Shall be filled (5526) (chortazo from chortos = fodder or grass or herbage of the field in general) means to feed with herbs, grass or hay and then to eat one's fill resulting in a state of being satisfied eat one's fill. Chortazo was used of the feeding of animals until they wanted nothing more. They were allowed to eat until they were completely satisfied. The picture is of animals who stayed at the feed trough until they wanted nothing more to eat. Thus chortazo means to to feed providing more than enough to satisfy. For example Matthew records that... they all ate (multitudes fed miraculously by Jesus with only 5 loaves and 2 fish), and were satisfied. And they picked up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve full baskets. (Matthew 14:20) Similarly Paul in describing how he came to learn the secret of spiritual nourishment in Christ wrote... I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. (see note Philippians 4:12) Chortazo is used figuratively by Jesus to refer of experiencing inward satisfaction in or being fully satisfied or content with some object or state. Brown records the evolution of the meaning of chortazo writing that... In earlier Greek chortazo was used uniformly of animals but in the exaggeration of comedy was applied to men feasting. Under the influence of colloquial use, it lost its strong sense and became virtually the equivalent of esthio. It used at least twice in this sense by Eubulus. chortos, feeding place, fodder for animals, implies primarily grass or hay for horses and cattle, but as early as the 6th and 5th centuries B.C. it was being used in poetry for food in general (Hipponax, Euripides). In the Septuagint (LXX) chortazo translates the Heb. saba‘, to be sated with. While the basic idea is that of satisfying with food (Pss. 37:19; 59:15; 132:15), the ground is satisfied with rain (Job 38:27), the trees with sap (Ps. 104:13), and the earth with the fruit of God’s works (Ps. 104:13). On two occasions disillusion is expressed (Jer. 5:7; Lam. 3:15, 29), but more often the depth of satisfaction goes beyond that of mere food to that of seeing and knowing God (Ps 17:15; 81:16; 107:9). (Brown, Colin, Editor. New International Dictionary of NT Theology. 1986. Zondervan) Chortazo - 15 times in the NT - Matt 5:6; 14:20; 15:33, 37; Mark 6:42; 7:27; 8:4, 8; Luke 6:21; 9:17; 15:16; 16:21; John 6:26; Phil 4:12; Jas 2:16; Rev 19:21 and is translated fed, 1; filled, 4; satisfied, 8; satisfy, 2. Chortazo -15 times in the non-apocryphal Septuagint (LXX) (Job 38:27; Ps 17:14f; 37:19; 59:15; 81:16; 104:13, 16; 107:9; 132:15; Jer 5:7; Lam 3:15, 30). For example there are several uses in Psalms, both figurative (satisfied spiritually) and literal (bread) ... Psalm 17:15-note As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Thy likeness when I awake. Psalm 104:13-note He waters the mountains from His upper chambers; The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works. Psalm 132:15-note "I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her needy with bread. You must realize and acknowledge that you cannot be spiritually satisfied on your own...so it begins with being "poor in spirit" (Mt 5:3-see notes Matthew 5:3). You come to see that the things the world enticingly parades before you, cannot satisfy you. You must hunger and thirst for what Christ Alone provides. Your poverty and mourning over your sins (Mt 5:4-see notes Matthew 5:4) bring you to see Christ alone is your Bread and Drink. Marvin Vincent explains that "shall be filled" is... A very strong and graphic word, originally applied to the feeding and fattening of animals in a stall. In Rev 19:21-note, it is used of the filling of the birds with the flesh of God’s enemies. Also of the multitudes fed with the loaves and fishes (Matt. 14:20; Mark 8:8; Luke 9:17). It is manifestly appropriate here as expressing the complete satisfaction of spiritual hunger and thirst. Hence Wycliffe’s rendering, fulfilled, is strictly true to the original. (Vincent, M. R.. Word Studies in the New Testament. Vol. 1, Page 3-38) Dear Christian, the Lord plants within our soul a deep longing which He and He alone can satisfy. The giving of satisfaction is God’s work, as the passive voice of chortazo indicates. Our part is to seek; His part is to satisfy. We will never discover anything in this world more satisfying than the Lord, Who will meet all our needs. And yet there is a marvelous paradox for the person who genuinely hungers and thirsts for God’s righteousness finds it so satisfying that he wants more and more. The Psalmist affirms that God satisfies those who seek Him writing that... He has satisfied (LXX = chortazo) the thirsty soul, and the hungry soul He has filled with what is good. (Psalm 107:9) Commenting on Psalm 107:9 Spurgeon writes that... For he