[kuhn-tent]: satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else.
I want to start with the word content because I believe that one thing we never are is...content. There are many lost virtues in our culture, but contentment is one of the lease valued today. Media feeds us anything but the message of contentment and "enough." Abundance, luxury, vanity, extravagance, excess, gluttony, indulgence- those are our values. Think about how often people are trying to sell you what you don't need. Need is another word that could use defining, but I think we all prefer to ignore its true meaning.
As Christians we are to be counter to this culture, not sub-cultural.
We have adopted the idea that a little more is okay. The problem is that "a little more" for us is extreme luxury to most everyone else in the world. Everyone reading this post is in the top 2% wealthiest people in the world. I'm trying not to rant about all the extra we have, but we all need to examine how much we really do have.
Contentment, as you can see above, is a simple thing. I think that we like to define contentment like a mother negotiating with her child to eat his food so that he can get desert. The kid will eventually give in to his desire for sugary bliss and say "Fine...I'll eat my broccoli." Contentment isn't so much of a negative compromise to your discomfort. Contentment is realizing that you are doing fine with what ya got. No one is selling that to you.
The famously misquoted verse Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." There isn't an athletic connotation to this scripture. When read in its full context, Paul is actually commenting on being content in any physical situation. He lived a hard life by anyone's standards, yet he says in Romans 8 that, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" and in 2 Corinthians 4, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." That is a spokesman for contentment.
What are we content with? We are content with our salvation. We are saved, and we know it. We are safe and we are hoarding salvation from others because we are content with just being saved ourselves.
Next time I want to look at the word "radical." We need to be content with what we have, and definitely repent for our wasteful habits, discontentment, and self-pitying. We need to be discontent with our inaction on a spiritual and evangelical level; instead, let's trade that in for something a little more...radical.
I want to start with the word content because I believe that one thing we never are is...content. There are many lost virtues in our culture, but contentment is one of the lease valued today. Media feeds us anything but the message of contentment and "enough." Abundance, luxury, vanity, extravagance, excess, gluttony, indulgence- those are our values. Think about how often people are trying to sell you what you don't need. Need is another word that could use defining, but I think we all prefer to ignore its true meaning.
As Christians we are to be counter to this culture, not sub-cultural.
We have adopted the idea that a little more is okay. The problem is that "a little more" for us is extreme luxury to most everyone else in the world. Everyone reading this post is in the top 2% wealthiest people in the world. I'm trying not to rant about all the extra we have, but we all need to examine how much we really do have.
Contentment, as you can see above, is a simple thing. I think that we like to define contentment like a mother negotiating with her child to eat his food so that he can get desert. The kid will eventually give in to his desire for sugary bliss and say "Fine...I'll eat my broccoli." Contentment isn't so much of a negative compromise to your discomfort. Contentment is realizing that you are doing fine with what ya got. No one is selling that to you.
The famously misquoted verse Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do everything through him who gives me strength." There isn't an athletic connotation to this scripture. When read in its full context, Paul is actually commenting on being content in any physical situation. He lived a hard life by anyone's standards, yet he says in Romans 8 that, "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us" and in 2 Corinthians 4, "For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all." That is a spokesman for contentment.
What are we content with? We are content with our salvation. We are saved, and we know it. We are safe and we are hoarding salvation from others because we are content with just being saved ourselves.
Next time I want to look at the word "radical." We need to be content with what we have, and definitely repent for our wasteful habits, discontentment, and self-pitying. We need to be discontent with our inaction on a spiritual and evangelical level; instead, let's trade that in for something a little more...radical.
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