Examine yourself - Contentment 001

I'm beginning a series on Contentment.  Why"  Well because "things" are tough for a lot of us right now and if you're like Patti and I, it's is really easy to get bogged down in them.  I'm not writing form some ivory tower but from the trenches where "hand to mouth," is a very  uncomfortable reality.  We are struggling on living "God to mouth," and it's tough - contentment is a real challenge.

Examine yourself - Contentment  001

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.  (Philippians 4:11-13 ESV)

Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.   (1 Timothy 6:6-8 ESV)

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" 

(Hebrews 13:5-6 ESV)

One of the signs of our maturing in the faith is contentment.  I don't know about you - but for me that's a tough one.  From my studies I see contentment as the resulting sense or composure of trusting in God's goodness and the goodness of His providence.

If you read the verse above closely it is obvious that what battles against contentment is - well - stuff.  By stuff I mean everything in this world from food to all that neat goodies.  Regardless of the stuff we look at (food or cultural signs of prosperity) contentment is tough.

Contentment is not just sucking it up and carrying on.  There is a definitive element of satisfaction in true contentment.  It's a "This is fine," perspective on our present conditions and provision.  Like I said, it's tough.

Of course the clearest demonstration of the lack of contentment is seen in Israel's exodus from Egypt.  Once they were out they immediately began to grumble and mummer against God.  Basically they felt that all He had done was not sufficient for them to trust Him and they didn't see what He was doing as "good enough."

They "murmured," or "grumbled," against God and His provision.

They were DIS-contented.  Discontent has within it elements of bitterness and anger so we may assume that contentment is, at least in part, an absence of bitterness and anger.

But here's my conundrum.  I find that event though I don't express bitterness and anger at God's provision I am still anxious and fretful about it.  I also have to admit that when His provision is not what I wanted or expected I fall into a rather grudging "suck it up and take it," mode.

What I want to do is to live with praise and thanksgiving in my heart for what He has given me right now.  That is number one.  Then, number two is to joyfully and expectantly look forward to whatever He has for me in tomorrow.  

I find the worst word that can com to my mind is, "but."  

BUT;

It's not what I wanted

It's not what I expected

It's not what I needed

It's no what "I" ---------

BUT:

Will He provide for this need I know it coming and what do I do if He doesn't?

Will He give enough?

Will He determine that I am to go through a trial concerning this?

Then there are all the possible negative scenarios that may result.  Then there are all the possible ways I can fix it.  The there are all the reasons that He should just ell me that I made my bed and I'll have to lie in it - alone.  Then there are all the reasons I know I don't deserve for Him to do anything.

Yeah, it kind of snowballs in your head and weighs heavily on your heart.  

Working backwards, the passage from Hebrews is a help.  The writer begins with the admonition to, "Keep your life free from love of money,"  Nice translation but a little short.  Actually the word means "unavoritious," or "un-coveting."  of course the idea is to not love money but it is bigger - much bigger than that.

Money is a means - a means of power and a means of provision.  This is why Jesus tells us we can either love Mammon (money) or God but not both.  We can get want we want and need via money (a mere means)- or we can get what we truly need (wants are another matter) from God.

Here's the conflict.  Money I can "get" or God I must trust.

So this is where we begin - hope you'll follow along!

This and That: Contentment 092412

But contentment does not come in that way, it does not come, I say, by adding to what you want, but by subtracting from your desires. It is all one to a Christian, whether I get up to what I would have, or get my desires down to what I have, either to attain what I do desire, or to bring down my desires to what I have already attained. 

Burroughs, Jeremiah (2010-07-05). The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Kindle Locations 504-506).  . Kindle Edition.

Having entered the fray with covetousness it seemed good to add a dash of contentment to the mix.  In Burroughs’ work you will find much to guide you, challenge you and comfort you.

The above quote, I take as guidance, challenge and comfort.  Since it is my mis-guided or mis-motivated desires that so plague me in the area of covetousness it makes sense that addressing them is part of the way to contentment.

BUT – I would have you know that just knowing how to learn (and it must be learned) to be content is not enough.  We must attend the class, study the material and take the test.  Contentment comes through learning.

