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Contentment – part 1

This week we spent time looking at contentment, and to start with we asked “what is contentment?”.

The answer that most people give is that contentment is being happy with what you have.  In many ways this is true, however, it is a little too broad.  If we are happy with what we have got, then we would not want to grow and we would be content with every aspect of our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not content with all aspects of my life – and I shouldn’t be either.  I should never be content that I have a sufficient relationship with Christ - I should always want more of the Lord. The Psalmist said “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God” (Ps 42:1).  Clearly we should desire God – which would indicate that we should never be content with our love of Him or the depth of our knowledge of Him.

So how do we define contentment?  Contentment is the fruit of having our values right.  We’ve looked at values – the Bible says “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Luke 12:36).  The question is (once again) where is your treasure?  The answer to this question will determine whether you are content or not.

There are a couple of key passages in the new testament on contentment.  The first is in Phil 4:11-13 where Paul explains that he has learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need and remain content. He follows this statement by saying that “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13).  The secret to Paul doing what he does in his ministry is not a league of financial supporters but faith in an all powerful God who is working for the same causes as Paul.  Paul’s contentment is based in his faith.

We see something similar in Heb 13:5 where the author says “Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave your nor forsake you”".  The author also links contentment and Christ together here – we are to be content because we have Christ who will never leave us.

What both of these passages point at is that Christ is infinitely more valuable than anything we could have on earth.  If we value God appropriately, we will be focused on him, not money and not the world around us.  Thus we will be content – not because we see that we have all we need on this world (we may not) but we have all that we need – and indeed all that is valuable in the universe.

If we understand the value of God, then if we have him we are wealthy beyond our wildest dreams – even if we have nothing on earth, but have Him, we are still more wealthy than we understand.

Love and money – part 2

The love of money is quite simply a valuing of money over and above what it should be valued.

There are warnings about the love of money in particular throughout scripture.  Specifically here we will look a two passages that deal specifically with the phrase “love of money”.

1 Tim 6:9-10 talks about “those who desire to be rich” – stating that they “fall into temptation, into a snare and into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction”.  Why does the desire to be rich do this?  Verse 10 follows by saying “for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils”.  The word “for” is the same as the word “because” in meaning.  In other words what Paul describes as “those who desire to be rich” is the same as “the love of money” – Paul is using a different phrase to describe the same thing.

Similarly Eccles 5:10 lists more characteristics of loving money – “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this is vanity”.

Consistently in these two passages we read that loving money is characterized by a desire to grow ones income or financial base. 

Ecclesiastes calls this “vanity” which means worthless.  As we’ve already seen we come into the world with nothing and leave with nothing, so indeed this would seem to be a waste of time with regards to the way one conducts their life.

Paul says that people who love money fall into temptation, a snare (trap), and a plethora of senseless and harmful desires.  The end of these things is that they end in ruin or destruction – or as it says in 1 Tim 6:10 wandering away from the faith.

In Matt 13:18-23 Jesus explains the parable of the sower.  In this parable there are four types of results.  Three of these results are with respect to the unsaved, and one is the character of those who are saved.  One of the unsaved perish because “the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and it proves unfruitful” (v22).

If the covetous perish due to their idolatry (Eph 5:3-5), how will those who love money escape?  Yet this sin is almost unchecked in the western world.

Let me put a finer point on it – not only is it largely unchecked, it is also something which many pastors and teachers are guilty of.  Again scripture warns against this (Tit 1:11, 2 Pet 2:3) – but many today are simply “peddling the word of God” (2 Cor 2:17 NASB).  That is that they are on a mission to gain from the word of God rather than share the word of God and the gifts they’ve been given freely.  More on this in another post…

Don’t wait for your spiritual leaders to lead you with regards to thinking about wealth and the love of money.  Chances are they suffer from the same problem and are just as blind to it as you are.  Instead “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (Phil 2:12-13).

