Powerful mentors gaze at the Lord with a childlike simplicity and wonder. They have an innocence about them – a simple purity, humility, grace, and a deep abiding love for Jesus that was naked to the eye, a visible passion that ruled each day.
I cried out for that – fasted and prayed, hungered for it to the point of obsession. Children who are loved powerfully, never worry. They have a glorious complacency. An assurance so profound, it rests. An inability to be anxious – father is here.
Choosing not to worry is actually an act of worship. We cast our burdens on to him because we trust his great heart towards us. Our trust leads us to do good to others because the fun part of faith is loaning it to people who have none. To abide is to simply be content to remain in Christ where the father has placed us. This is one of the most powerful disciplines that we possess in the Holy Spirit.
To dwell in the land of promise, the place of God’s goodness and lovingkindness – this is part of our favor. That which God has placed in us, is the place of our remaining. We cherish his provision in Jesus, and we cultivate his faithfulness. The Holy Spirit is intentional about delight. The entire godhead lives with a calm, joyous, untroubled sense of delight in themselves and all that they have created.
When we live in delight before the Lord, it releases our inheritance. Delight begets delight – Psalm 37:4. Desire is a consequence of enjoyment, the fruit of gladness in God. Warriors know how to trust their affects to the heart of God. He is thrilled at faith. What father is not enchanted by the dependence of a small child?
In the spirit, learning to live before God as a much love child, we catch the sense of enchantment in the father. His deep affection moved us to tears. His joy in me changed my life. His kindness is so overwhelming on days that I’m left dabbing my eyes with a handkerchief.
The joy in simply trusting is such a fabulous experience. I wonder that people don’t do it more. Why do some people have to be persuaded to trust the Lord? To have a conversation with him about my life and current events in the ministry is such a huge privilege. To hear his wisdom in return and then to sit and meditate on the whole experience – amazing.
I adore wisdom. I’m hooked on God’s perception of my life. It has seeped into the cracks in my heart and the pores of my skin. The father’s way of seeing and thinking is so magnetic, it draws me. It is exhilarating, life changing. It slows down my heart rate, makes me relax, peaceful. It leads me in the trust, opens up my faith place, makes me rejoice. It is so easy to understand why Jesus only said what the father was saying. His words are so beautiful, powerful, exceptional. There are certain God thoughts that I totally love sharing – perceptions that empower the listener, words that actually produce life in people. Occasionally the Lord lets me hear the sound his words make on the hungry heart or thirsty soul. I’ve been out in the dry, arid wilderness when it rained. Stood naked in the downpour, listening to the land say, thank you, thank you. Watched green shoots come through the soil almost immediately, seen the land transformed in a day. It’s the same sound – absolute life, begetting life.
To be encouraged to commit life to the father and then further empowered to give thanks as a mark of trust is a brilliant day occurrence and devotion. God is good and His love empowers forever.
The Holy Spirit gathers our emotions, thoughts, and affections about the father and puts them into one place. It’s called contentment. Godliness and contentment together, are priceless. The power is exponential. You move out of the country were God adds to you and you take up residence in the land of multiplication.
I have learned over many years how to live by faith. How to pray in food, money, and resources. The budgets that the father set for life and ministry were always greater than my income. I had to learn the piece of a nil balance in finances. Every month, he would make sure that I could never take an ounce of comfort from my bank statement. Comfort is his alone to give, and he guards it jealously. I learned to obey his voice, to give when he requested, to give in the face of my own need, and to be at peace about it. I learned the godliness in believing, obeying, and trusting. I came to adore the nature of God in giving.
Ironically, the issue I most struggled with was prosperity. I had problems with abundance. The father patiently got me pass my religious explanations and made me see that there was a part of me that thought I was unworthy. The parts about ourselves that we least like, have the most love reserved for them from the father. He took me away from false humility and taught me to enjoy money and possessions. I don’t love money; I love what money can do in the hands of a loving God. I love God and money together: doing good, helping out, blessing people.
Jesus, by blessing and encouraging a hateful man who had defrauded his whole community, brought that village into financial prosperity. When he touched the life of Zaccheus – Luke 19 – money flowed into homes and families. Half his goods he gave to the poor. Where he had defrauded people, he repaid them 400%. He got his heart back; and the people around him, robbed of their prosperity, were restored to dignity.
