Is Contentment and Godliness Compatible?

Is Contentment and Godliness Compatible?
By Rev. Robert P. Elkins
All Scripture verse taken from the NIV Bible unless otherwise noted

“But godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1st Timothy 6:6-10)

Look at the same verses in the Amplified Bible translation
“[And it is, indeed, a source of immense profit, for] godliness accompanied with contentment (that contentment which is a sense of inward sufficiency) is great and abundant gain.
For we brought nothing into the world, and obviously we cannot take anything out of the world;
But if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content (satisfied).
But those who crave to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many foolish (useless, godless) and hurtful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction and miserable perishing.
For the love of money is a root of all evils; it is through this craving that some have been led astray and have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves through with many acute [mental] pangs.”


The apostle Paul offers wise counsel to his protégé, Timothy, on this subject of money and contentment. I’m sure there are many reading this message that have heard that old adage “You’ve never seen a U-Haul trailer on the back of a hearse”. The point to be made from that little witticism is what our pericope is saying, when our days on this planet we know, love and call “home” are over and we are called to either eternal glory or even eternal damnation, regardless of how much of the worldly possessions we have acquired, in the final analysis we aren’t going to take a single thing with us when we leave here. We can have any multiple number of cars, one for every road condition and multiple homes, one in each of the desired climates, a mountain cabin for skiing, a luxury penthouse in a city for shopping and a thatch roof bungalow on a tropical island for snorkeling with a huge bank account locked away in a secret vault in each location for ease of access unless there’s a beach front ATM available and when we die we aren’t going to take a thing with us. We can even have our prized possessions placed in the ground with us at the time of our demise and gold rings placed on our fingers and toes if we so desire, and in the final analysis, in that last moment; standing before our Lord with every word, deed and action exposed and displayed like some kind of instant movie review of our life; we aren’t going to have anything to show but our nakedness. Accumulate as much as you can, stockpile and horde as much as you want, when that final breath is taken and our brainwave is just a flat line with no wave or fluctuation at all, we are going to leave everything behind and someone else is going to get the use of all of our possessions. So those words about never seeing a trailer on the back of a hearse are true and I think we can all be in agreement with that statement. Amen?

Another cute little declaration I heard once before said: “We shouldn’t take life so seriously, none of us are going to get out of it alive”. Another true statement don’t you think? There isn’t a one of us that is going to cheat death and slip away without first dying and giving up this earthy vessel we call our body. I don’t know about you, but as for me, this body of mine is just about used up anyway so I’m ready for a new and improved model. Both of these statements are true, both are accurate and make a good point, but they are not headed in the direction I want to take for today. They are interesting and worthy of some serious thought but they are not exactly what I’m looking for in this message.

I want to direct today’s message in the direction of contentment, the question I would like to pose before you today is, can we have godliness and still find contentment in our life today? In this crazy society that we all live in, in this society that is obsessed with gathering as much material wealth and possessions as possible; is it at all feasible to find contentment and still lead a godly life? I guess what I’m really asking each of you is: “Are you content in your life today?” and if not, “How can we look to the Bible to help us?” Before we can make any real sense of this question or try to find any answers to it we need to examine and define what “Contentment” is. We need to ask, “What is contentment?” because if we don’t understand what it is, how can we ever hope to obtain it in our lives?

