At every turn today we're constantly barraged by messages about the things we're lacking or missing in life, along with spotlighting the things we should consider that might make us more content—or at least distract us from our gnawing discontent for a time.
In reality, we often don’t really understand what true contentment looks and feels like. More than merely feeling ‘satisfied’, contentment is a deeper state of mind and heart that, when authentically experienced, draws us closer to the heart of God.
But it doesn’t just naturally grow in us, and we just mentally ‘flip a switch’ and turn contentment on. A content heart must be thoughtfully cultivated, and when we do, it unlocks so much more for us in understanding God’s best for our lives.
Let's continue unpacking this and more in today's message with how contentment cultivates important spiritual rhythms in our lives...
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—Philippians 4:11 (CSB)—
11 I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself.
—Psalms 63:1-7 (CSB)—
God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you
in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. 2 So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory. 3 My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; at your name, I will lift up my hands.
5 You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.
6 When I think of you as I lie on my bed, I meditate on you during the night watches
7 because you are my helper; I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.
—Philippians 2:16 (CSB)—
16 by holding firm to the word of life.
—Matthew 6:9 (CSB)—
9 “Therefore, you should pray like this:
Our Father in heaven, your name be honored as holy. 10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 11 Give us today our daily bread. 12 And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors. 13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever, amen
—Exodus 20:8-11 (CSB)—
8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy: 9 You are to labor six days and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. You must not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female servant, your livestock, or the resident alien who is within your city gates. 11 For the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and everything in them in six days; then he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy.
—Philippians 2:5-11 (CSB)—
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death —even to death on a cross.
—Philippians 2:13-16 (CSB)—
13 For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose. 14 Do everything without grumbling and arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, 16 by holding firm to the word of life.
