Contentment?

Hebrews 13:5-6 (NIV)
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

Are you content with what you have? Not exactly the mansion with the white picket fence you always envisioned? Your phone is still a brick? The bank account you thought would be bulging by now is still keeping you only a paycheck away from homelessness? Let me free you up: the grass isn’t always greener! USA Today found that most people consider a person “rich” if they have between $1-5 million in assets. Interestingly, those surveyed who happened to have just that amount of money didn’t consider themselves rich!

I don’t know if I can say with as much confidence as the apostle Paul, that 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.” Maybe you suffer from the same problem I do, of noticing all too often what you don’t have and wishing, hoping, maybe even praying for more money or more ‘toys’!

The writer of Hebrews instructs us in chapter 13 on how to keep the right perspective. He tells us first to keep our lives free from the love of money. Jesus said in Luke 16 that we cannot serve two masters, both God, and money. That offended the Pharisees, who, as Luke points out, ‘loved money’ and were sneering at Jesus. Jesus went on to say, “What is highly valued among men is detestable in God’s sight”. When we fall in love with money, it not only becomes our master, but it also chokes out the seed of the word of God that wants to produce a crop in our life, and makes us unfruitful. Paul explains further in 1 Timothy 6 that even having the desire to get rich can cause us to fall into a trap and into desires that can plunge us into ruin and destruction.

But we are also told by the writer of Hebrews in this passage to ‘be content with what we have’. Why? He goes on to explain that our biblical basis for contentment is God’s promise to never leave or forsake us. When we find our contentment in the house, the car, the boat, the pool, the condo, the summer home, the business, the investments, the clothes, or the cash, we will one day grow dissatisfied. There is always a bigger home, newer fancier car, better business opportunity! Plus, those things will rust and fade and dent and be spent. But God will never leave us nor forsake us, He’ll never lose value or depreciate.

Keeping our eyes on God can keep us content. In that same passage in 1 Timothy, Paul said that ‘godliness with contentment is great gain’. When we enjoy what we’ve been given, and have godly lives, that is greater gain than winning the jackpot or receiving a huge raise. It is great gain in God’s sight.