hunger and thirst for righteousness

Be-attitude #4 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
When I think of hunger, I think of the moment just before I decide that I want to go to the Pizza Ranch buffet. Because in that moment, I am hungry. Hungry enough to eat a dozen slices of pizza, a huge piece of fried chicken, salad, one more piece of pizza, and then desert pizza with ice cream on top. And so I do. And then I am not hungry any more, in fact I am beyond uncomfortable and close to sick.
This is not the kind of hunger that Jesus is talking about. He is trying to create a picture of constantly wanting more. Unsatisfiable hunger. Have you ever twirled a little kid around in your arms? What do they say? "Do it again!" So you do it again and they say, "do it again!" So you do it again and they say, "do it again!" So do you get the point or do I have to do it again?
The Greek "hoi" means to be satisfied yet want more. What Jesus is teaching us is to desire His righteousness, experience it, and want more of it. The closer I am to Him, the closer it makes me want to be. I am satisfied, but I want more.
And I want a piece of desert pizza.

Be-attitude #3

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Meek is not the same as weak. Jesus gives the best example of "power under control" when He interacted with the Jewish religious leaders. He very strongly confronted their pompous religiosity but without sinning. So even in conflict, Jesus loved the individual with appropriate words and actions. Proverbs teaches that "a gentle word turns away wrath."
This third beatitude is another striking example of the backwards and upside down nature of God's economy compared to man's. It would seem logical that the bold and ferocious would inherit the earth. But God says that the inheritance belongs to the mild mannered. Speaking of mild mannered, how about Superman. There is a picture of power under control. I'm not sure I am ready to make a theological parallel here, not just yet.
Next step - hunger. Is it time for lunch?

Be-attitude #2

If we use the word picture of a ladder, then the beatitudes or be-attitudes, would work like this. The top of the ladder, the goal, is to be "characterized by the attitudes of God." In other words, people should look at our lives and think, "wow, they are the spitting image of their (heavenly) Daddy." So that is the top. The bottom rung on the ladder is "blessed are the poor in spirit" because the first step is admitting "I am a sinner and I have nothing to offer a Holy God that makes me worthy of forgiveness."
The second rung from the floor is "blessed are those who mourn." The issue that we are to be mourning over is our sinful condition. This is the attitude that causes us to be increasingly grief stricken and intolerant of our sinful nature. As we become more and more like Christ, we become more and more aware of how bad our flesh is. I want to attend the funeral of my selfish sinful ways, mourn that I ever thought that way, acted that way, believed those lies. I love righteousness and I really really don't like sinfulness. It makes me cry.
God, please forgive me for my sin. I justify and rationalize all sorts of things that I know are wrong. I don't want that to be true of me any longer. I want the darkness of my sinfulness to be drown out by Your brilliance.
Next step - humility.