Tuesday August 30, 2022

Today is Tuesday, August 30 and we are praying through the Beatitudes.

I turn to the Lord my God and ask Him to fulfill His plans and purposes for my upcoming day. I relinquish my cares, concerns and requests into His mighty hands and trust Him with every detail of my comings and goings.

Pause and Pray

Father God, I worship You in the stillness of the dawning day and seek Your abiding presence. Open the ears of my heart to receive the specific message You have for me this morning. Amen.

Aware of the deep empty longing of my soul, I run after the goodness of God with the ancient words of Psalm 42.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Psalm 42:1-2

Pause and Pray

In the Beatitudes, Jesus turns what we would normally consider blessings upside down. The first three blessings remove those things that prevent Christians from making spiritual progress toward maturity – things like pride, anger, impatience and discontentment. These hindrances create false cravings within people. They corrupt one’s spiritual inclination and physical appetite creating an unquenchable desire for the things of this world. When the Holy Spirit removes these impediments from my heart I recognize my true underlying craving – a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a longing for God and the things of God. (Upon Our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount: Discourse Two by John Wesley, edited by William Abraham).

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:5-6

For a human being, physical hunger and bodily thirst are the strongest motivators that exist. If a person does not eat and drink, he or she will cease to exist. If someone is dying of thirst in the desert or starving for food on an uninhabited island and that person discovers beautiful clothing, an expensive automobile, and buried treasure, or is lauded with recognition, celebrated for success, is flattered with words of esteem, these things are of no use. Without food and water he or she will soon be dead. It is the same when the hunger of the soul is awakened. When we thirst after God and our spiritual appetite is stirred – nothing can satisfy us but the things of God. Worldly possessions, pleasures, success, fame, and fortune become useless and powerless.

Ask: When do I pursue the things of this world in order to gain satisfaction? What is the deepest longing of my soul – my true hunger and thirst?

Pause and Pray

Lord Jesus, reveal the cravings and appetites of my body, mind and spirit. Show me why I seek the things of this world to fill the emptiness of my heart instead of seeking You. Create a hunger and thirst in me that can only be satisfied through the Holy Spirit. I read the words from Matthew again and listen for the message you have for me.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:5-6

Ask: What image, word or phrase stands out to me when I slowly read this passage? What is God trying to say to me through these words of scripture?

Pause and Pray

I yield my life and surrender myself entirely to the authority of Jesus Christ my Lord. I study his teaching and ruminate on these words of blessing so that the Holy Spirit speaks to my soul and convicts me in fresh ways. Perhaps God wants me to submit a part of my life to Him with a holy meekness in obedience and trust. Maybe God wants to satisfy my hunger for righteousness with a sumptuous spiritual feast. Perhaps God wants to quench the thirst of my soul in ways I did not even realize were possible.

Pause and Pray

Come, Holy Spirit, I long for your presence to pour into me and fill me to overflowing with the love, joy and peace that comes from God. Satisfy the hunger and thirst of my impoverished, starving spirit and let me delight in the richest of fare. Amen.

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Isaiah 55:1-2

Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.” John 6:35

I leave this time of prayer with a hunger for God’s goodness and a thirst for His righteousness to reign in this world.

Amen