But greed had a way of being all consuming. It burrowed into your mind so that all you thought about was money or gold.”
                    –B. S. Dunn  (Last Stand in Sanctuary)

       “Let the lowly brother glory in his exaltation, but the rich in his humiliation, because as a flower of the field he will pass away.”
                    –James 1:9-10 (NKJV)
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Here we see in Proverbs 10:15 another contrast.  This time it is the wealthy versus the one in poverty.

          “The rich man’s wealth is his strong city; The destruction of the poor is their poverty.” (NKJV)

Wealth can bring many things, some of them good, some of them bad.  Much is on how wealth is used.  The rich must be careful not to make their wealth an idol thinking that it can cure and help in any situation.  Bob Beasley reminds us that the “fleeting riches of this life protect us from very little.”  Pestilence can run wild in a city, terror and evil are still rampant, life is in a rush.  It is a mistake to look upon wealth as a “strong city.”  It cannot secure us from the evils of life.  J.L. Flores warns us about this thinking, “Strongholds can be undermined, and those who had trusted in their strength have been destroyed by that very confidence.”
     There are over 900 billionaires in the United States.  Man, sometimes despairingly, seeks wealth.  I think of the gold rush back in the 19th-century.  “Pikes Peak or Bust” and most of them busted.  Or the slogan, “In God we trusted, in Kansas we busted” as many did not even reach the gold fields.  Gold, the symbol of wealth, is elusive.  It often causes delusions in those who seek it.  Think of the great disaster of October 1929 when the Stock Market crashed.  Some lost everything and could not handle that loss and took their own lives. See, the problem is not wealth; the problem is making it a god.  So often the old adage regarding wealth is true:  Here today–gone tomorrow.  The prophet Jeremiah tells us, “Nor let the rich man glory in his riches.” (9:23, NKJV)
     Then there is the poor man.  What more can be done to the poor?  They are already down and out.  What hope do they have?  They cannot turn to their riches, their money.  If they have it, most likely they squandered it foolishly.  They live daily in their destruction, destitute, homeless, addicted, stricken and many without hope.  It is important that both the rich and poor realize “that the blessedness of life here does not consist in what a man has, but in what he is.” (Flores)  You for sure can’t take it with you.  What is the saying, “I’ve never seen a hearse with a trailer hitch”?
     Those with wealth are expected to be a good steward and use it wisely for the kingdom of God.  They should know that to whom much is given, much will be required.  They are required to share their blessings, and I will say many do, but then…why do they share?  Heavy heart, guilty conscience, appease the soul, do penance or is it out of a love for God?  Jesus gave a warning that we find in Luke 12:15, “…Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” (NKJV)  Listen, wealth may be a curse, poverty may be a curse, “but a good conscience, a godly character, is a continual feast.” (Flores)

Men must struggle or they deteriorate.”
                    –Louis L’Amour  (The Californios)

       “But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
                    –Romans 8:10 (NIV)
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         “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness:  for they shall be filled.”  –Matthew 5:6 (KJV)

     Let me begin this with some background of the times in which it was written.  William Barclay does an able job explaining the life of the period.
               “The fact is that very few of us in modern conditions of life know what it is to be really hungry or really thirsty.  In the ancient world it was very different.  A working man’s wage was the equivalent of three pence a day, and, even making every allowance for the difference in the purchasing power of money, no man ever got fat on that wage.  A working man in Palestine ate meat only once a week, and in Palestine the working man and the day labourer were never far from the border-line of real hunger and actual starvation.
               It was still more so in the case of thirst.  It was not possible for the vast majority of people to turn a tap and find the clear, cold water pouring into their house.  A man might be on a journey, and in the midst of it the hot wind which brought the sand-storm might begin to blow.  There was nothing for him to do but to wrap his head in his burnous and turn his back to the wind, and wait, while the swirling sand filled his nostrils and his throat until he was likely to suffocate, and until he was parched with an imperious thirst.  In the conditions of modern western life there is no parallel at all to that.”
     I am thirsty just from reading that.  We may cry, “I’m thirsty,” but this beatitude is speaking of a deep thirst.  Not for real water but having an appetite for God.  There is an ongoing hunger for Him that is never fully satisfied.  The term means to have a “vehemet desire” or a “vividely expressed desire.”  Barclay refers to it as a “starving spirit.”  How thirsty are you for “righteousness”?
     There are actually three parts to righteousness.  The first is legal.  This is justification, a right relationship with God.  This was taken care of at the cross, but now we move into this meaning of this verse.  There is a moral righteousness which is an inner right-of-heart, mind, and motive.  Do you long to do right in all your motives?  Hmmm.  Then there is also social righteousness, this is outside of the private and is expressed in the community.  D.A. Carson says that the righteousness that Jesus is speaking of is “wholly to do God’s will from the heart.”  Barclay says, “It is the hunger of the man who is starving for food, and the thirst of a man who will die unless he drinks.”  That is the righteousness that we should and must have.
     The question is:  how intense is our desire for goodness, for righteousness?  The great author, Robert Louis Stevenson, wrote that “There is the malady of not wanting.”  Oh, we want all right.  We want this and we want that.  We want in our selfishness.  But…what do we hunger after?  We have a “jaded appetite.”  We want the calories of dessert or pizza or something that will fill the craving of our taste buds.  Friend that is not the same as spiritual hunger.  “Spiritual hunger is the characteristic of all God’s people.  Our supreme ambition is not material but spiritual.” (John Stott)  We want just a taste of righteousness but then we look at the things out there and we have a different type of hunger.  Listen, “Blessed is the man who hungers and thirsts for the goodness that is total.” (Barclay)
     We do not seek legal righteousness, that was taken care of at the cross.  To do this is crossing into legalism.  Longing and thirsting after salvation when it is already taken care of is not true hunger.  Our hunger should be after God’s righteous character.  To be like Him.  Oh, we can never reach that lofty goal.  But the key is, as Barclay writes, “Not necessarily the man who achieves this goodness, but the man who longs for it with his whole heart.”