satisfieth the longing soul ...is the summary of the lost traveler’s experience. He who in a natural sense has been rescued from perishing in a howling wilderness ought to bless the Lord who brings him again to eat bread among men. The spiritual sense is, however, the more rich in instruction. The Lord sets us longing and then completely satisfies us. That longing leads us into solitude, separation, thirst, faintness and self-despair, and all these conduct us to prayer, faith, divine guidance, satisfying of the soul’s thirst, and rest: the good hand of the Lord is to be seen in the whole process and in the divine result. And filleth the hungry soul with goodness. As for thirst He gives satisfaction, so for hunger He supplies filling. In both cases the need is more than met, there is an abundance in the supply which is well worthy of notice: the Lord does nothing in a stingy fashion; satisfying and filling are His especial modes of treating his guests. Nor does He fill the hungry with common fare, but with goodness itself. It is not so much good, as the essence of goodness which He bestows on needy suppliants. (Spurgeon, C. H. Treasury of David) Phil Newton notes that... There’s really a paradox here. For in one sense you are deeply satisfied when you hunger and thirst for Christ’s righteousness to be radiantly evident in your life, and yet you will keep hungering and thirsting for more. The Christian life is one of knowing something of immediate satisfaction in the forgiveness of sins and assurance of salvation (in justification), but it is also an ongoing process in which you continue to hunger and thirst, and you continue to find deeper satisfaction (in sanctification), until one day you will stand completed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ with no more sin, no more temptation, no more desire for sin, but only the perfections of Christ clothing you (in glorification). Kent Hughes expressed it well, “The more one conforms to God’s will, the more fulfilled and content one becomes. But that in turn spawns a greater discontent. Our hunger increases and intensifies in the very act of being satisfied” (Hughes, Kent: Sermon on the Mount: The Message of the Kingdom. Crossway Books) (The Blessing of Hungering & Thirsting) Charles Simeon (recommended) introduces this verse with the following remarks... To be filled with good and nutritious food is the utmost that the bodily appetite can desire. It is in this sense that we are to understand the promise in the text. The person who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, shall be made, 1. Truly righteous— [There is a negative kind of holiness, which is neither pleasing to God nor profitable to man: it consists merely in an abstinence from open sin, and a discharge of external duties. But real holiness pervades the whole man: it comprehends the whole circle of divine graces: it reaches to the thoughts and desires of the heart; and assimilates us to God in all his communicable perfections. Now this is that with which the true Christian shall be filled: in all his dispositions towards God and man, he shall be changed: he shall not only be delivered from all that would injure his character among men, but shall be “transformed into the very image of his God in righteousness and true holiness.”] 2. Progressively righteous—[That degree of perfection to which Christians may attain, is not gained at once. All the members of the new man, as well as of the material body, do indeed exist at the moment of our birth: but they are then in a state of infantine weakness: and their arrival at a state of maturity is a gradual work. Now this work shall be advanced in the souls of those who earnestly desire it: “they shall hold on their way, growing stronger and stronger;” and, like the risen sun, “shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day.” “The Lord will perfect that which concerneth them,” and “carry on his work until the day of Christ.”] 3. Perfectly righteous—[Though absolute perfection is not to be attained in this life, yet every righteous person may expect it, as the completion of his wishes, and the consummation of his bliss. The moment that his soul is released from this frail tabernacle, it shall bid an everlasting farewell to sin and sorrow. The hunger and thirst which characterize him in this world, will then cease for ever: there will remain to him no heights unattained, no wishes unaccomplished: his soul will be “filled” with the desired good, yea, filled to the utmost extent of its capacity.] Application—Are there those who, instead of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, despise it? Tell me, will ye despise it in the day of judgment? will ye despise it, when ye shall see the difference that is put between the godly and the ungodly? And what is that