If we look in the dictionary we will see contentment defined as, “the state, quality or fact of being contented”. Great, we’ve gone nowhere! So it’s back to the dictionary and after looking under the heading of “Contented” we find, “having or showing no desire for something more or different, satisfied”. Now at last we are starting to get somewhere, now a clear picture is starting to develop that we can see with our minds eye. Now we are starting to see that contentment is the state of being contented, and being contented is being satisfied and that all sounds well and good, but satisfied in what? There are so many categories to take into consideration! Do we have contentment in our jobs? Are the jobs we have adequate to provide our needs, put food on the table, a roof over our head and clothes on our back? And are we content with just that or do we want more? For some today having the basic needs met isn’t near enough, if there aren’t three cars in the driveway, a boat, a couple of motorcycles, a motor home and a swimming pool in the back yard they aren’t content at all, in fact they are miserable! For many people today the driving force in their lives is to obtain as much of the worldly possessions they can, to pack our homes with as much “Stuff” as possible and then build the barn or out buildings and pack them as well thinking this will bring happiness when all it brings is grief. Once we have our collection of “Stuff” our main concern is then protecting it from someone who may be trying to steal our pile of “Stuff”, trying to figure out how to pay for it since it was all bought on credit and how to acquire more! I recently saw an ad in the window of the local dry cleaners that said “Closet to crowded, talk to us about storing your clothes”. The average person today has more clothing than they know what to do with. The new home of today has more and bigger walk in closest space than ever dreamed of just a few years ago and it’s still not enough. Look at the recent rage of the “Yard Sale”. Everyplace you look people are taking all the things they have and are putting them all over the lawn, trying to sell them, so that they can get more money to go out and buy more things they don’t need. We pack so many un-needed items in our homes that we have become accustomed to walking around the piles because there isn’t room to put things away and out of sight where it belongs. I’m as guilty as anyone, my item of clutter is books, I have more books than many small town libraries. And I’m constantly looking for more.

You see beloved, there is a huge difference in having our needs met and having our wants met. Having our needs met, well for most that isn’t so hard to acquire, at least not in America. For many poor souls in other parts of the world it is anything from very hard to almost impossible to have their needs met because there is so much poverty in this cruel world but that’s not the case in America, at least not for now. But it is changing here. The divide between those that “have” and those that “have not” is growing at a rapid pace here in America.

Two of the most dangerous words that can come out of the human mouth are, “I Want”! With those simple little words on their lips people will covet, steal, take, risk everything including their life and liberty, kill and go to war over. With the “I Want” words embedded on their minds people will do anything they can think of in order to get what they want, regardless of the consequences to themselves or to others. They will shatter their lives, devastate their families, destroy their communities, and ravage their nations with wars in order to get what they want. And our society not only approves, but encourages this type of behavior.

Look at what we are bombarded with on a daily basis. We are brainwashed with words and images that feed our need for greed. “It cost more but I’m worth it”! Now there’s a nice little self-serving ditty for hair coloring. “You deserve the vacation of your dreams, let MasterCard help”. Help you do what, take the vacation you can’t afford and then do what, put you in debt? Two years after the vacation is done and all of the pictures lost someplace in the house we are still paying for the vacation of our dreams, but by now that dream has become a nightmare keeping us awake at night trying to figure out how to make the payments on that wonderful little piece of plastic in our wallet. What MasterCard did was help themselves to our security by offering to bury us in interest payments and pile on stress we really don’t need and is destroying our physical and mental health and stability. I love this one, “Escalade, all the power you need”. The advertisement showed a woman driving a diamond studded, gold plated 4x4 tank down a city street with a pothole in her way which she can go around easily enough since she is driving a 500 horsepower, gas guzzling behemoth, and she’s going to buy a pair of shoes or something as trivial as that. Like we really need to blow $70,000.00 on a vehicle that was actually designed to cross the jungles of South America in the rainy season just to impress the neighbors and feed our own egos. Does any of this really give us contentment? Or is it all a sham as we try to impress someone with what we have?

What about our homes? Do we have contentment in our homes? Does our home meet our needs or are they likewise just there to put on a false image? Does our home keep us dry when it rains, warm when it snows, sheltered when the wind howls and safe enough to allow us to sleep without fear? Are our homes adequate enough to invite someone in to share our blessings with them, a meal, a cup of tea or coffee, a place to share the gospel message? Are we contented enough with our homes to hold a prayer meeting and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work of ministering to our friends and family?