Love and money – part 1

There is a link between desire and value.  The things we value the most are the things that are most desirable to us.  So a good litmus test of what we value would be to observe what the things we desire are.  We also find that the things that are desirable are often the things that we strive or work for.  Again, we can test ourselves by asking what our goals are for work, family, and even our social life.

The Bible is clear about what is a legitimate thing to want and what is not.  In the Bible the word “covet” is used to mean something that is desirable – and specifically something that is wrongly or immoderately desirable.  (Where immoderately means exceeding what is right).

This definition alone warrants careful thought.  We find it exceedingly easy to justify ourselves and our desires.  Using the above definition we would justify ourselves by saying “I don’t desire these things more than I should”, rather than first evaluating what is right and then assessing ourselves.

Thus the “love of money” (1 Tim 6:10) is extremely deceptive and hard to see in oneself, yet we are to be on our guard against it as it is the top destroyer of godliness in the western world.

The Bible starts by saying “You shall not covet your neighbors house, you shall not covet your neighbors wife, or his male servant, or female servant, or his ox, or his donkey or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Ex 20:17).

Who is my neighbor? Jesus once affirmed to a lawyer that the two greatest commandments are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself” and was met by a self justifying question – “And who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:27-37).  Jesus answered with the parable of the good Samaritan which illustrated that being a neighbor is about how we behave – not about who our neighbor is.

So when we are told not to covet anything that is our neighbor’s we are being told not to want that which is anyone else’s, and given pretty much everything we don’t have belongs to someone else that makes this a hard statement to swallow.

God is clear about this in other places.  In Deuteronomy 7:24-25 God tells the Israelites that when they come into the lands of the nations that they would dispossess, they were not to even regard the gold and silver on their idols as desirable, but to destroy it.  A graphic illustration of this is the golden calf that Aaron made in Exodus 32 - Moses when he came down from the mountain took the calf (made entirely of gold) and burned it with fire and ground it to powder, scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it (Ex 32:20).  The gold and silver had less than no value as far as God was concerned.  It was considered an abomination and therefore should be destroyed.

In addition, scripture says that the covetous will not inherit the kingdom of God (Eph 5:3-5). 

So why is covetousness so offensive to God?

Lets start in Romans 1:19-21.  Here we see that God has shown himself to us, but instead of valuing him, we value created things.  We don’t see God as desirable, but instead we see ourselves and created things as desirable.

How can I draw the connection between worshipping and valuing? In Romans 1:24 we read the conclusion of changing from worshipping God to the creation… “God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity”.  Lust is a strong form of desire – rather than desiring God, they desired creation – ultimately for their own pleasure.

The switch is from desiring or valuing God to valuing ourselves or our own pleasure or something else that has been created.

So coveting is essentially switching from desiring God to something else.

We read this quite explicitly in Eph 5:3-5 that coveting amounts to idolatry – “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God”. 

Thus covetousness is a migration from considering God as most valuable and myself as equal to everyone else to making myself more important that both God and others (if not just others), and in doing so committing idolatry – that is making up a God of our own choosing – namely ourselves.

Next up we’ll deal with the love of money specifically.

Financial foundations – part 3

In Luke 12:13-40 we have a series of parables which may on the surface seem to be isolated.  However, upon closer study we find that there is a progression through out these parables that tells us about how Jesus viewed material wealth and possessions.

In Luke 12:13-21 we read about a man who asked Jesus to intervene in a financial matter between him and his brother.  Jesus warns that life does not consist in the abundance of possessions. 

He further warns those listening that we should be rich toward God and not lay up treasure for ourselves.  This is a clear warning against storing up wealth on earth for our own use. 

Many people who say they believe the Bible will justify themselves by saying that they are simply storing wealth so that they can work for God in some manner without requiring a paid job to support them.  Generally, this is just an attempt to ease their conscience. Most of these people dont specify when they will stop collecting and start the so called ministry they are considering.

