Thursday February 9, 2017 Philippians 4:11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

Nick-

Paul says he learned how to be content in whatever situation. This is something we learn through our relationship with God. This isn’t something I can just think up in my head. This is something learned through trials and testing. When God puts me in circumstances that are challenging, I need to be able to rest in the fact that he placed me there. God is trying to teach me and prepare me for heaven every day of my new life in Christ. So instead of me getting impatient and discontent, I should take the mindset of a student and ask God what he is trying to teach me. Just about every morning that I wake up, I have this sense of discontentment. The feeling of what am I doing here, I can’t keep up with all this. This is too much for me and its not going to stop. The only way for me to end the thoughts is remembering all the things God did for me to even be here and that he is sovereign over all things. He is the one who brought me here to go through all this cause he has things to teach me for the next season in me life. If I look back on the last season, those times of discontentment did nothing but cause me grief. But I can also look back and see that he was teaching me in that season to prepare me for this season. Therefore I can know that this season of learning is for the next and I think there is contentment in that. It becomes more difficult when Im given much from God. To think I have to measure up to what God has given me and not want even more than I have been given. For me those are the times that seem to drag me the furthest from the lord. But I’m learning that these are the times that I need to find contentment in him the most and not the blessings. I think to myself, God why would you send something my way to entangle me. But its not him who is entangling me its myself.

 

Julie-

 

Where do I find my contentment? In the valleys, mountains, or flat ground? The flat groud has to be the worst place for a Christian stand as it feels like lukewarm stagnant water. Luckily God has not called us to live lukewarm, so I can rest assure that if I am every there, I'm probably not in His will and need to reevaluate quickly. What about the low seasons? To be honest, I feel closer to God in the harder seasons. That insecurity and lonliness brings me closer to knowing heaven, and the humility causes me to invest and make deposits into heaven. When I look back on the roughest times of my Christian life, I was closest to God then and as bad as the season hurt, I found a Comfort that noone else could fill in my Savior. In my valleys, when I'm too weak to get out, I can feel God alone lift me up and give me strength to keep running. Jesus was a man who left the thrown of heaven, was born, lived his life, and died in the lowest valleys. Jesus was born in a manger, swaddled in rags, sought for death by age two, left by his parents at a temple, was a carpenter, befriended thugs and prostitutes, was mocked by his family, mocked by the town, became a target for persecution, was whipped, beaten, carried his own cross to die on, and was crucified. That outways any valley I have ever been through. And as he hung to die, he says "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do." He didn't ask to be saved from this torture. He didn't seek revenge for God to smite the romans. He was content to die. Jesus Christ, the man who once dwelled in heaven, came down to die on a cross contently - for me! Why would I ever think that I could not be content in my troubles when I deserve to already be dead in hell. On the contrast, I also have mountains. Again, when I should be dead in hell, why does God still give me happiness and blessings. He does this to remind us that He is God. Moses and Aaron did not bring manna and quail to the earth from the sky, God did, as a blessing to the Isrealites. He did it to remind them that He is Lord of all. I am content with my abundance when I can remember that Jesus Christ died for me so I could expierence it, and I am content in my need because I am so deserving of it that Jesus Christ died for it to not bury me but draw me closer to Him.