The Way of Righteousness 

By Arthur J Licursi

Matthew 5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Psalm 42:1b-2a …As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God…
1 Cor. 1:30 But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

1 Thes. 5:23-24 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

If we hunger and thirst for true, genuine, righteousness, God will grant us to be satisfied with the very righteousness we seek. Righteousness is to be right with God in all our living. Our righteousness must not be according to the old law of commandments, which we are no longer under (Rom 6:14), but according to the new law of “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” who now indwells every believer’s spirit, as the source of their new and capable righteous life. This new law is much higher than the old. The old law says, “Thou shall not murder," then Jesus of Nazareth intensified the law saying things like, "Everyone who is angry with his brother shall be liable to the judgment" (Matt 5:22). He said we must take care not only of not murdering, but even of not being angry with our brother. This righteousness is on the highest plane and no “man” can achieve this. Jesus obviously knew that no man could do these things in and of their selves, and so He was setting up the Jews, and all mankind including Christians, to realize their need of His capable life, which can live righteously. Trying, failing, and then recognizing our failing is a good beginning. Yet, many struggle to keep what Jesus said by their own strength, they fail and then are condemned. Rather, it should provoke us to seek to walk in union with Him, abiding in Him that we might live by the power of His indwelling “Spirit of life.”

Our natural life is not able to attain this righteousness. This inward subjective righteousness must be Christ. Only Christ’s life can fulfill the requirements of the intensified law and so it is by His “spirit of life” in us (1John 4:13, Col 3:4a). Many may read Matthew 5 and say "I simply can't make it. I'll just have to quit." Giving up is often a good start toward finding the reality that Christ not only as our Savior, but now also He is our “new life.” This giving up, as an admission of our weakness is good because even God cannot fill a high place (We are a high place when we are full of ourselves, our self-effort.) God is working to bring us down to convince us of our impotence toward true righteousness. Thus, the valleys in life are used of God for the good – that we might be “filled” (v.6) by Him who is already available and indwelling our spirit. The more I have grown, the more I have come to realize that I can make it only because I have true life (Christ’s life) within me, which can do it as I simply walk with and yield to His inward leading and guiding. Oftentimes, that leading is a squelching of my self centered self-effort to do good, as well as the bad that I may be tempted to do.

Christ within me can make it as the new me, as He lives through my yielded soul. Thus, Christ in us needs our cooperation. We cooperate with the hunger and thirst He places in us. Philip. 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. If you hunger and thirst for righteousness, you will be satisfied.

The righteousness in verse Matt 5:6 is simply Christ’s own. It is the surpassing righteousness, the righteousness on the highest plane. We can only attain this by Christ’s life within us. Righteousness is no effort for Christ; it is of His very nature. Peter says in 2Pet 1:4, of those who are His, they are “partakers of the divine nature,” which nature is now at work in our spirit as our new nature. That nature is now ours and it is effective in our living, but only as we yield to give up our ways of, independent, self-rule. Because He is the One who produces this highest righteousness, we must seek to maintain our dependent union with him, by abiding in Him, as we deny our old, self-reliant, independent, lifestyle. <<END>>