Hello Ladies! 🙂

I am so excited to be uploading notes from the ‘Ladies Who Love Christ’ Radio show each week and making them into a blog post for those of you who prefer to have notes. In episode 9 we discussed ‘Pursuing Biblical Contentment’.

What is biblical contentment?

It is a conviction that Christ’s POWER, PURPOSE & PROVISION is sufficient for every circumstance. As a believer in Jesus, we are to walk through ALL kinds of adversity believing in and experiencing Christ’s sufficiency.

In our world, everything seems to work against trying to be content. Isn’t this just the way the world does things? Truly, what we are taught in our society often times works in direct opposition to The Lord’s Word.

COMPARISON works against contentment. How often do you find yourself looking to what everyone else is doing? What purchases they make? Where they are traveling? How seemingly perfect their family looks? These are things that instantly trip us up because simply put: they take our eyes off of what The Lord is doing in our life.

We are bombarded daily with social media posts and media of all types that literally fills our minds with those things that we “don’t have” or “should have” or even worse, the subtle image that how we look isn’t ‘enough’… think about it, beauty is always SOLD to us … wrinkles? There is a solution for that. Flat chested? There is a solution for that. It goes on and on and on.

If the enemy can keep you ‘comparing’ yourself- it leaves you in a constant state of discontentment and feeling like you just don’t measure up. It keeps your eyes off of the provision of Jesus as well as your unique skills, traits and strengths that He has so intentionally given you.

One thing I learned to be true about discontentment is that it is rooted in fear. Fear of lack, fear of going without, fear of provision. Can God ‘really’ come through for me in this situation? When you couple this fear with a world that literally financially banks on our discontentment, it is a recipe for disaster in the Christian life. It keeps our eyes off of Jesus and what He has for us.

Signs of Discontentment:

1. Always Wanting More: Accumulating, storing and hoarding.

2. Never Feeling Satisfied: Even when continually filling your life with things. So many times we try to fill a void with “stuff” that ONLY Jesus can fill.

3. Thinking our Greeds are really our Needs: Our Father is a provider but are we confusing our needs with greeds? Our CORE NEEDS are always met in the person of Jesus Christ.

4. Constant Complaining & Comparing: Our dissatisfaction is really discontent with God! This is a heart posture. When we allow ourselves to consistently complain and compare ourselves this shows The Lord that we are not grateful with what He has given us.

What Does Scripture Teach About Contentment?

1. DO NOT WORRY: Matthew 6:25-34 teaches us not to worry about what we will eat, drink, wear. Remember – all discontentment is rooted in fear or worry of some kind.

2. Know Jesus, Know Contentment. No Jesus, No Contentment. We are to rejoice, be grateful and fix our eyes on Jesus.

Philippians 4:11-13 tells us “Do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”.

3. Riches are Meaningless. Again, this is a heart posture. Ecclesiastes 5:10-11 tells us “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income” MONEY is a tool that can be used for such GOOD in the Kingdom but it never was meant to satisfy and fill the place that is meant only for Jesus Christ.

• The only true way to contentedness is to put our full trust and confidence in The Lord alone.
• Spending time in The Word (daily), in prayer and quiet time with Jesus are the only way we can fully develop and cultivate this trust. We must spend time with Jesus.
• Each day make a gratitude list of what you are thankful for. The Lord blesses us EACH DAY but we must be purposeful to recall these things focus our eyes and hearts on these blessings rather than longing for something else.
• Eliminate triggers in your life that make you discontent. Is it social media comparisons, television, things you read or your social circles? It is really important to surround yourself with The Word of God and people that want to challenge you to be content in who you are.
• Pursue the heart of Christ by pursuing His Word.

Hebrews 13:5 tells us “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.”