How Did Paul Learn To Be Content

Arduousness Is the Condition That Teaches You lot Contentment

Is it possible to become to the point in your spiritual life where external things do not control you internally? The Bible says it is possible, merely only through the portal of adversity. This truth is what Paul was hoping the Philippians would larn.

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Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in any state of affairs I am to exist content. I know how to be brought depression, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the undercover of facing enough and hunger, abundance and need (Philippians iv:11-12).

Make a annotation of the comprehensiveness of the extremes. Life could bring the apostle low, or it could make him abound. Paul could confront plenty and affluence or hunger and need. The situation did non matter to Paul. He was content under whatsoever circumstance and in any context.

He had learned this surreptitious to living well in God'due south globe. The Lord had put him through the rigors of His educational system, and Paul came out on the other side with the precious jewel of contentment. There is a simplicity on the other side of complexity, which Paul plant only after going through many life-adjusting events. This path to delectation is contrary to how our civilization teaches us to find happiness.

The Counter Culture

The goal of the marketing gurus is to create discontentment, with the promise of motivating us to buy their products, which they say is the final right reply for the sad soul.

All things are total of weariness; a human being cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing (Ecclesiastes ane:8).

Their methods are cycles that pb to e'er-increasing desperation. These purveyors for our souls have duped us into participating in their endless loop of mind command while growing our appetites for one more thing. Information technology goes like this:

• I am non happy.
• What I need is what they accept to offer.
• Then I will be happy.
• I buy what they are selling.
• Similar an addict in search of another bump, I get back for more than.
• My heart stays restless and desperate.
• I am non happy.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want (Psalm 23:one).

Contentment Understood

To have contentment, you must understand it. If you practice not know what it is, you may swerve off class looking for it in the incorrect places but to come back empty. Paul described contentment as having two parts.

• To exist full or complete
• To have self-satisfaction

Fullness – To be full or complete is analogous to finishing a fabled meal and being filled. I'thou not talking about existence stuffed simply filled. Yous lean dorsum in your chair and moan the moan that signals to everyone that you lot accept all you need, and there is no desire for anything else.

Satisfaction – Cocky-satisfaction does non mean yous are satisfied "with" yourself, but that you are satisfied "by" yourself. This type of happiness is to be independent, separated, and non controlled by your circumstances. This level of maturity is a satisfaction of the mind that is not manipulated past other people or whatsoever state of affairs.

A person who is full and satisfied is free from the pressures and manipulations of the world. They are not separated from the world equally though the world does not affair, but the world does not control them.

• To exist contented does not hateful you lot are indifferent to your circumstances.
• To be contented does non mean you will non struggle with hardships.
• To exist contented does non mean you volition stop buying things.
• To be contented does not hateful you will finish from striving to change things.
• To be contented does non mean you will resign yourself to what will be, will be.

Contentment does not release y'all from caring about the cares of life, but it frees you from being controlled by the concerns of life. Jesus always cared, always pursued, and e'er fought for change, only He was not under the spell of worldly temptations (James 1:xiv-xv).

Jesus had an internal gyroscope that kept Him stable, even when there were storms (Mark iv:35-41). Christ submitted Himself to His Begetter, which prevented Him from succumbing to bottom insignificant powers.

Contentment Learned

You volition non find this kind of contentment in a drive-through culture, where you supposedly realize dreams instantaneously. The most satisfied people are those who put themselves under the Lord'south tutorship for years.

Contentment is something that you acquire from acquired knowledge that comes through skill and experience. Information technology is a process that you submit to—a process where the Lord burns contentment deep into your soul. Paul said it this way:

• I have learned in whatever situation I am to exist content.
• I have learned the hole-and-corner of facing enough and hunger, abundance, and demand.

The Lord led Paul into the initiation of the clandestine that did not come to him all at once. He did not learn contentment until the Lord guided him into situations that would transform him. The only way Paul could acquire this secret of the contented life when facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need were past walking with the Lord through those dangers, toils, and snares (2 Corinthians xi:23-29).

This secret to contentment is like to the process of well-nigh things nosotros larn. Anybody tin can say they have learned the secret of wedlock, but if they have non been married or have not suffered the hardships of marriage, it is non valid. You cannot larn the secret of loftier-level life lessons if you lot take never experienced them.

Paul went through what appeared to be never-ending challenges. His arduousness is why he could say that he had learned contentment. The proof was in the pudding or, in his case, it was in his centre. His 2 requirements for peace were (one) severe and challenging circumstances and (2) the abiding exercise of humbly responding to the Lord through those circumstances. If yous possess these things, you can say with Paul,

I accept learned in whatsoever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need.

Contentment Revealed

All of life is a process of learning delectation. Everything that happens to you is to teach you how to be content. Your life story, the one the Lord is writing for you, is a process for practicing delectation. The blending of the ups and the downs throughout your twenty-four hour period are opportunities for you to larn and apply this secret about peace that most people do non empathize and have non learned.