The second section in Luke 12:22-34 builds on this.theme and even works against this self justification. 

In Luke 12:22-34 Jesus tells the disciples not to be anxious about the things that we need (i.e. food and clothing).  His encouragement in this passage is to “seek His kingdom and these things will be added to you” (Luke 12:31).

So, we are not to store up wealth for ourselves on earth and in the case where we can’t do that we shouldn’t be concerned about the things we need as God will provide them.

If we go back to our first objection – that we might be storing up wealth so we can serve the Lord – doesn’t that just go to show that we are anxious about what we might eat and wear while we are working for him?  God takes care of all that – so wealth is not a requirement for ministry (despite what some modern missionary agencies say).

Another interesting facet of this passage is that we are told in verse 31 that we should seek Gods kingdom, while in verse 32 we are told that it is Gods pleasure to give us the kingdom.  The kingdom is ours for the taking (or leaving).  We are not to be concerned about what we need, and we should not gather store up wealth – rather Jesus encourages us in verses 33-34 to sell all that we have and give it to the poor in order to get true wealth.

The last section is Luke 12:35-40, which is a parable that commends servants who are concerned about doing what their master wants – they stay awake to wait for the bridegroom to return so that they can welcome him appropriately.  The point here is clear – the servants were working for the master, not for themselves or their own gain.  This is the way Jesus wants us to be when he returns.

Its easy to get distracted by the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches (Matt 13:22), but we must not. 

I’ll close this section with a thought from Henry Scougal and an example from scripture.  Henry Scougal said “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love”.  What is it that we love?  What is the most treasured thing we have?

Job was a classic example.  We read in Job 1 about how in one day he lost his oxen and donkeys, sheep and camels, servants and children to various calamaties.  For most of us, in such cases we would be devastated, but Jobs reaction reveals much about his heart.  In Job 1:20-21 we read “Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.  And he said ‘Naked I came from my mothers womb, and naked shall I return.  The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord’”.

What was it that Job loved the most?  It was obviously the Lord.  All the things he had were as nothing compared to the value of God. 

So may we be.

Financial foundations – part 2

God owns everything

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1), and in so doing he established one of the founding principles of the universe.  That principle is that as creator, God has the right to do with the universe as he wills.

Scripture affirms that the earth is the Lords (Ex 9:29, Ps 24:1-2), and that everything in it belongs to the Lord (Ps 50:10-12).  This fact is the core reason why Paul told the Corinthians that the meat offered to idols should be eaten without raising questions – “For the earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof” (1 Cor 10:25-26).

What about Man?

From the beginning, God has included man as a custodian of creation (starting with the garden of Eden in Gen 2:15), and instilled fear in to all the animals and birds that He had created (Gen 9:2-3).  Furthermore, God has put all created things of earth under mans dominion (Ps 8:6-8).

Having established this, we must remember that we ourselves just pass through this world.  We come with nothing and we leave with nothing (Job 1:21, Ps 49:16-20, Ecc 5:15, 1 Tim 6:7).  Seems simple enough – the things on earth belong to God and we get to be custodians of them while we are here.

So how come we get this so wrong? Why is it that we are so obsessed with material possessions?  Simply put we have this build in tendancy to go and do our own thing – seperate from God.  We put God aside and we put other things in the place of God. 

The Bible records the downward spiral that every person takes in Romans 1:21-23 - “For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish h earts were darkened.  Claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles”.  A few verses later in Romans 1:25 Paul explains that “they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator”. 

The human heart is deceitful and sick (Jer 17:9) and at the earliest opportunity it will put something else in the place that God should rightly occupy.  This is why material possessions are such a big deal in the western world.  If you take out the notion of God – you have to fill it with something, and since the western world has done exactly that – all that is left is (in order) self and stuff.

Next we will examine a passage from scripture that helps us to understand the focus Jesus had on wealth and material possessions.