Matthew 5:6

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied."

Righteousness-
1. Acting in accord with divine or moral law
2. Morally right or justifiable

Morality. I often stress the importance of not focusing too intensely on our personal morality. I still stand behind that statement. Hungering and thirsting for righteousness is often confused with self-righteousness.

Self-righteousness-
convinced of one's own righteousness especially in contrast with the actions or beliefs of others: narrow-mindedly moralistic.

A self-righteous person can't "hunger and thirst for righteousness." They are already convinced they have arrived at moral perfection. The self-righteous person calls everyone else out on their flaws, but he fails to see his own weaknesses, therefore he never seeks to improve his moral condition.

Self-righteous people will never be satisfied as Jesus talks about in this passage. Think of it as a child who is hungry and thirsty. Instead of asking her mom for a snack, she finds a stash of Snickers and Reese's and washes them down with a Coke. She feels satisfied at first, but she soon begins to have a stomach ache. Rather than depending on her mom for nutritional satisfaction, she tried to create her own diet. Although it ceased her hunger and thirst, the meal was not healthy for her.

Just like this example, the self-righteous Christian neglects to plead with God for moral direction, but instead relies on social mores and laws to define his perfect morality. Christian circles often create extra-scriptural moral laws, creating the image of the "perfect Christian." The only morality we are accountable for is God's law, which if we remember says not to judge others and to pick the log out of our own eye before we go in attack mode over the speck in our neighbor's.

Everyone's morality does not look the same. Stop putting yourself in a box based on what people say you should be. If the expectations are not scriptural, they are most likely not God's. If we are not relying on God for our own specific moral instructions, we are settling for self-righteousness.

We must understand that in order to be able to hunger and thirst for something, we must be willing to admit our helplessness and inability to provide our own satisfaction. We must hunger and thirst for what is divinely righteous for us individually rather than finding false satisfaction in our perfect performance of what is culturally acceptable in our Christian circles.