Contentment

As the end of 2014 approaches and we move into 2015, I wonder if we will be grateful. I also wonder if we will be content. You see, these two, gratefulness and contentment, are connected. Contentment flows out of gratefulness.

We have forgotten that the archenemy of gratefulness is discontentment. Remember the quote from a couple of weeks ago:

"Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we are not satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other." - Ann Voskamp, "One Thousand Gifts"

Our discontentment grows when we allow two specific attitudes to be a part of our thinking. They are: COMPARISON and ENTITLEMENT. I could expound on this point, but my wife, Angela, has done a wonderful job handling this in one of her recent blog posts (you can read it here). She summed it up by stating:

"When we compare with others, we give room for entitlement to grow in our hearts, which then gives birth to discontentment which will eventually take up every inch of space leaving no room for gratitude." - Angela Burtis, "For Love Of Words", November 18, 2014

Notice with me these Biblical reminders:

"But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we will 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 evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with may griefs." 1 Timothy 6:6-10

"Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have because the Lord has said, ' Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?'" - Hebrews 13:5-6

"I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have 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 all things through him who gives me strength." - Philippians 4:11-13

It is interesting that contentment is NOT natural, rather it is learned. The Apostle Paul told us that this was something that he had to learn. Throughout his journey, with all of his experiences, he learned the secret of contentment.

And just like him, we need to learn that we begin with nothing and we end with nothing. Through our times of need and in our times of plenty we will learn about contentment. We need to learn that God is always with us, He is always helping us and that He always meets our needs. And ultimately we need to learn to keep our desires in check.

I pray that the year ahead will be one of gratefulness and contentment!

Acts of Gratefulness

Being grateful and thankful...that's what we have been talking about recently. It begins with our thoughts - because of God's grace in our lives we give thanks and are filled with joy. A lack of gratitude will cause us to have a lack of joy. It then demonstrates itself in our words. You see, our words of gratefulness to God are based on Who He is and what He has done. A simple response...express words of praise to God. But it doesn't end there, it continues in what we do - acts of gratefulness.

Read this verse with me:

"Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise - the fruit of lips that confess his name. And do not forget to do good and share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased."  Hebrews 13:15-16

Notice that both are mentioned here - "the fruit of lips" (words of gratefulness) and "do good and share with others" (acts of gratefulness). It begins with thoughts, moves to words and then to actions!

This whole idea of acts of gratefulness made me think of the account that is recorded in Luke 19:1-10. You remember, the short man named Zacchaeus. Probably most of us can sing that old Sunday School song - "Zacchaeus was a wee little man..." But what is the reason for this account? I hope that its simply not that short people should learn to climb trees to see Jesus! I really think that it is more than that.

Do you see what happens? Zacchaeus is interested in seeing Jesus even though he is one of the outcasts in that area. He was wealthy because he served as a chief tax collector and was considered a "sinner". Yet he goes to great heights to make sure that he sees this Jesus and then, Jesus calls him by name and invites himself over!

After some time with Jesus in his home, this is his response that is recorded for us:

"But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times that amount.'"  Luke 19:8

The response from Zacchaeus after being with Jesus is to act! God does a work in his life and out of his gratefulness, he acts. God's work is a work of rescue and restoration. Zacchaeus is an outcast, a sinner, yet Jesus came to rescue him and restore him. Rescue him from his sin and restore him to a right relationship with God.

Zacchaeus responds in a like manner. His actions are to rescue and restore. He gave half of his possessions to rescue those who were in poverty. They had no other way out of their poor circumstances, but he did. He used his wealth, giving out of his abundance to those who had nothing. And then he turned to those whom he had cheated and restored what he had taken from them. The law required that he return what he had taken plus 20%...but he does even more. He pays them back four times what they had lost. That means the $100 he may have taken from them became $400 instead of the $120 he should have repaid. What an incredible demonstration of gratefulness!

