Tuesday, 19th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Man’s greatest need – Part 1

By Pastor W. F. Kumuyi
05 July 2020   |   2:59 am
The greatest desire of those that gathered around Jesus in Israel, and those who troop to church today, is to be happy.

Pastor W. F. Kumuyi

The greatest desire of those that gathered around Jesus in Israel, and those who troop to church today, is to be happy. The Lord Jesus Christ knew this. He knows all things, even the thoughts and desires of the hearts of men. He knows that happiness is man’s Ide long pursuit. Surveys have been conducted over and over again to ascertain what people need most out of life.

The findings of such surveys have confirmed that the bottom-line of man’s need is happiness. This is true all over the world. People commit suicide because they are unhappy. Nobody becomes a psychiatry case because he is so happy. People are in depression because happiness is elusive. Jesus, therefore, knowing what the people lacked, told them, “Blessed [happy] are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

Man was created in God’s image, with the nature of holiness and righteousness (Psalm 17:15). Any departure from the original creation will make him incomplete, unfulfilled and unhappy. It is like removing fish or other creatures from their natural habitat; they cannot survive there. Jesus knew that His audience was not happy because they had been removed from the original habitat of righteousness, where they had been created. For you to be happy, you have to thirst and hunger after God’s righteousness and then the blessedness of being filled with God’s righteousness will be yours.

People work from dawn to dusk because they want to draw a salary to satisfy their hunger and thirst. The life of a human being, in whatever occupation, profession or place, is to satisfy hunger and thirst. Our relationship and fellowship with God are to satisfy spiritual hunger and thirst. Once we lose this focus, there is no point in wasting time. We attend retreats, church activities, study the Bible, pray and do other things, so that we may learn spiritual things to satisfy the spiritual hunger in our lives and that of other people.

Just as people sell what they have to satisfy their hunger, so Paul, wanting to satisfy his spiritual hunger, disposed of things that were gainful to him in order to gain “the righteousness which is of God by faith.” There were hunger and thirst in his inner being. However, unlike Paul, many people do not dispose of the things that compete with the essential things in their lives. They did not dispose of their self-righteousness, so as to get the righteousness of God. This was why Paul pitied them. Like the Jews, there are many people today, who, though are hungry for God, have been feeding on the wrong kind of food that does not give the righteousness of God. These people think that righteousness must be worked out by their human power. Isaiah had told them many years earlier that in the presence of God, such “righteousness is as filthy rags” because it is not based on the blood of Jesus nor did they trust on the atonement of the blood. Such filthy rags or mere outward righteousness that does not have inward cleansing usually attracts the displeasure of God. What attracts God’s blessing is the righteousness of the heart that occurs, when you believe on the Lord and passionately desire it.

This hunger and thirst in the soul after the image of God are the strongest of all spiritual appetites. It swallows up all the other desires of the heart. Such hunger and thirst become more craving, more importunate until they are satisfied. There cannot be any substitute that will satisfy the soul that truly seeks after righteousness. It will find no comfort or satisfaction in anything else, only in the righteousness that comes from the heart of God to the heart of man.

Further Reading (King James Version): Matthew 5:6; Philippians 3:7-10; Romans 10:3,8-10; Isaiah 64:6; Matthew 5:20; Luke 16:15; 18:9; Matthew 23:25,28; Romans 3:24; 5:17-21.

In this article

0 Comments