Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “A prosperous life”
Our Bible verse for today: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.” 1 Timothy 6:5-8 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “A content life is a prosperous life”
Ironically, our pursuit of a prosperous life often results in our losing the very thing we were seeking. That happens when our understanding of prosperity is skewed in favor of money and things.
When a person understands a prosperous life to be determined by the amount of financial assets and material possessions they have, their life is then often dominated by an obsessive pursuit of those things. That can easily lead to the person becoming a workaholic and neglecting important areas of life like health and key relationships. If that goes on long enough, the individual may end up with a large investment portfolio, but they could also end up with a failed marriage, broken or non-existent relationships with children, and failing health that prevents them from enjoying their great wealth.
In cases like that the person might be prosperous in the financial sense, but they are poor in other areas of life that matter more. This is more of a problem in our society than most people realize or are willing to admit. We are a consumer-oriented culture on steroids. We are awash in advertisements, all of which are designed to convince us that whatever we currently have is not enough and if we want to be truly happy we need to purchase this new product or service. We have largely lost the ability to be content.
It’s true that we live in the most affluent nation that has ever existed, and our standard of living is very high compared to the rest of the world. But approximately half of all marriages end in divorce, drug addiction and alcoholism have become a nationwide crisis, we have a higher percentage of our population on anti-depressant medications than any other nation in the world, suicide rates are higher than ever, and our debt load (both individual and the national debt) is crushing. Is that a picture of people living prosperous lives? I don’t think so – certainly not in the Biblical sense.
In 1 Timothy 6:5-8 the Apostle Paul urges us to learn to be content with what we have. We must stop spending so much of our time and energy trying to accumulate money and things, so we can focus more time and energy on other areas of life. It’s often true that “less is more” and that the quality of your life improves by refocusing on the things that really matter.
Contentment is one of the great spiritual disciplines. Few things will improve the quality of a person’s life more than to simply learn to be content. The great Christian writer of the late 1800’s C.K. Chesterton once observed, “There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
Spend some extra time in prayer today and ask God to help you be content with what you already have.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 