The surreptitious Paul learned was previously a mystery to him. As he labored through his circumstances with the Lord, he understood the secret of contentment. And what was that secret? It was this: God is always working in us for His glory and our expert (Romans 8:28). The Lord allows all things into our lives to initiate a whole new style of thinking and living for Him and others.

God is always at work in you, using everything that happens to you, as His initiation process into a life of contentment. —Charlie Boyd

You will not observe "God's delectation" in a book because there are areas in the Christian life that are more mysterious than methodological. You must learn some lessons over and over and over, again and once more and again. Most of u.s.a. want a book that gives us five to seven steps that will bear witness united states the way to a happier life. Yous cannot reduce God's Word or His ways to principles and takeaways.

While there may be some do good to plans and processes, those things will not bring transformation to your soul. Methods are behavioral, superficial ways that do non penetrate to the secret mysteries of the heart. Only the Spirit of God, working in tandem with the Word of God (with your apprehensive cooperation), can place this kind of jewel inside of you (Romans eight:26; i Corinthians 2:10; Hebrews 4:12-thirteen).

Contentment Applied

Contentment is an inside to outside feel, not an exterior to inside process. Our civilization teaches us to pamper ourselves on the exterior so we will find satisfaction on the inside. We know their approach does non work. The eye is never full of seeing, and the ear is never total of hearing (Ecclesiastes 1:8). There is no amount of external, behavioral pleasure you can bring to yourself that volition satisfyingly fill you on the inside.

The search for contentment is up to you. What selection volition y'all brand? Will y'all take the difficult road past living your life from the inside to the outside? Or, will you pursue the clamorous road of working from the exterior to the inside?

The exterior to inside life is external, and the simply mode yous can manage it is by controlling all of your circumstances. If you can bring all of your daily and life events under the power of your sovereign care, yous will exist able to enjoy contentment.

This process will require you to keep all the bad things from you while permitting only good outcomes to enter into your control middle. This mindset ways yous volition need to command all present situations while predicting future events so yous can position yourself to bend those hereafter events to your favor.

The within to outside life is internal first of all. It is counterintuitive to our earth, which means it falls in line with the gospel (Galatians 2:fourteen). This kind of life acknowledges and embraces weakness over forcefulness (2 Corinthians one:8-9, 4:7).

For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (ii Corinthians 12:10).

The contented person is quicker to say, "Not my volition, but yours be washed." (See Luke 22:42). It is not that he has no personal power, but that he does not apply it. He submits his strength for the more significant might of the Lord. In this style, the contented person is stronger than the self-reliant person because he is relying on someone stronger. To build your life on yourself is an access of weakness, non strength.

Charlie Boyd described the exterior to inside people like thermometers and the inside to outside people similar thermostats.

• Outside people, who seek to bring delectation to themselves through external means, are like thermometers—an musical instrument that is controlled by what is happening on the outside.
• Inside out people, who seek contentment through the internal work of God in their hearts, are like thermostats. They set the temperature in the room. They regulate what the temperature will be. If it is hot exterior, they motion the thermostat downward to cool the room. If it is cold out, they turn the thermostat upwards to elevate the heat in the room.

Thermometers are controlled and manipulated by the environment, while thermostats determine how things will be in the room. The former is reactive, and the latter is proactive.

Call to Action

1. What state of affairs in your life is trying to motility you from contentment to discontentment? In that situation, are yous more like a thermometer or a thermostat?
2. Do not miss Paul'due south bespeak about how you make it at contentment. It is a learned condition of the middle that comes from discerning and applying the Lord'south work in your life through years of abiding practice.

But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant exercise to distinguish expert from evil (Hebrews 5:fourteen).

The outset step in acquiring contentment is a simple acknowledgment: "I know the Lord is working in my life through this circumstance." Name the circumstance the Lord has brought into your life.

1. Practise you believe He allows the highs and lows, plenty, and hunger for your good?
2. Do you believe God has brought this situation to yous?
3. Is your first reaction to your difficulty to seek the Lord, hoping to acquire from Him?
4. Or, practise you lot immediately seek to have control of the situation, trying to turn it into your desired and predetermined outcome?

How yous answer questions 3 and four will tell yous if y'all are on the path to delectation or the road of e'er-increasing relational dysfunction. The peaceful person is like a thermostat. When the estrus rises, he brings the regulating power of the Spirit of God in the room, which places everyone'southward soul at ease.

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Rick launched this preparation network in 2008 to provide life-changing resources that equip Christians to aid others. His primary responsibilities are resources creation and leadership development, which he does through speaking, writing, podcasting, and educating.

In 1990 he earned a BA in Theology, and in 1991 he received a BS in Teaching. In 1993 he was ordained into Christian ministry, and in 2000 he graduated with an MA in Counseling from The Master's University in Santa Clarita, CA. In 2006 he was recognized as a Boyfriend of the Clan of Certified Biblical Counselors (ACBC).

Source: https://rickthomas.net/adversity-is-the-condition-that-teaches-you-contentment/

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