which ye prefer to it? Can ye say of your pleasures, your riches, or your honours, what our Lord says of righteousness? shall ye certainly be filled with those things? or if ye were, would they ever render you truly blessed? Go, ask of Solomon, or ask of any who have made the experiment; and see whether, in their sober moments, they will not confess those things to be “vanity and vexation of spirit?” O “spend not your money any more for that which is not bread, nor labour for that which satisfieth not; but eat ye that which is good, and let your soul be satisfied with fatness.” Are there those who rest in a form of religion? Know that it is not the form, but the power, of godliness that God requires. The Pharisees of old abounded in outward duties; but “except your righteousness exceed theirs, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” That which you must desire, that which you must attain, is an universal change both of heart and life: you must become new creatures: old things must pass away, and all things become new.” Are there any discouraged because of the small proficiency they have made in holiness? Doubtless this is a matter of lamentation to the best of men. If indeed we are excusing ourselves, and pacifying our consciences from the idea that in this frail state we cannot but commit sin, we are deceiving our own souls; for “he that is born of God, sinneth not;” that is, he allows not himself in any sin, whether of excess or defect; whether of commission or of omission. But if “our souls are really athirst for God, and we are panting after him, as the hart after the water-brooks,” we need not fear. God will ere long “fill the hungry with good things;” “he will satisfy the longing soul, and replenish every sorrowful soul.” The very idea of hunger is a painful sensation of want; and if holiness be the object of that appetite, all shall be well, yea, and all is well: “that soul is blessed, and shall be filled." (Matthew 5:6 Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness) Bernard of Clairvaux, wrote the following hymn that speaks to the paradoxical filling and yet continually hungering and thirsting for Jesus life in and through us... Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts Jesus, Thou Joy of loving hearts, Thou Fount of life, Thou Light of men, From the best bliss that earth imparts, We turn unfilled to Thee again. Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood; Thou savest those that on Thee call; To them that seek Thee Thou art good, To them that find Thee all in all. We taste Thee, O Thou living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still; We drink of Thee, the Fountainhead, And thirst our souls from Thee to fill. Our restless spirits yearn for Thee, Wherever our changeful lot is cast; Glad when Thy gracious smile we see, Blessed when our faith can hold Thee fast. O Jesus, ever with us stay, Make all our moments calm and bright; Chase the dark night of sin away, Shed over the world Thy holy light. (Play hymn) In another hymn Bernard of Clairvaux expressed the paradoxical filling and hungering this way.... Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee O Jesus, Thou the beauty art Of angel worlds above; Thy Name is music to the heart, Inflaming it with love. Celestial Sweetness unalloyed, Who eat Thee hunger still; Who drink of Thee still feel a void Which only Thou canst fill. (Play hymn) ><>><>><> An illustration of thirsting to the point of near dehydration... Driving up from Beersheba, a combined force of British, Australians and New Zealanders were pressing on the rear of the Turkish retreat over arid desert. The attack outdistanced its water carrying camel train. Water bottles were empty. The sun blazed pitilessly out of a sky where the vultures wheeled expectantly. “Our heads ached,” writes Gilbert, “and our eyes became bloodshot and dim in the blinding glare. Our tongues began to swell. Our lips turned a purplish black and burst.” Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again, but the desperate force battled on to Sheria. There were wells at Sheria, and had they been unable to take the place by nightfall, thousands were doomed to die of thirst. “We fought that day,” writes Gilbert, “as men fight for their lives. We entered Sheria station on the heels of the retreating Turks. The first objects which met our view were the great stone cisterns full of cold, clear, drinking water. In the still night air the sound of water running into the tanks could be distinctly heard, maddening in its nearness; yet not a man murmured when orders were given for the battalions to fall in, two deep, facing the cisterns. He then describes the stern priorities: the wounded, those on guard duty, then company by company. It took four hours before the last man had his drink of water, and in all that time they had been standing twenty feet from a low stone wall on the other side of which were thousands of gallons of water. (From an account of the British liberation of Palestine by Major V. Gilbert in The Last Crusade, quoted in Christ’s Call To Discipleship J. M. Boice) ><>><>><> The following illustration gives one a sense of how vital a believer's hungering and thirsting for righteousness is to their spiritual life... A devoted follower of Socrates asked him the best way to acquire knowledge. Socrates responded by leading him to a river and plunging him beneath the surface. The man struggled to free himself, but Socrates kept his head submerged. Finally, after much effort, the man was able to break loose and emerge from the water. Socrates then asked, “When you thought you were drowning, what one thing did you want most of all?” Still gasping for breath, the man exclaimed, “I wanted air!” The philosopher wisely commented, “When you want knowledge as much as you wanted air, then you will get it!” The same is true with our desire for righteousness. (Our Daily Bread) ><>><>><> Spiritual Cravings - Shopping, even for basic foods, can be a patience-testing experience in Russia. I found this out firsthand when I taught at a Bible college in Magadan, Siberia. I was staying with David and Olga Ilyan, who direct the Bible school. Olga was expecting a baby and she craved peanut butter. David dutifully ventured out into a storm to find some. He looked in every store and asked every street vendor, but there wasn't any peanut butter in all of Magadan! They said it would be another month before the stores would have any in stock. David's ordeal caused me to think about our spiritual needs. We all have a deep spiritual longing that can't be satisfied by anything the world has to offer. It's a heartfelt desire to know God. He alone can fill our lives with hope and meaning. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus promised that those who hunger and thirst for righteousness "shall be filled" (Mt. 5:6). The prayerful, humble person who seeks to know and please God will always find what he truly needs. There's no reason to let our hunger for spiritual nourishment go unsatisfied. All that we need is abundantly available in Jesus. --D C Egner (Our Daily Bread, Copyright RBC Ministries, Grand Rapids, MI. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved) The One who said He is the Bread of Life Has also said He'll satisfy your thirst; So why should you be searching everywhere When Jesus said that you should seek Him first? --Hess Only Christ the Bread of Life can satisfy our spiritual hunger. ><>><>><> Shop Right! - Most of us have had the disappointment of going to a store to buy an advertised special, only to find that it was not available. This problem can also be found in the "shopping place" of spiritual values. There are some preachers who promise that God will prosper everyone who exercises faith by giving money to their church or ministry. People who respond to such claims, though, find that they don't get what's being advertised. Marriages remain fractured, health broken, children rebellious, and a desire for employment frustrated. What's wrong? Well, some spiritual leaders have taken it into their hands to promote specials that God is not offering. It's true that God can do anything, but let's not forget that He always retains His right to be God. Then how can we be sure of getting what we are looking for? We must look for what is clearly offered by the Word of God. The Lord is never guilty of false advertising. He offers the fruit of His Spirit, the consciousness of His love and presence, and the many expressions of His character. When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, reaching out in faith for what He offers, we will be filled (Mt. 5:6). That's what it means to shop right! --M R De Haan II When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word, What a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, And with all who will trust and obey. --Sammis God always provides what He promises. ><>><>><> Are you hungering and thirsting for Christ Alone and the righteousness He gives? Then be assured that you will be satisfied in this life and the one to soon come! Or if your "spiritual appetite" has diminished since those early days of "first love" (cf notes Revelation 2:4; 5) when you first met Jesus, perhaps you might be led to pray Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way ><>><>><> F. B. Meyer in his book Blessed Are Ye. has the following chapter HUNGRY--THIRSTY--FILLED "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled."--Matt. 5:6. THIS characteristic of hunger and thirst arises naturally out of the foregoing ones. Up to this we have considered the passive side of Christian character--the poverty of spirit that lies low before God, and dares not think of itself more than a redeemed sinner may--the sorrow that mourns in secret over the evil of the world and of the heart--the meekness which has learned to take rebuff, rebuke, and injury calmly and quietly. But now the active element begins to assert itself. The man whose face has been buried in the dust, or stained with tears, or covered with marks of contumely and reproach, now lifts it toward God, crying, with David, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God." You misjudged him. You thought that he was altogether deficient in force, and unable to exert himself; now you discover that the whole strength of his nature passes through channels which elude the common view of men, and shows itself in vehement passion toward the Unseen and Eternal. The desire of the regenerate soul is not simply toward God, but for righteousness. To be right, to do right, to conform in all things to the outlines and spirit of God's ideal, to have a conscience void of offence, to be uncondemned by the heart--this is the desire of the soul. It is not enough to be conscious of weakness and ignorance, or to mourn for sin, the true penitent desires to learn the secret of walking before God in holiness and righteousness all his days. Our one regret should be that our desires after God and His righteousness are so fickle and faint. There is pain in hunger; nothing is more terrible than to suffer thirst bred by the heat and sand of the desert. But how rarely do we meet with biographies and experiences that come within measurable comparison with these natural cravings for food and drink! Why is it? May we not ask how to increase and augment this hunger for God, so that we shall not need to exert so strong an outward pressure on ourselves to observe times of prayer and worship, but shall leap out in desire toward God and the remembrance of His name, desiring these as the hungry man counts the moments to his meal? Let us take it to heart that we know so little of those passionate yearnings for God which have dwelt in all holy hearts, and the lack of which is one of the most serious signs of declension in the inner life. May God create in us hunger and thirst like that which Jesus knew, even though it should introduce a new and constant pain into our lives, that we may be led by it to know the blessedness that the knowledge and love of God can bring. I. THE SPIRITUAL APPETITE It results from the constitution of our nature. --We cannot go deeper than nature. We cannot go behind or beyond it, for nature is what has been born (Lat. natura), born out of God's thought by God's power. When we speak of nature we must pass in thought from her to her parent God, and find a sufficient answer to all questions and difficulties by saying, " God has so willed it, therefore it is as it is." All the strong basal instincts of human nature must be traced back to the make of our moral being as it was planned by Almighty wisdom, and wrought by infinite power. Do you ask why a belief in the immortality of the soul, and the hereafter, is found in every nation under heaven? Why lying, theft, and murder are accompanied with the blush of shame, and the desire of concealment; why, in the oldest settlements of man, there are traces of the altar and temple: and why human hearts are irresistibly drawn toward each other, finding indissoluble and indestructible affinities? It is only possible to answer by saying, "These things are as they are from the very nature with which God has endowed us." They are necessary, constitutional, essential, as much so as the features of the face, and the general principles of mathematics and arithmetic. We hunger and thirst, because our physical nature has been so created that it must needs go out of itself for its supplies of nutriment. No one of us is self-contained, or independent of the great world of which we form a part. The difficulties and questions of how it came to be so do not alter the fact. Similarly, God made our souls for Himself. Deep within us, He has put necessities and desires, that crave for satisfaction from the Unseen, Eternal, and Divine. We have a vision of the land of righteousness and blessedness from which we have come. Trailing clouds of glory, our race has descended into this murky atmosphere, but it can never forget the note of perfect music which it once heard, the vision of perfect beauty which it once beheld. Man is haunted by the thought of God, his original home; and however low he is plunged in sin and wickedness, he does not utterly forget; and there will be a time in his life when the gagged, imprisoned, drugged soul, will arise and come forth and begin to cry with exceeding bitterness, "I have perverted that which was right, and it profited me not;" "Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness;" "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Thy servant." It produces pain.