I must see first to be content. I watched an old TV show the other day and the lead character was blind. He had a friend come over to his house and the friend discovered that all the lights in the house where off. The friend could not see to move around, and the blind man never knew there was a problem. Many times, we are like the blind man. We never even know that there is a problem because we have lived our whole life a certain way.
When we look at contentment, we sometimes don’t even see our discontent because we have lived our whole life being that way. So then first we must look to where true contentment comes from. God is not only the source of our contentment, but contentment is an attribute of God. God in the strict sense is content with-in Himself. God is fully satisfied and without need, He is all-sufficient. It is fundamental to our understanding of Christian theology that we recognize the truth of God being fully sufficient and needing nothing. Remember that our discontent comes from our needs and wants. God then being self-content is the only source for our contentment.
John 1:16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.
Here in John we are told that we have been given, from God in Christ Jesus, full grace. That implies that all the grace we need is ours already. In this grace we are sufficient needing nothing more.
I Cor. 3:5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Then God is our source of sufficiency and thus our contentment, for would God not provide all that we needed? Then we must live the full measure of contentment already given to us. Would God give only a part of a gift? So, what’s the problem, why do we live lives of such discontent? I have already been given a sufficient portion of contentment, enough to abundantly satisfy my soul in every condition.
The reason is simple we do not live godly lives. We live as the blind man, although the light switch has always been in his house he continues to live in darkness, worse than the blind man we have been healed of our blindness yet continue to live in darkness.
I Tim 6:6 Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth.
Godliness and contentment go hand in hand. As we grow closer to God, we live more and more in the grace He gives and will be filled more and more with contentment. It is our duty as Christians to be good stewards filled with godly contentment. We should be skilled in this mystery and regularly exercised in the use of such skill. It is with true contentment that we express glory and praise to our savior which is our due service.
Anchor In The Storm 