Paul writes:

Php 4:11-13  Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  (12)  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  (13)  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Whatever part of the course in contentment I am in (as we do not all start at the same point or progress at the same rate) the absolute key to the learning is Christ.  It is only His strength that keeps me in the course.  It is only His Word that helps me learn the lessons.  It is only His wisdom that enables me to rightly apply His cure to the condition.  It is not only, “all of /Christ,” it is “only of Christ.”

Contentment is having what I want or wanting what I have in absolute submission to the will and providence of God.  A crumb from our King is as glorious a gift as a coronet.  This we must labor to understand and implant in our hearts.  But that only comes through Him, our strength.

In this early stage of moving out of covetousness and into contentment the most difficult thing is to accept the depth of the corruption of the heart.  The ways, means and measure of the covetousness that lives in the flesh is terrifyingly large.  You cut one root only to find another and another and yet another still.  You cease to covet X and you find half the victory is wrapped up in coveting Y and Z is lurking just out of sight.

I was once told that there were really only 9 individual commandments because the 10^th, “thou shalt not covet,” simply meant that we would not even want to do the preceding 9. 

We are caught up in the world’s expectation of more, bigger and better and the shame of it is that we serve the One to whom it all belongs.  If one gets what they covet from a thief (Satan) it is not the same as getting it from the true owner.  Satan will give you what you want especially if it draws you away from God.  God will not give you what you cannot benefit from.  To whom would you go for a cure?  Patient “0” or the best doctor you could find – or the One who controls every disease and comfort?

If you would be content you must get to heaven for only there will we find absolute contentment?  Here, in this veil of tears, we must constantly and consistently, in the strength of our Savior, strive after it; one time laying hold of it another missing.

Heb 13:5-6  Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you."  (6)  So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"

Here is the bottom line of contentment.  He has promised to never leave of FORSAKE us.

Forsake:  By implication, to leave in the lurch, desert, abandon.

1Ch 28:20  Then David said to Solomon his son, "Be strong and courageous and do it. Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed, for the LORD God, even my God, is with you. He will not leave you or forsake you, until all the work for the service of the house of the LORD is finished.

In the end, it all goes back to the heart:

If the heart of a man is fashioned to his circumstances, he may have as much contentment as if his circumstances were fashioned to his heart.

Burroughs, Jeremiah (2010-07-05). The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Kindle Locations 510-511).  . Kindle Edition.

God can, and will, change my heart and/or my circumstances.  I can really do neither – at least not if I am submitted to Him.  That I am never without my Redeemer and that he will never “leave me in a lurch,” is the truth upon which I must place my feet and the truth I must work into my heart.

Learning contentment does not come easy. The flesh, finding covetousness a most useful tool, fights tooth and talon to keep it alive and active.  It will not go peacefully and so, in dealing with it, we will have to accept the tribulation, the fight, and the blows.  The object is not to tame it or to convert it but to kill it.  It is a fight to the death – its death - for all being said, it cannot kill us.  It can cripple and maim but it can never kill.

Isa 35:4  Say to those who have an anxious heart, "Be strong; fear not! Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come and save you."

The world is infinitely deceived in thinking that contentment lies in having more than we already have. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment, when there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances.

Burroughs, Jeremiah (2010-07-05). The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (Kindle Locations 514-515).  . Kindle Edition.

This and That: Coveting 092312

I consider covetousness as the most generally prevailing and ensnaring sin, by which professors of the gospel, in our materialistic society, are hindered in their spiritual progress. A disposition deeply rooted in our fallen nature, strengthened by the custom of all around us, the power of habit, and the fascinating charm of wealth-is not easily counteracted.  

The language of faith, when in exercise, will not be, "What is most conducive to my temporal ease and prosperity?" But "What will give me the best opportunity of glorifying him, who has bought me with his blood, and called me out of darkness into his marvelous light?

John Newton July 1725 1807

Luk 12:15 And he said to them, "Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

Rom 7:8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.

Eph 5:3  But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.

Col 3:5-6  Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  (6)  On account of these the wrath of God is coming.

Covetousness:  pleonexía; from pleíōn, more, and échō to;  to want more.

