Skip to main content

Pursuing Contentment

By
Godly Character: Contentment

Philippians 4:9-13 “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 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.”

Contentment is about satisfaction, peace, and rest of soul: The person who is content in Scripture is like a weaned child or a sheep who is resting (Psalm 131). The opposite of contentment is striving, needing more, wanting more, and inwardly noisy. While contentment leads to peace, joy, trust, confidence, hard work, discontentment leads us to complaining, threatening, despair, contempt, manipulation, anger, and anxiety. 

Contentment is about Surrender: Growing in contentment means accepting the fact that God knows best, is best, and has richly provided you with everything you need to enjoy (1 Timothy 6:18).  Contentment is surrendering to God rather than yourself for leadership and rule over your life and the goals that you pursue.

Contentment is something we pursue by faith: Contentment is believing the promises of God actively even when you don’t want to. It is about trusting that God’s way is wiser, higher, and more joyful than what you might think is best. Contentment is also possible by faith as we trust that God cares, loves, and provides everything that we need. A lack of contentment might actually indicate a lack of belief that God des care for you, love you, and provide you with what you need.

Contentment is a process: We grow in contentment through life experiences. Paul says in Philippians 4 that he learned contentment.

Contentment is not about your circumstance or situation: Often times our solution to discontentment is to change our situation or circumstance. This is called striving. Learning contentment leads us to accept that God is the one who sovereignly places us in our circumstances. Learning contentment means having trust that we can learn contentment within any given situation. 

Paul tells us that it is necessary to learn contentment not only for circumstances that seem difficult and unwanted for us but also for circumstances that are agreeable and comfortable for us. In other words, contentment isn’t guaranteed in comfortable or wanted situations and it isn’t unattainable in uncomfortable or unwanted  circumstances. Paul suggests that suffering want and enjoying abundance both pose obstacles to contentment, which means contentment is a higher ideal to purse that transcends our circumstance.

Contentment is about knowing God:  True contentment is about coming to God and knowing God. In Psalm 23 the source of contentment for the sheep walking through the valley of the shadow of death is that you are with me. In 1 Timothy 6:18 we set our hope on God because it is he who provides. He alone is the source of our joy. You cannot find contentment or joy that comes with it if you have not learned to love God and enjoy his presence. 

Contentment is possible because of Jesus’ death and resurrection: Jesus has provided all of the protection, provision, and love that we could need through his death and resurrection. Nothing more is needed, nothing less would suffice. Psalm 23 suggests that Jesus is our good shepherd and therefore, it is possible to find contentment and rest for our souls in trusting the shepherd’s provision for his sheep whom he loves so much, he lays his life down for them.

We can say that contentment is a great Christian virtue that we should pursue by faith and obedience. With contentment the Christian finds the pathway to joy, rest, peace, perhaps even hope and patience. 

We can rejoice that Scripture tells us that we are created in the image of God. Serving God and bringing glory to him not only gives the Christian their purpose for living but it identifies the deepest purpose a any person could possible live for. 


The pursuit of virtue/character implies there is a purpose to live for. The marks of Godless and purposeless people is apathy, which is a lack of concern or care for anything. Apathetic people do not pursue virtue. Christian virtue, on the other hand, are merely the steps that a Christian takes in pursuit of a bigger goal: to serve God and his glory

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Worship Songs, October 15, 2017

By
We post these worship songs leading up to the worship service so that parents may listen to them in the house or in the car within the days leading up to the worship service. Our hope is that children will hear the songs prior to and it will prepare them to participate in worship on Sunday mornings. My Redeemers Love Hope Has Come I Will Glory In My Redeemer Blessed Be Your Name Here In Your Presence Your Glory Be Still My Soul (In You I Rest) -- Sermon Text: John 11:1-16 That the next generation will set their hope in God and not forget the works of God (Psalm 78:7).
Post a Comment
Read more

Deacons - How They Serve and Strengthen the Church (Part 1)

By
  One of the next important priorities for GCF is to establish deacons in the life of the church. On March 14, 2021 we were able to establish an elder team. Currently, we have a team of four elders overseeing the congregation of GCF.  However, there is more work to be done. I have come to see that establishing an elder team was the bare minimum that needed to happen for GCF to survive. I believe GCF now needs to turn our attention to raising up a team of qualified and willing deacons to serve the congregation so that it will not only survive but thrive.   I would like to begin a series of blogs on deacons to help us understand who they are and what they do in the life of the church.  In this blog let me provide three reasons why I think deacons should be near our top priority.  Number 1: It is Biblical. Paul instructs Timothy to install elders who will help him pastor the church. For whatever reason, it seems the churches in our circles treat the installmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret of all Failure is our Failure in Secret Prayer

By
“We may be assured of this—the secret of all failure is our failure in secret prayer” (12). So writes the anonymous author of the classic little book on prayer entitled, The Kneeling Christian (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids: 1971). He means that the reason we so often fall into sin or live in discouragement or fail to bear fruit is because we do not cling to God in Christ above all things. We do not diligently seek him or lean on him or plead with him or draw on his strength. We give ourselves to busyness over communion with God and in this way we seek to accomplish in our flesh what can only be accomplished in the power of the Spirit.  Giving first place to what our dear author calls “secret prayer” is indeed a key to the Spirit-filled life but let’s be clear: prayer is not magic, rather, it’s a relationship. It’s not as if we simply have to file requests with God, being careful to use just the right words so that we can get him to respond as we wish. God is not a vendi...
Post a Comment
Read more