May we follow the example of Zacchaeus and allow our acts of gratefulness to be a result of the work that God has done in our own life.


"Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved."

Words of Gratefulness

During these last few weeks when our focus has been on Thanksgiving, I've been reminded of all that the Scriptures tell us about being thankful and grateful.

"Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great king above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land."  Psalm 95:2-5

"Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations."  Psalm 100:4-5

"Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men."  Psalm 107:8

"The Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. All you have made will praise you, O Lord; your saints will extol you. They will tell of the glory of your kingdom and speak of your might, so that men might know of your mighty acts and the glorious splendor of your kingdom."  Psalm 145:8-12

All of these verses state a very simple truth, that our words of gratefulness to God are based on Who He is and what He has done.

They are all tied together. Who God is is the starting point. Each verse speaks to the character of God...He is great, good, loving, gracious, compassionate and slow to anger. And then, out of Who He is, He acts...He formed the earth and holds it together, He is always faithful, He does wonderful deeds for men, He is good to all and has compassion on all, He performs mighty acts and has a glorious kingdom. Our response is simple...to express words of gratefulness and thanksgiving. Our praise is to be offered to Him, for Who He is and all He has done.

I find it interesting that we are to have our minds filled with all these thoughts of gratefulness and then the natural response is for the words to flow out. Our words of gratefulness to God are from the abundance in our heart.

"No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thorn bushes, or grapes from briers. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks."  Luke 6:43-45

Very simply...what fills, spills. What our heart is filled with will spill out in our conversation. The thoughts that we think will come out in our words. If there is no grateful thought then ingratitude is evident in what we say.

My prayer for us at this time of year is that we will fill ourselves up with thankfulness, gratitude and joy so that our speech is noticeably different from those we come in contact with. They need to see the God Who is and the God Who has done so much for us all.

"Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved."

Thoughts of Gratefulness

I have recently completed a series of messages during the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving with the aim of cultivating an attitude of gratefulness and thankfulness.

For many of us we may find it difficult to have this attitude when all of our life is swirling around us and seems to be out of control. We are troubled, confused, unsure of where everything is headed, feeling that we have been jilted and maybe even bitter.

We seem to have forgotten that this is not new. Even in the beginning of time, shortly after Creation, Adam and Eve had a hard time being grateful. Remember in the Genesis 1 account of Creation, we read over and over that when God had finished His work for that day, He saw that what He had made was good. And yet, in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve are confronted by Satan, he asks them the question, "Is it good?" He plants the seed of ungratefulness in their minds and they begin to question whether God is really good...what has He done for them lately...does He really have their best interest in mind. They forgot that God creates and says "It is good!" and that Satan destroys by saying, "Is it good?"

"Satan's sin becomes the first sin of all humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are simply, painfully ungrateful for what God gave. Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God and what He gives. We hunger for something more, something other." - Ann Voskamp - "One Thousand Gifts"

There it is...we fall into the same trap. We forget all that the Scriptures tell us about being grateful.

"But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness." - Romans 6:17-18

"Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our 'God is a consuming fire.'" - Hebrews 12:28

"But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Corinthians 15:57

"Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" - 2 Corinthians 9:15

We need to be reminded that the basis of our gratefulness is the gracious gift of God.

It is interesting that the words GRACE, THANKS and JOY are connected in the Greek language. All three come from a similar root word.

The gracious gifts of God cause us to be thankful and we are in turn filled with joy.

Maybe you have found this to be true, that a LACK OF GRATITUDE = LACK OF JOY and that a LACK OF JOY = LACK OF GRATITUDE.

So to fight falling into this trap of ungratefulness and a joyless life, there are three things that we should begin to do:

1) Find something to be thankful for - (There is always something there if we look for it)
2) Thank God for it - (He is the One Who gave it)
3) Write it down - (We need to remember it)

Let's begin thinking thoughts of gratefulness.


"Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved."