CONTENT
“But godliness with contentment is
great gain.”
I Timothy 6:6
Solomon with all his wisdom and wealth came to
the same conclusion in Ecclesiastes when he wrote: “There
is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he
should make his soul enjoy good in his labour.” (Eccles 2:24)
This same conclusion is repeated throughout the words of Solomon. See Eccles 3:12, 13, 22 and 9:7-10.
So the Word of God is telling us to get in
there and enjoy what God has given. Stop
allowing your desires to wander and start fixing yourself on what is before
you. Be thankful, count your blessings
and leave any increase to God’s discretion.
Relax. Be content.
Solomon gives a final conclusion in 12:13 “Let us
hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments:
for this is the whole duty of man.”
This comes with a serious warning….”For
God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it
be good, or whether it be evil.”
We will be judged for how we use what God has
given us. Are we being good stewards of
what we have or are we discontent and unthankful workmen? Are we being wise servants or are we wasting
our Lord substance on riotous living?
Are we thankful and recognizing God’s blessings to us, or, are we
ungrateful and grasping ignoring what true blessings the Lord has given us?
What is the prevailing attitude in your
life? Contentment or greed? Judge yourself.
CONTENT
“Let your conversation be without
covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will
never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”
Hebrews 13:5
In the 1600’s a man named Jeremiah Burroughs
wrote a book called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. It is an
amazing in-depth look at the different facets of contentment and
discontentment. In Chapter Eight he is
discussing the evils of a murmuring spirit.
He says that God will work to “disengage the heart of a person from all
creature-comforts.”
The Bible word “covetousness” is just a big
word for greed, meaning desiring things for oneself, or, we might call it
desiring creature-comforts. The lives of
so many today are totally built around making themselves more comfortable. Be
it in bigger houses, cars, more clothes, fame or beauty, our generation seems
bent on self satisfaction and that is the total value system. Yet God repeatedly calls us to look to
higher, eternal things and not to love this present world. These things are temporal. They have no eternal value, yet, we struggle
to live on that higher plain. We place
so much value, attachment and esteem on our fixtures that we forget that our
soul is the only eternal thing we possess.
Mr Burroughs states, “…it is a sign your heart
is glued to the world, that when God would take you off, your heart tears….if
you can part with ease without tearing, your heart is not glued to the world.”
I liked this challenge. What do I possess that would tear my heart if
it were taken from me? Not counting
friends or family, what physical thing do I possess that I just would grieve to
be without? That thing just might be an
indication of where my heart truly lies and why I feel discontent in my
heart. Is my heart is fixed on a
temporal idol. Hum?
CONTENT
“And they gathered themselves
together against Moses…and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing
all the congregation are holy, every one of them: wherefore then lift ye up
yourselves above the congregation of the Lord?”
Number 16:3
Yes, I know. The word “content” is not is this verse. Jude 11 refers to this as the gainsaying of
Korah. There is strife here. Why?
Because Korah was discontent with his lot. He felt that all of the children of Israel
were holy and so all of them were equal with Moses and should be allowed the
privileges of Moses office, i.e. to lead!
A discontent heart
leads us to many miseries and misjudgements.
Burroughs lists six.
- You
lose a lot of time in wandering, self-focused thought instead of God-honouring
meditation.
- It
unfits you for service because you are distracted.
- It
causes wicked risings in the heart and spirit against God, others and
self.
- Unthankfulness
reigns.
- It
causes a shifting of spirit – confusion and instability.
The
Spirit of God enables us to amplify good things and avoid evil things. The devil does the contrary.
- It
takes away what comfort you do have.
It would be good to
take time to think through these six traits.
Start by apply them to the situation with Korah. If you don’t know the story, go and read it
in Numbers 16.
Then, look at
situations in your own life. Where are
you demanding your own recognition? What
distracts you and leads you to wicked risings and thoughts in your heart? Can you see that the real source is a
murmuring, discontented and unthankful spirit?
Don’t allow it to take the comfort you do have. Why not cast it off and choose a thankful
spirit?
CONTENT
“I have learned, in whatsoever
state I am, therewith to be content”
Philippians 4:11
Content no matter what the situation – that is
an amazing strength of character. I
certainly don’t possess it yet, do you?
We are so prone to try to make life fit to our
own demands that we fight against anything that makes us uncomfortable. Don’t try to push us out of our comfort zone.
Our generation is so self-focused that we believe that life is supposed to make
us happy and satisfied at all times.
Contentment of a richer sort is a learned
spiritual art. Burroughs defines
it: “Christian contentment is that
sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and
delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”
Every condition? Yes.
Paul went on in Philippians to say that whether he had sufficient or was
lacking, he knew how to be content. That
takes real strength of grace. Can we
keep a steady way and our head about us when things go wrong? Or do we through our hands up and verbally
despair at our situation? Can we see the
hand of God in our circumstances and content ourselves that He is in control
and has our best interest at heart?
Burroughs said, “…the hearts of men who are
full of themselves, and hardened with self-love, if they receive a stroke (an
affront to self) they make a noise, but a self-denying Christian yields to
God’s hand and makes no noise. When you
strike a woolsack it makes no noise because it yields to the stroke; so a
self-denying heart yields to the stroke and thereby becomes to this contentment.”
Surely this is a mystery of godliness. Lord, teach me to be content.
CONTENT
“Fret
not thyself in any wise to do evil…” Psalm 37:8
I know, again the word “content” is not in the
verse, but please indulge me once more. Burroughs makes a point that cannot be
missed in our meditation on contentment.
Think about this:
“Contentment delivers us from an abundance of
temptations…The Devil loves to fish in troubled waters. Troubled, unsettled spirits are vulnerable to
temptations and prime candidates for the Devil’s work. Temptations will no more prevail over a
contented man, than a dart that is thrown against a brazen wall.”
We might think that contentment is a passive
state where we simply allow anything and everything to wash over us. That is hardly the case. Contentment is a solidness of soul that
steels the Christian and becomes a great protection. When we are content and settled in our
acceptance of God’s will and provision, there is little place for the Tempter
to draw us away.
The unsettled, discontented Christian however
is always vulnerable to uprisings in the heart and mind. They are always looking around for offenses
to come and for strivings. They are
pessimistic, envious and ungrateful for the most part. They have not tasted of the graciousness of
God and have not yielded their will to Him.
They fret stew and wind up angry and more discontent.
God’s will is for all of us to enter into the
rest of contentment. He wants all of his
children to know that He is a good Father and has prepared every step of the
way. There is no reason for his children
to be whimpering or crying out. His
should be a peaceful family full of love, graciousness and confidence. Contentment is a protector and it comes by
knowing you can trust your Heavenly Father implicitly.
Are you a fretter? Is your life full of strife and trouble? Maybe it’s time to surrender your will and
content yourself with His love.
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