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Filled

by Jerry Ousley  
1/11/2018 / Christian Living

            Filled is a good thing.  It is wonderful, after being hungry, then eating a feast and having the feeling of being satisfied and full.  Even though there is much hunger in the world if generous people will share what God has given them then the hungry can be filled.

 

            Jesus said in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled …”   The blessing does not come in the hunger and thirst but in the filling.  However before being filled we must walk the road of hunger and thirst.  It can be a very long road.  As we have already established, we cannot substitute the righteousness required to be filled.  It is a perfect righteousness – one that fulfills the command to be holy as God is holy.  We cannot do it ourselves.  Our holiness – our righteousness is nothing but filthy dirty rags and no matter how large the pile grows it is only more and more of the same worthless things.

 

            That hunger and thirst must drive us to not settle but to continually strive and reach for that which will bring the final desired result.  Nothing but the righteousness and holiness of Jesus Christ can even come close to being filled.  Our quest will first of all reveal our unworthiness.  When we realize that and only when we realize that are we ready to give up.  We come to know that nothing we can do is good enough.  We can’t live good enough.  We can’t even hope to measure up.  Once we know that then we come to the place where we can give up.  That goes against the grain.  We are taught in life to never give up.  We are taught that in this life we must do everything possible and even then we must stand firm.  There is a time and place for this noble attitude. 

 

            But this does not apply in our hunger and thirst for righteousness.  We must see that in ourselves there is no possible way that we can be perfect as God is perfect.  Even if it were possible to be perfect by the time we ever arrived at a place of perfection we would have made so many errors, mistakes and sins that we still fail.  You see only one failure disqualifies us from being perfect as God is perfect.  So we first come to know that there is nothing we can do to earn our fill.

 

            Next we must come into the knowledge that since we are helpless to be filled on our own, only Jesus Christ can bring us to the desired point.  Jesus, by being born of a virgin, was the only human ever to live completely free from sin.  He became the sacrifice of sacrifices for sin.  When He died on the cross his perfect blood was the requirement to pay for the sin of all mankind.  However just the sacrifice was not enough.  Three days later Jesus arose from the death thus conquering death and sin.  When He arose His victory completed the process to reverse sin.

 

            So now the price has been paid.  The remedy has been found.  Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection completes the process that can make us free, that can make us worthy, that can make us perfect as God is perfect. 

 

            The only thing that remains is for the transfer to be made to make us worthy to receive this fulfillment.  The only way this transfer can be made becomes the only thing we are required to do to receive it.  There is a way but the only way is for the work of Christ to be transferred in and on us.  We must confess that we have been in sin.  We must admit that we are helpless on our own.  We must realize that nothing we can do will help.  Then we must repent.  To repent is to change our mind so completely that we turn around and go the opposite way.  We have been traveling the road making our own way so long that in order to justify ourselves we begin to compare ourselves to others.  “I am not as bad as he is.  I haven’t done nearly as much wrong as this guy.”  These are our justifications.  But they are completely and irrevocably false.  Only when we realize this and turn around the other direction acknowledging that only the work of Christ can make us free can we hope to be perfect as God, find righteousness and be filled.

 

            This is where our hunger and thirst must take us.  When we come to realize that Christ is the only way and turn to Him, not just in word but in our deeds and in every aspect of our lives, can we find the desired result.  We can be filled. Our hunger and thirst for righteousness can be completed.  But only in Christ; only when we allow Him to make us a new creation – a new man – a whole new person.

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of ?Soul Challenge?, ?Soul Journey?, ?Ordeal?, ?The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional and his first novel ?The Shoe Tree.? Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge.

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