What about our marriage? Are we content in our marriage; are we content in the spouse of our youth? My wife, Mary, and I have had over twenty years of beautiful marriage and enjoy our life together. Think of that, twenty years of love and happiness, that’s not bad out of almost forty years of marriage! Why would I say that? Because it’s true, that’s why. We weren’t always happy and walking around on a cloud of peace and love, we weren’t always enamored in loving bliss with each other. There were times when our marriage was hard and down right painful to endure. We had money problems, we had children problems, we had disagreements between us and if it wasn’t for the love of the Lord it would have all come to an end. There were times when the only difference between our marriage and the Titanic was that they had a piano! We were both sinking fast. Before Mary and I allowed Jesus to have his rightful place as the head of our family and marriage we had some real rough roads to travel down in our lives. The only thing that held us together was another word that sounds like contentment, a word that seems to be avoided today in many marriages and relationships; commitment.

We don‘t hear the word commitment much any more, it’s not used much in our society; today people don’t like to make a commitment to one another. People will live together, they will share a home, a pet, a vehicle, a life, even a child, they will share an existence together but they don’t want to make a real commitment, they are afraid to make a commitment to have a lasting life together. It sounds too formal, it sounds to lasting, like commitment is a bad thing to be avoided. We like to have our “Out”, we want to know that we can walk away and pretend that there are no lasting consequences to our actions and relationships with other people if the road gets to rocky to travel any longer. When Mary and I got married we took the word “commitment” very seriously, we were committed to each other and we were committed to the vows we took before God and the witnesses present. There were times, although not many, and I praise God for that, when we both wanted to walk away, there were times of temptation when the grass on the other side of the fence really looked inviting but in the back of our minds, in that little place where the conscience lives; we were reminded by God’s Holy Spirit of the vows we made at the altar, we were reminded of the words we spoke to God and before the few witness’ that were present to hear those words. We made a pledge to each other and the Spirit of Jesus never let us forget it, we made a commitment and we knew we had to abide by the rules of that commitment even when there were other people and other places that really seemed a lot more desirable to be with or near. Regardless of the attraction, be it another person or a place, regardless of how close we each came to walking out, in the final analysis Mary and I had to admit that we were content to be with each other, just the three of us in our marriage, my wife, myself and our Lord Jesus.

You see friend, as a society, when we fell into the thought life that commitment was a bad thing, what we actually did was consent to a new thought life that perverted the word’s of God. The enemy has fed us a lie and we’ve taken it hook, line and sinker, we, as a society have fallen into his trap and we don’t even realize that we are in it until it’s too late. It’s as if Satan has dug a hole in a very deep sand pit and we’ve fallen into it. Have you ever been in deep sand and tried to climb up out of the hole or maybe even tried to go up over a tall sand dune? No matter how fast we try to move or how hard we struggle we can’t make any headway, as we claw and dig using both hands and feet in unison, trying to get a foothold in the sand; it just keeps sliding down around us and there’s no foundation from which to use as a launching pad and push up from. Once we’re in the hole it’s a trap we can’t get away from until we find something solid to grab hold of and a sure foundation to stand on that isn’t going to move. And that my friend is what Jesus offers us when we allow him to have his rightful place in our marriages and our relationships with others. When we make Jesus Christ the head of our relationships, of our marriages, our very lives, then we have that sure foundation that will never shake or tremble. In the book of Joshua God tells us: “As I was with Moses, so will I be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you”. That’s a promise that comes directly from the mouth of God and he will always uphold his word, God can’t lie, it isn’t in his nature to lie. For God to tell a lie is unthinkable, it’s impossible. If God were to tell a lie then he couldn’t be God because God is perfect in every way. You see, if we are to have contentment in our marriages we have to have the sure foundation of Jesus Christ as the base of our marriage, having God as the base gives us something to stand upon and something to build upon to guard us from sinking in the sand pit of the enemy. Having Jesus as our foundation is a sure formula for a great marriage that will bring with it success and contentment and thus we see that there can be a blending of contentment and godliness; it is possible if we allow God to be in control of our lives and our relationships. Godliness and contentment are compatible in this life.

