CHILDREN HUNGERING AND THIRSTING

Probably no one reading this page has ever experienced hunger and thirst in the same way as children living in countries where famine and drought are now known. We can, of course, form some idea of the suffering that this must mean and can thus feel and pray for them. From this too we can realise what it meant for the prophet Amos to have to foretell a famine, not of bread or thirst for water, but a famine of "hearing the words of Jehovah". No doubt this was God's strange work in judgment at that time but it makes us value all the more the fact that He is now constantly speaking in grace. The question is - Are we hearing?

The Lord Jesus is Himself "The Word". Scripture tells us that in these days God "has spoken to us in the person of the Son". This speaking unfolds to us the holy affections between the Father and Jesus, and teaches us that all that God has to say relates in some way to the Person of our Lord. You will remember that of the few actual words spoken from heaven in living language were these: "This is my beloved Son in whom I have found my delight" at the baptism of Jesus, and "This is my beloved Son: hear him" on the holy mountain.

Proving that there is now no famine of divine speaking we read that the Lord, in the sermon on the mount, used the word "Blessed" at least nine times. Older children may have learned that a great poet wrote that the quality of mercy is 'twice blessed', and this is true. But the word of God rises infinitely above the best of human sentiments in the range of blessings in His heart for us His creatures, through our Lord Jesus Christ. In our everyday life, whether at school, at home and in the things that we think and talk about, there is a special word for believers; "Blessed they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled". We have all thought at some time 'I suppose I ought to do the right thing', and this is good but you can easily see that this does not rise to God's noble thoughts for the believer to whom the Holy Spirit has been given. Do you practise righteousness?

J.C.Evershed