Yesterday Patti and I went looking at computers.  Hers, being about 6 years old is on its last legs and we are selling stuff to get her a new one.  Between editing my blogs and working on her photography it’s about time she had a new machine.  Being able to do this is a blessing.

But – the looking, for me, was crushing.  I did not realize the covetousness that yet lingered in my heart until we started the search.  Trying to get an answer to, “what is the bare minimum she needs?” from a salesman was like pulling teeth.  Of course he recommended the “on sale” super machine with all the bells and whistles she doesn’t need.

However that wasn’t the problem.  The problem was that as we looked I found myself growing dissatisfied with my computer.  Now my computer meets all the needs of which I can think.  Needing little more than a machine on which I can do my writing and the occasional Power Point presentation I actually probably have more than I need.  That’s just the fact.

Yet as I looked I lusted and as I lusted I could literally feel myself slipping into turmoil over not being able to have the latest and greatest, coolest and neatest.  Why?  Well, at the root is my fallenness.  Next is my lack of examining me heart for this covetousness.  Finally it is the good old:  1Jn 2:16 “the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions.”

I did not have a need, I knew I did not have a need and yet somehow I felt irritated that I could not get what I did not need.  I felt insufficient, less than, hindered, hampered even cheated.  Now, is that nuts or what?  Well, it’s nuts but it is also sin.

How can we (ok, I) begin to root out this, as Newton calls it, “most generally prevailing and ensnaring sin?”

Newton writes, “The principle of this evil is so strong in us, and so powerfully nourished by almost everything around us, that it is seldom suppressed, but by a course of sharp discipline.”

Newton writes well when he writes: 

I am where he has placed me; and the calling in which his mercy found me, (if it be a lawful one,) is that in which, for the present, I am to abide, as the best for me. When it ceases to be so, I may depend upon him to appoint me another. But, until then, I desire to be contented with such things as I have, and to be thankful for them. He knows my frame, my feelings, my needs, and my trials; he permits, yes, invites me to cast all my cares upon him. He assures me that he cares for me, and therefore I only wish to do or to suffer according to his will today, and to leave the concerns of tomorrow in his hands. While I live-may I live for him! And when I die-may I go to him! May his grace be sufficient for me-and all shall be well."

The key in the above quote, at least for me is his comment, “I desire to be contented with such things as I have, and to be thankful for them.” 

Since James tells us that, Jas 4:1  “. . . .Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?”  I must conclude that it is my “passions,” that is “pleasures” that are the, or at least a, source of my stumbling.  So I have to ask, what brings me pleasure?  Is it staying in vogue?  Keeping up with the Joneses?  Having the latest and greatest? 

I have to confess it must be.  And I must repent.  But repentance comes hard for it, in this case, must be continuous and consistent.  I must fix my heart and mind on engaging this failing and examine as minutely as possible what I allow to bring me pleasure.  What makes me feel OK, safe, secure, valuable, meaningful and good enough?

Here again, Newton provides a key: 

“He knows my frame, my feelings, my needs, and my trials; he permits, yes, invites me to cast all my cares upon him. He assures me that he cares for me, and therefore I only wish to do or to suffer according to his will today, and to leave the concerns of tomorrow in his hands.”

I would only add one thing to this; that I remember and be grateful that He provides me with not only everything I need as I need it but, what I want if I need it.  So as well as wishing to do or to suffer according to His will, I also wish to have or not have what He wills.  Everything outside of that can hardly be counted a blessing.

A favorite, and until now obviously meaningless prayer of mine has been.  “Dear God please do not allow me to want that which You do not want me to want.”  I have to take that prayer more seriously, trusting Him to work in my mind and heart to make it so.

Jesus asks us: Mar 8:36 For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?  From this I must learn to ask, when I sense covetousness stirring, “Of what benefit would this be to my soul?”

If our Redeemer and Sustainer can be counted on to provide a way out of temptation how much more will He provide what we need, be it computers, cars, cash or cookies, for us to effectively do the work He has given us to do?

So, if like me you struggle against covetousness.  If it surpasses you by sniping or ambush press your attack in the strength of the Lord.  Say, “No, no, a million times no!”  And trust that your desire to overcome, to be free of this, “most generally prevailing and ensnaring sin,” is His as well.