Here’s another one to think about. Do we find contentment in our bodies? Are we content in how our bodies look, our physical shape or maybe the way we are on the inside, our medical condition; are we content with what and who we are? When I was twenty I looked like a string bean, tall and thin. Now I look like a squash! And my oh my have things changed for many of us, aches and pains in places where we didn’t know we could have aches and pains, maybe all the parts aren’t working correctly any longer or some of the parts aren’t even there any more. And for some, maybe those parts were never there from the beginning, things that were absent from birth. Has the old get up and go got up and went? What we once were able to do is now just a past memory and far beyond our range of motion. Is the mirror less of a friend than it used to be? Do we still have all that we used to have when we were younger but now we find that it’s all moved to a different location? The Bible tells us in the book of 1st Corinthians, chapter 15, that we are to be getting new bodies when we pass on to glory, ones that will no longer be falling apart or failing us after a few years. Imagine that if you will dear friend. Try to imagine what it will be like when we have our new bodies and they come with no pain or sickness. They will never tire out and they will never be out of shape. All I can say about that is “Glory! Lord I’m ready for this now”! Listen to the words of the apostle Paul from the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians: “I declare to you brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” Paul is telling us that we, in this body we now have, cannot go on to glory in heaven with the Father and that in a instant we will be taken from this flawed and misused body and given a new one that will never perish or deteriorate. If we aren’t content with the bodies we have now, just wait. New ones are on order and we will never have to worry about getting the wrong size ever again. The body we gain from our intimate relationship with Jesus Christ will be a perfect body free from all defect and flaws. Again we see that there can be contentment and godliness in this life and that they are compatible. We may not be content with the body we now have but we also have the divine hope of a new body and just that thought gives us contentment and peace of mind.

Can we find contentment in our surroundings? Can we find contentment in the neighbors we have, harder yet can we find contentment in the family members we have? Neighbors we can change either by their moving away or by us doing the relocating. But family, well that’s another story, the family we have is the family we have and that isn’t going to change. What about contentment in the trials we face on a daily basis, what about the persecutions that loom over the horizon for the Christian believer and the followers of our faith? Read the Bible friends, we haven’t seen anything yet. The apostle Peter address this in his letter entitled “1st Peter”, in the first chapter Peter says: “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he had given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded buy God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, through now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith, of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” Peter is telling us that God is going to shield us in his power, that’s another of God’s promises that we can count on, but Peter is also saying that we still will be going through various trials and tribulations while we are waiting for the return of Christ or our death to occur, which ever comes first.

One of the strongest men of faith in the Bible is the apostle Paul and yet listen to how the events in his life went as recorded in 2nd Corinthians 11.
“I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have know hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches”. How is that for a job description? Just makes you want to run out and be a missionary for our Lord doesn’t it? But Paul took it all in stride, he knew that there was a price to be paid for being a servant of Jesus and he gladly paid that price without complaining. Paul knew that he had to keep his eye on the prize and not on the road leading to the prize. Listen to Paul’s words as found in his letter to the Philippians; Paul is talking about his striving on toward his final goal of fellowship with Jesus in glory. From the 3rd chapter we read, “But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead”. Paul knew that he wasn’t going to find contentment in the things of the world. Notice that Paul even says that he counts everything he had as a loss compared to his knowing Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Paul compared his “objects” of worldly things rubbish in comparison to his gaining Christ. But Paul did find contentment in this world, even in spite of the things that came against him in his struggles just to get through this life. Again from the letter to the Philippians, Paul states: “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” The KJV states that last sentence as “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” Although I use the NIV for most of my study and teachings, the KJV here offers a far more powerful picture.

You see friend, it’s not the amount of “things” we have that gives us contentment, and it’s the relationship with Christ Jesus that brings contentment into our lives. Paul was a man of faith and vision and the same Holy Spirit that bolstered Paul’s faith is available today for each of us. I dare say that not only is the same Holy Spirit, this Spirit of Jesus available, but He is there and desiring to have an active part in our lives. God’s Holy Spirit wants to have a share in our life, He wants to be a part of our decision making process, our reasoning, our every facet of life, God’s Holy Spirit holds us in very high esteem and desires with a burning passion to lead and guide us through this life and onto glory, the glory that will come only through a relationship with Jesus Christ when we pass from this earthly plane and into heaven. It is the Spirit of God that allows us to find contentment in what we have because when the Spirit enters us we look at things in a different light, we can see that the things of this world just aren’t all that important any longer because all the “things” are temporary and will some day pass away and leave them all behind.