--There are many sources of pain; but perhaps primarily God has instituted it to compel us to take measures for our health and safety. The intense suffering produced by the decaying tooth is intended to force us to conserve an implement so necessary to mastication. The pain of hunger and thirst is designed to force us to take food, without which the body would become exhausted and die. How tenderly the love of God deals with His children when He forces them by pain to take measures for their own preservation! So in the moral sphere, we should be thankful, when we are discontented with ourselves, when in self-abhorrence we cry out for God's unsullied righteousness, when we turn from the tortuous policy with loathing, when we go about smitten with infinite unrest. Treasure such an experience, for thus the grace of God leads back to Himself. The "vanity of vanities" of Ecclesiastes, so often wrung from Solomon's soul, was the one symptom of returning health. It is universal.--As we have never met man or woman incapable of hunger or thirst, so there is no human soul which is not capable of possessing God, and does not need Him for a complete life. Often the spiritual appetite is dormant, as that of a man debauched with drink. The child, whose stomach is cloyed with sweets; the invalid, who has long suffered under the pressure of a wasting illness, may have no appetite, but at any moment it may awake. Thus with the hunger of the soul for God. It awoke in the woman that was a sinner, in the thief on the cross, and Zacchaeus the publican. Take it bitterly to heart if it has not gnawed at your complacency, and destroyed your peace. Be very anxious if you know no yearnings for a better life, no desires after righteousness, no dissatisfaction with the present, no tireless search for God. These are grave symptoms. Reduce all the activities of man to their ultimate reason, and it will be discovered to be as Jesus said--What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Wherewithal shall we be clothed? Perhaps in these northern climes we might add, How shall we be housed? These elemental necessities are the motor forces of the world. Similarly, all the feverish quest of men in music, art, the love of beauty, the pursuit of the chief good, to say nothing of religion, may be traced back to the desire of the soul for something which it has not attained. It cannot be satisfied in itself. It does not always know what it needs, any more than the babe does who feels the pains of hunger, and cries passionately or bitterly. During the great famines in China and India, the natives have fed on a kind of edible earth, making it into loaves. It has stayed their cravings, but they have grown gradually weaker till they have lain down to die. The nardoo plant of Australia closely resembles flour, but lacks the nutritive property, and those who feed on it, though insensible of hunger, after a few weeks die of starvation. Thus men who seek for that which is not bread, who refuse the fair loaf of God's gift, which is Christ, and feed on ashes, may succeed in stilling the cravings for the unseen and eternal, and yet perish of that fatal lack of God. II. THE NURTURE OF SPIRITUAL APPETITE We know too little of it. We cannot always say with the Psalmist, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord;" nor yet "My soul breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all times;" nor with Job, "I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food." Here are a few simple directions for the stimulating of our desire for God. Beware of the other food you take.--When children are unable to take the meal their mother has provided, she suspects them of having visited the confectioner's shop on their way home from school, so that their appetite has become cloyed and sickly. May it not be that before we can have an eager taste for God's Word, we shall have to put away some of the reading in which we now indulge, and which is little better than garbage? Sensational novels, frivolous talk, indulgence in appetite and sense, quickly incapacitate us for enjoying God. Take exercise.--The more we do, the more food we require, and the more we enjoy it. Manly sports; long, vigorous walks; muscular exertion of any kind, will supply the source of hunger which will make the roughest food palatable; and it is they whose hand is seldom off the plough, who sow beside all waters, and are instant in season and out of season, that are most glad when the bells call to rest and food. Take a tonic.--There is no tonic for spiritual appetite to compare to the biography of a holy life. It is well to have such an one constantly at hand. Frequently the story of the exercises of a man's soul before God has started others on a more passionate quest for the Holy Grail. Get up into the mountains.