AUGUST 17

OUR PERSONAL PROMISES

WHERE CAN WE FIND HIM?

HELEN STEINER RICE

It’s true we have never looked on His face, but His likeness shines forth from every place, in everything both great and small we see the HAND OF GOD IN ALL.  And every day, somewhere, someplace, we see the likeness of His face.

For who can watch a new day’s birth or touch the warm, life-giving earth, or feel the softness of the breeze, or look at skies through lacy trees

And say they’ve never seen His face, or looked upon His throne of grace.  And man’s search for God will end and begin when he opens his heart to let Christ in.

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“Faith, mighty faith – the Promise sees, and looks to that alone:  laughs at life’s impossibilities, and cries, “It shall be done.”

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Ps 18:28

For You light my lamp:  The Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.”

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This month we will continue the book, “Whatever Happens – How to Stand Firm in Your Faith When the World is Falling Apart.”  By a contemporary author of many best-selling Christian books, Robert J. Morgan.  He took care of his wife when she had MS, until she went home to her Savior.  “He knows of which he speaks.”  I pray that this book blesses you.

Philippians 4:10-13

“But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

ONE OF HIS SECRETS HAS TO DO WITH CONTENTMENT

Paul said, I have learned to be content….I have learned the secret of being content.”

This is a very hard thing for us to learn.  At some level, if we were truly contented, we would be just as satisfied in our hearts whether we were in a hospital bed or at home.  In a one-room apartment or a three-bedroom house.  Being single or being married.  Staying in a 1950’s era motel or the Waldorf Astoria.  We wouldn’t care if we were in coach or first class.  Being successful would mean nothing more than failure and defeat.

I’m not there yet.  I’m not always content when things aren’t as I want them to be.  I have to really work on it.  But in order to get there, we have to know exactly what contentment is.  I’ve worked and worked on a definition of contentment – and my best suggestion is “quiet joy”

Contentment isn’t loud joy.  It’s not shouting in exuberance, it’s not like the finale of a fireworks show.  It’s quiet joy like the sound of a gentle rain or the purring of a cat.  It’s the green pastures and still waters of Psalm 23.  It’s the glow of a campfire or the sound of leaves crunching under our feet in the fall…..a hot cup of tea or coffee…..lighting a scented candle….. curling in a warm blanket on a cold day.

Contentment is the quiet joy of knowing the eternal God is our refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms.  We may not have everything we want or even need, but we have HIM. – and that gives us the inward, quiet joy that we call contentment.

Few people have written about this except for a couple of great Puritan writers long ago.  But one man did.  Pastor Erik Raymond wrote a book called “Chasing contentment,”  which he defined this way:

“Contentment is the inward, gracious, quiet spirit that joyfully rests in God’s providence.”

The Bible devotes several verses to this:

Psalm 131:2:

“I have calmed and quieted myself.  I am like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child I am content.”

1 Timothy 6:6-8:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain.  For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

Hebrews 13:5:

“Keep your lives free form 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.”

The Lord has a secret code that unlocks contentment, and Paul discovered it over time.

AND THE SECRET TO CONTENTMENT IS………………..

God’s secret code to discovering and learning to be content are the numbers 413.

PHILIPPIANS 4:13:

“I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.”  Let’s look at this from several translations so we can get the force of it.

Good News:

“I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me.”

J.B. Phillips:

“I am ready for anything through the strength of the One who lives within me.”

The Voice:

“I can be content in any and every situation through the Anointed One who is my power and strength,”

AMPC:

“I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me (I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me;  I am self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency)”

Now, this verse is not an absolute promise that you can do anything you want to.  God is not promising you’ll run a four-minute mile or make a million dollars. Perhaps He’ll help you do some things, but this verse has the exact opposite meaning.  It means that whether you reach your goal or ambition or not, He will give you the strength to have His quiet joy.

Many Christian athletes write Philippians 4:13 on their arms or on their sneakers – it’s a good thing, but it doesn’t mean God will give you the strength to win every event.  Rather, He will give you strength to do your best and then handle the outcome with an inner peace and satisfaction, whatever happens.

In Christ we have everything we need.  He infuses us with the strength we need to live contentedly, because we know, whatever the circumstances, He is with us; we know He is working, and that He has a wonderful, everlasting eternity ahead of us.

Being content depends on your content.  It depends on having Jesus Christ within you by His Holy Spirit.

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