One of the wisest men in all of human history was King Solomon, and in his wisdom after years and years of study he had the revelation of the Spirit that chasing after the things of the world was as fruitful as chasing after the wind. For a man or woman to have real contentment in their life they need the intimate relationship with their Lord and it was not until Solomon had this revelation did he find any contentment in his life. We can feel his passion when we read his words as recorded in the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes. Remember now that Solomon was most likely the wealthiest man to have ever walked this planet, in juxtapose Solomon made Bill Gates look like a poor man and yet we read: “I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks that anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well, the delights of the heart of man. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.” If we were to read on and study the writings of King Solomon in any detail we would soon see that he, at some point, realized that all his great wealth and all his possessions were nothing if God wasn’t in any of it. If we look at the lives of the two men, King Solomon and the apostle Paul, if we study their writings, and look at their lives, we can see that between the two, Paul was the far more content and yet in regards to worldly possessions Paul had nothing when placed in juxtapose to Solomon. So in this we can conclude that in regards to our surroundings there can be contentment and godliness if all things are placed in their proper perspective.

We’ve now come to a fork in the road so to speak in this study. I could continue along the same path we’ve been on and to point out further object lessons about finding contentment in our present situations but I would like to now pursue a different direction by asking a simple question. What is the opposite of contentment? We have already established that being content was defined as: “having or showing no desire for something more or different, being satisfied”. So what is the opposite of this? The obvious answer is being “Dissatisfied” or “Discontentment” of course. If we are dissatisfied with any of the things we have already talked about in our lives, the things that should bring us contentment if we are in right relationship with our Lord, then we start to fall into the category of being dissatisfied with: who we are, what we are or where we are in life.

Now I pose another question to you, what was the first sin based on? The answer to that is the same answer as we used for the first question, “Discontentment”. If we go to the beginning of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, we see that God gave Adam and Eve everything they needed to have a perfect and content life. They had all the food they needed, they had a perfect climate to live in, so perfect that they didn’t need any clothing for warmth and they were never cool either. They had companionship with each other, they had all the animals, all the plants, and most importantly they had proper relationship and fellowship with God. God only placed one little restriction on these first two people, God said “You can have it all, everything you see is yours to enjoy, enjoy the food, eat to your hearts content, enjoy the climate, I designed it just for you, your naked, enjoy each other, I’ll leave the rest of that one to you, you can figure that one out on your own. It’s all yours … but … leave this one tree alone. I don’t want you to touch this one tree. You can have the pear trees, the cherry trees, the orange trees, and the banana trees. But leave this one I’ve set aside, alone, this one is just for me!” Adam and Eve were content with what they had, they enjoyed the gifts God had given them and then all of a sudden, one day, discontentment set in. That Old Rascal Satan planted the seed of discontentment in the heart of Eve, she accepted it and that seed took root and grew to maturity. The happy and content first couple were no longer content with what they had, they were no longer content with the finest of everything the world had to offer with the exception of one little tree that sat in the middle of paradise, no, now they wanted it all, they wanted everything that they had and they wanted that one little tree as well. They began to look past having all of their needs met and started looking out to having all of their wants fulfilled. The seed of discontentment was planted in the heart, it took root, it grew to maturity, it grew into temptation, and the temptation grew into lust and the lust developed into sin. Once that seed of sin was released into the world the days of eating fruit from the trees without any pain or strenuous labor were gone forever, paradise was closed and an angel placed at the entrance to keep man and woman out. Once the seed of sin was released in the world we lost our innocence and the spirit of greed and lust has run rampant ever since.

