Beatitude #4: They which Hunger and Thirst after Righteousness

The inspiration for this poem is the next Beatitude from the book of Matthew: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”  You’ll notice  that in this poem I’m writing of the righteousness of God given to us by faith in Jesus Christ.  This is a righteousness apart from the works of the law, a righteousness imputed to us through the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf.    As “Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness,” so we, when we believe in the Son of God, Jesus Christ, are counted righteous in God’s sight.  What a wonderful, filling, satisfying, free gift from the Throne of Grace!  “For He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”  (II Cor. 5:21).

The form for this poem is AAAA, the meter trochaic heptameter: /x/x/x/x/x/x/.

 

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:  for they shall be filled.”

 

Parched you were and famished for what you could not provide.

All your hardest work still leaving soul unsatisfied.

Craving righteousness to fill the emptiness inside,

Yet your best was filthy rags, defiled, unpurified.

 

So you came to One Who promised quenching for your thirst,

One Who said He was the Bread of Life, for you dispersed.

There you left the best of you and there you left your worst–

There belief in Jesus Christ your hungering reversed.

 

Appetite now filled with Righteousness that’s not your own,

You’ve been satiated by your faith in God alone.

Reckoned righteous, perfect, by the One upon the throne:

Satisfied beyond the best this world has ever known.