--The best appetite invigorator is the keen, bracing air, which breathes around those natural altars of the world which God has reared, where the pines grow, and the glacier moves slowly down, and the sounds of the valley seem far away. There is nothing so healthy as to go up with Christ into the high mountain apart when He prays. The tides of blood are aerated by the purer atmosphere; the eye sparkles with clearer vision; the appetite of the soul becomes keener. Let us never rest with low levels, attenuated aspirations, or the mean standards which content our fellows. The only hope of the young artist is that he should not be content with the standard that prevails in the provincial town of his birth, but aim after that presented in the highest masterpieces. The only hope of the cygnet, born in the farmyard, is that it should not be content to paddle in the pond which suffices for the ducks. The hope of the soul is to refuse comparison with those beneath, and to keep the eye fixed on the righteousness of God as it is revealed in the life and words of Jesus. Not as though I had already attained, but I press on. Let us see to it that we apply the highest standards of right to ourselves, to our relations with our fellow-men, and to our attitude before God, so that we could be content to live alone with God, as the one all-satisfying food of the soul. Hudson Taylor said the other day, I have been forty years in China, it is forty years since I first landed on her shores, I have done but little there, I have learnt much, and this of all things--to live alone with God, to know God Himself, to know that His heart is love, and that His heart actuates His hand to help. Here is an ideal after which we may well aspire. III. THE CERTAIN GRATIFICATION OF THIS APPETITE God never sends mouths, the old proverb says, but He sends with them the food to fill them. Young lions never seek that which His hand does not open to give. The fish, and the fly at which it snatches; the bird, and the berries on the hawthorn bush; the babe, and the milk stored in its mother's breast, are perfectly adapted to each other. The instinct for immortality, and the mansions which Christ has gone to prepare; the desire for the city, and the city which hath foundations; the lively hope to which we are begotten by the resurrection of Christ, and its fruition, are in perfect harmony. Whatever you and I have longed for in our best and holiest moments, may have its consummation and bliss, because God has prepared for our perfect satisfaction. No hunger without food to match it; no wing without air to match it; no fire without water to match it; no babe's cry without the mother's love to match it; and no soul hungering and thirsting after the righteousness of God without God to meet and match it. Do you ask what is the bread of God, which can satisfy the insatiable craving of man's heart? Jesus says, I am that Bread of Life, he that cometh to Me shall never hunger; he that believeth in Me shall never thirst. I am the Bread of Life which came down from heaven, of which a man may eat and not die. The bread that I shall give is my Flesh that I shall give for the life of the world. He that drinketh of the water that I shall give shall never thirst. Christ is made unto us righteousness. In other words, the man who has Christ, and gets right with Him, who is brought into adjusted relationship with Christ, almost unconsciously gets right with himself, with men, with the great system of law, and with God. Do not fret about the infinite demands that surround you. Do one thing. Let Christ be Alpha and Omega. With Him as foundation-stone, your building shall stand four-square to God and man. Are you filled? Do you know what it is to be satisfied? Have you ever been filled? Has it ever occurred to you to ask what the apostle meant by saying that the disciples were complete in Him? If not, and you truly desire these experiences, God will supply all your need out of His riches in glory. To ask, is to have. To seek, is to receive. To hunger and thirst, is to be satisfied. Lift up your heart unto the Lord, and say, "Fill me." Cry for Him with an exceeding great cry. For bread He will not give a stone or a serpent for fish. Believe that you receive simultaneously with your request, and you will know the blessedness of the pain which has brought you to God, the blessedness of being satisfied from God, the blessedness of desiring more of God; and yours shall be the song of the Virgin Mother-- He hath filled the hungry with good things. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips. F. B. Meyer. Blessed Are Ye. 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