Now was this all God’s plan from the very beginning? Did God give Adam and Eve a taste of paradise and from the very beginning intend to toss them out into a cold, hard world? No. But what God did give them was “free will”. God allowed mankind the option of thinking and making decisions on their own. God instilled in us the ability to know between right and wrong and a conscience to stimulate our spirit when we do wrong, that’s the difference between us and the rest of the animals and other creatures on the face of the earth, the animals and other creatures don’t have our conscience and our spirit stimulated by God’s Spirit to lead them. So God didn’t intend for this to happen but he did allow it by allowing us to exercise our free will. And mind you well, there is a mountain of difference between what God intended and what God allowed. When God made us in his image he made us with free will, we came like that; it wasn’t an add-on option. God didn’t want puppets; he wanted creatures that exercised free will and were capable of worshiping God solely because we were able to so making that decision on our own. And we all know what happened, Adam and Eve did exercise their free will and violated the ordinance establish by God and what they received and what we have is the result of their action. When the first couple allowed their free will to lead them discontentment entered man and woman and ever since it’s been passed on from generation to generation. Adam and Eve passed it on to their children and they to their children, and they to their children, in a continuous cycle ever since; right up to and including you and I today. Again allow me to say, this isn’t what God intended to happen but it is something that God allowed to happen because he loved us so much and wanted us to have free will so that we could turn to him and worship him from the desires of our own heart, God didn’t want little robots that worshiped him out of a preprogrammed heart but he wanted children that would love and worship him out of our free will. Man isn’t stronger than God, man’s will isn’t more powerful than God’s will, and man can’t do anything outside of the will of God. Try as we may we can’t do anything outside of the will of God if God deems that it will not happen. It is only because of God’s extreme love for us that he allows us to make our own decisions and lets us grow even when we grow and wander into the wrong direction and make poor choices.

An example being, flight, man has always wanted to be able to fly, man has always held the dream of being able to fly like the birds, to soar and glide through the skies like the eagle. God didn’t design us for this type of activity but God in his infinite humor has allowed us to gain some type of flight using every conveyance conceived by man to achieve it. But true flight has and will always elude us; it’s not in the will of God for man to fly unassisted. Man has studied all the flying things in the world, if it has the ability to fly; we’ve studied it to see how it obtains flight on it’s own without the use of any mechanical adaptation. We’ve studied and copied the shape of the bird’s wing, applied it to an airplane, added a motor and we are ready to fly. But in all reality we can’t say: “I think I’ll go flying today”. What we can say, if we want to be accurate is: “I thing I’ll get into a man made device and with the assistance of this device my own hand has made and then I’ll be able to go flying”. God has allowed us the liberty to gain a semblance of flight, but he hasn’t allowed us to fly, why? It’s not in his will. And just to prove that God has a good sense of humor, he’s allowed us in our intense studies of flight to analyze every winged creature and evaluate the physics of flight and after years and years of study we have concluded that due to its unique and large body size and its small wings it is impossible for a bumblebee to fly! If we apply all of the laws of physics, as we know them to the bumblebee, that bee can’t fly, it’s impossible! But it does. God’s just letting us know that he is still in charge, that he is still in control, and try as we may, we can’t out do God.

If we think about it, if we think about the strategy Satan used in planting that seed of discontentment in Adam and Eve, we can see that Satan tried to use the same strategy and plant the same seed in Jesus. If we were to read the passage of Jesus in the wilderness from the book of Matthew in the 4th chapter we would see that Satan tried to plant a seed of discontentment in Jesus during Jesus’ time in the desert. “Jesus, if you’re discontented with the hunger in your body; turn these stones to bread and have something to eat. Jesus if you’re discontented with the little accumulation of the worldly things you have, worship me and I’ll give you everything in the world”. And how did Jesus respond to these seed plantings of Satan? Each time Jesus said: “It is written!” Jesus had to destroy the seed of discontentment that Satan was trying to plant by crushing it with the written word of God. Each time Satan tried to tempt Jesus by planting an evil seed, Jesus responded by quoting the scriptures to Satan; and in the end commanded Satan to go away and leave him alone. Jesus let Satan know in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t accepting the seed Satan was trying to plant and we don’t have to either. You see friend in that last little statement we now have the key needed to answer the question on how to find contentment and still live in a state of godliness. As with all questions of a spiritual nature we always need to go to the source of all knowledge and wisdom, the Holy Scriptures, the Bible.

