by just one letter. The husband or wife who gloats because he/she is right is going to be bloated with pride. “Pride puffs up,” Paul said.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt 5:6). Jesus’ desire is for us to pursue righteous, and his promise is that if we are hungry for it, we will be filled. Here is the dilemma. If we are filled with pride because we like to be right more than we like to pursue righteousness, we will have that full, bloated feeling and pass by righteousness. It will be like driving by Cracker Barrel because we just ate some popcorn and cotton candy.
If you are full of yourself because you see yourself as right, you will have no hunger and thirst for righteousness and you won’t behave righteously. You can’t be filled with liquor and filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:19). You can’t be bloated with pride and filled with righteousness. So what do you want? Do you want to be right and prideful or righteous and satisfied?
Most of us know that following Jesus is the right thing. For different reasons, we end up at other tables instead of the one that Jesus has prepared for us, and the “filling” we get from those tables never sufficiently nourishes us.
Do you want a real sense of satisfaction in your marriage? Instead of arguing to show you are right, try:
Get hungry for that kind of living! Christ is fill you up!
Thank you for the encouragement! Just what I needed today! You have such clear thinking…helps me to choose the right thing.
Praise God, Sheila! Thanks for reading. We always appreciate Grace and Space.