God doesn’t’ want us to be discontented in who we are, what we are or at times, even where we are. Quite to the contrary, God wants us to be content in who are, and what we are and in the circumstances that surround us even when the picture isn’t looking all that great. For many, this may be the first time you’ve heard this but I like the acronym for the Bible as “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth”. And that’s just what the Bible is, it’s a book of instructions on how to live and conduct ourselves in a godly way while here on earth. It’s God’s very own words given to us and for us, giving us instruction and guidance on how to live as godly people until his Son returns to gather his church unto himself or we go on to glory prior to his return. Think of the Bible as God’s personally written “Owners Manual” and well it is; it was written just for us.

God gave us this wonderful book so that we have his words in regards to our contentment in this life regardless of the circumstances we are in. Look at the book written by the apostle Paul to the church at Philippi. Notice with special interest in how Paul encourages and lifts that church up with his words as given by the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4:4-7 says: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”. Notice how Paul tell us to rejoice, not only does he tell us to rejoice, but to make sure of our understanding of his words, he uses a special emphasis in his statement by repeating the key word, Rejoice! He’s telling us that we are to rejoice and to not be anxious, but to rejoice and not be anxious in what? Why in everything! Paul says that we aren’t to be anxious about anything and friend that anything covers everything. God’s word tells us that we aren’t to be anxious, upset, antsy, or to worry about any of the problems of life, and why should we, we can just give it all to God. Jesus said, “Who of you by worry can change one hair on your head?” Worry doesn’t do us any good, it doesn’t gain us anything but an upset stomach and ulcers and maybe some long and sleepless nights. Worry does cause anxiety and frustration but it doesn’t bring us any benefit from it. Worry doesn’t add anything to life but it sure does place some powerful distraction in our way. When we become immersed in worry and anxiety we spend all of our time concentrating on the problem when all we have to do is give the problem to the Great Problem Solver! “But in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Again notice Paul’s wording here. Does he say that once we do pray and give the problem over to God we are going to get instant gratification or relief? Does Paul tell us that once we release the prayers to God we are going to get an instant response from God and all of our problems will instantly vanish like a vapor in the morning breeze? No. Paul doesn’t say that, but what he does say is that once we pray, once we submit our petition over to God, with thanksgiving, once we do this and give the situation over to God we will get one thing instantly; we can have the peace of God that transcends all understanding. And that my friend is almost as good as having the problem removed all together. We may still be facing the same problem but it is no longer ours, we are just holding it for a moment because it now belongs to God. Jesus has told us that the Heavenly Father allows the rain to fall on the just and the unjust, or the righteous and the unrighteous, and that rain falls equally on them both. Whether we are godly or ungodly, good or bad, it matters not, there is going to be times when the rains of life are going to fall on us, it’s inevitable. It’s the giving of our cares and concerns back to God that changes the way we look at that rain that is going to come. Just because we have to be out in the rain doesn’t mean we can’t carry an umbrella that helps keep us dry, and God’s words and promises are our umbrella. If we are out in the rain of life and it’s pouring down, and we have no umbrella … we are going to get soaked! But if we have the umbrella of God’s words and promise over us the only thing that gets wet are our feet. There may be a little dampness in our life but it doesn’t have to ruin our day.

There is another point of interest in our reading from the book of Philippians I’d like to call your attention to. Notice in verse 7 of the 4th chapter that it says, “The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”. That’s a two-fold blessing, a double portion of beauty to be had for the asking. If we are not looking to God and allowing him to help us walk through the problems we face on a regular basis, we can become so frustrated in our thoughts that it can have an effect on both our physical condition and our mental condition. But God’s peace will guard against the development of any problems. That’s a promise from God and we can stand on. I’ll use a medical problem as an example to illustrate my point. If we have a physical problem, pray about it, hand the concern over to God and allow him to deal with it. That’s not to say that we should just pray and ignore the problem or leave it at that, no never, if there’s a problem or medical condition that needs medical attention then by all means go to the doctor and obtain proper medical evaluation of the problem. God has given us the ability to tap into the many wondrous avenues of healing administered through the hands of doctors and modern medicine, but we need to remember that regardless of what that avenue of healing is, it originates with God, everything we have and use is from his creation, it all comes from what God made to begin with. Man hasn’t created anything on his own; he’s just found where God had it tucked away while he was waiting for us to find it. But according to the promise of God for his peace that transcends all understanding, while we are going through the medical complication, we can still be at peace, we don’t have to have additional suffering or worry or fear while we are waiting for the healing to take place.

And maybe the problem or the rainfall in our life isn’t of a medical condition, what if its source is found in something else; say our finances, does this principle still apply? Yes it does, regardless of what the situation, this principle of turning everything over to God in prayer works. Whatever the problem is… God has the answer. Whether it’s finances or health, God is the answer. Relationships or business affairs, God is the answer. Childcare or caring for an elderly parent, God is the answer. It doesn’t matter what the problem, we can give it to God and release ourselves from the burden of carrying it around with us like so much unneeded baggage. In the book of Mark in the 10th chapter we read the words of Jesus, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible”. You see my friend, there can be contentment and godliness both alive and well in the life of the Christian when we put God in control of all situations and allow his Holy Spirit to direct us in all things. We can have both of the best God that has to offer, contentment and godliness; the two can go hand in hand.

In closing I want to give you a little review of the Ten Commandments and how if followed they can assist us in our journey gaining both godliness and contentment as we go. If we go to God’s list of “Ten Commandments” we will see contentment in each and every one of them:
The 1st commandment has contentment in it, “You shall have no other gods before me!” paraphrased it’s saying, “Be content with me as your God, I’m all you need”.
The 2nd commandment has contentment in it. “Don’t make any false idols” paraphrased its saying, “Don’t make any little gods with your own hands or contrive something from your own mind”. Be content to have the One and True Living God with you who is Spirit and communicates with your spirit and is always your constant companion.
The 3rd commandment has contentment in it. “Do not take the Lords name in vain.” paraphrased, “Be content to call me by the names I gave you, I have many so you don’t have to make up your own to get my attention”.
The 4th commandment has contentment in it. “Observe the Sabbath Day and keep it holy” paraphrased, “Be content with working six days a week because the seventh day should be set aside for me. If you can’t get it done in six days with my blessing, what makes you think you can improve it by working an extra day without my blessing and making me angry?”
The 5th commandment has contentment in it. “Honor your Father and Mother” paraphrased, “Be content with the parents I gave you, they may not be perfect, you may not even like them, but they are the vehicle I used to bring you into this world because I love you and wanted you here. And just as I will hold you accountable for your actions and deeds, I’ll be holding them accountable for theirs as well, let me handle it.
The 6th commandment has contentment in it. “Do not murder” paraphrased it says, “Be content knowing that my justice will be sufficient for any wrong you have endured, I don’t need your assistance in administering my perfect justice to anyone. I’m the one that gives life and I’ll be the one that determines when it ends”.
The 7th commandment has contentment in it. “Do not commit adultery” paraphrased it says, “Be content with the spouse you have, you found them to be what you wanted in the beginning and you came and asked my blessing on your marriage. If there’s a problem let me handle it with your intervention in using my given word to correct the problem”.
The 8th commandment has contentment in it. “Do not steal” paraphrased it says, “Be content with what you have, it’s not all that important anyway, and it doesn’t belong to you”.
The 9th commandment has contentment in it. “Don’t lie” paraphrased it says, “Be content in telling the truth, and when you come right down to it, it is actually easier than lying. To be a good liar you have to try to remember who you told what story to if each story is different with each person. And at some point in your lie you are going to get caught unless you are really good at remembering the various stories. Telling the truth requires remembering just one story”.
The 10th commandment has contentment in it. “Do not covet your neighbors husband or wife, their property or pets, or anything else they have”. Paraphrased it says, “Be content with what you have, I put this one in the list to cover anything I didn’t cover before in the other commandments, it’s a catch-all and I like it”.

And so my friend, I hope that through this simple yet somewhat lengthily teaching you have seen that there can be contentment and godliness living side by side in the person of each believer. When we have God on our side or maybe better said, when we are on the same side of the street as God is the walk to contentment and godliness is just a lot easier to obtain.

Grace & peace