The father changes our perceptions, and our mindset shifts into a different gear. When our mind is renewed, our life is transformed; and our heart is forever adjusted upwards. I came into a place of utter contentment, and I ceased to worry. Contentment is a state of peaceful happiness.
It is the satisfaction of having our expectations realized. We have learned to trust the Lord. He is faithful, and we know it by experience. Contentment occurs when we realize the fullness of God’s heart towards us. We take pleasure in his deep affection. We are his beloved.
The father fully discharges his obligation to Christ: in us, to us, and by the Holy Spirit through us. They do so with great enjoyment. It’s a conspiracy of kindness, and we are the object of their passion. They make true their intentions. They teach us to trust their nature; that is how we become godly. When we add their nature to our satisfaction, life blossoms; and we are content in the hands of a loving God. The father abounds towards us; and we may abound towards others, to draw them too, into the place of trusting. As 2nd Corinthians 9:8 says:
God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed.
Out of our own sufficiency we can begin to bless, support, and prosper others. Their journey into trust and faith begins with a gift that opens them up to the claims of God. A gift makes way for the giver – Proverbs 18:16; this is true on lots of levels.
It is vital that people come into abundance because then the blessing on the poor can become exponential. Our increase will advance somebody else. If we do not allow ourselves to expand in the goodness of God, the poor cannot be enlarged effectively. We can bless them periodically, but we cannot take them out of poverty. That demands a different approach to giving.
There is a lifestyle in the kingdom that can affect our community. People need to see the riches of God, not just economically, but also in health terms, emotional release, hope, love, joy, and peace. The willingness of God to empower people is enormous. Contentment is a big part of our Revelation of the nature of God.
Contentment works in reverse to. It is not just a Revelation that works when things are going well. It works in all places and in all circumstances.
Philippians 4:11 – not that I speak from what, for I’ve learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. A naughty get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I’ve learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
There have been many times on my travels, especially into communist countries where supplies were low, or developing nations where they were non-existent, where I encountered overwhelming poverty. In some places we were able to bring supplies with us or buy goods in the country ourselves. Always, always we bless people’s food/store cupboards in prayer. We claim land, remove curses, bless the sea, and the water supply. I have chop down trees, thrown them into polluted rivers, and prayed for the water. Then, of course yet to be the 1st to drink it. For a few days you are a human petri dish, and everyone observes your stupidity our faith, fellow missionaries and all! If you’re not dead or vomiting by the 3rd day, everyone happily drinks also.
I located underworld ground water supplies by words of knowledge and dugout wells, moving communities in Africa to a new land that could provide food and sweet gazing for cattle.
In these situations our own contentment with God is a powerful weapon against the enemy. Contentment must be passed on. when I see people in poverty I am not content to leave them there. my own contentment militates against the spirit of poverty, and i have to contend against it. Supplying food is one answer. Teaching farming and animal husbandry is another. Buying land and building orphan communities around farming and businesses is a better model. People need a self-sustaining lifestyle, not a succession of handouts. I believe in emergency feeding, but self-respect and dignity comes with enlargement. When I am in the midst of a poor community, I do not feel guilty for my own prosperity. God does not do guilt. I allow my own contentment to be released in a warfare capacity. The kingdom is concerned with the business of warfare. A kingdom mindset is the same as a business mindset. How do we create wealth so that we can kill poverty? We do not give to people so they can remain poor. We must ensure that our generosity does not empower people to remain in crisis. We teach them to abound so that they can enfranchise another individual – family – community out of poverty into contentment.
Of course in the circumstances, while we are planning and strategizing, I am content to eat the same food or go hungry, if there is none. I have encountered involuntary fasting on many occasions, and I’ve eaten some enterprising foodstuffs! Saying grace takes on a whole new meaning in such situations. It is the first line of defense in spiritual warfare. The old missionary prayer of, Lord, I’ll get it down. You keep it down, still holds true!
Contentment maintains the light. Curry powder covers a multitude of interesting dishes. Always take some spices, then you don’t have to think about what you’re eating. God makes us glad. gladness of heart is a powerful weapon against the enemy who has no access to joy – it’s a fruit of the spirit. His only happiness lies in misery, poverty, human degradation, and enslavement. A Glad heart gives joy and respect to people.
Some of my best memories of interaction in foreign cultures have been squatting around open fires, cooking, laughing, eating with people whose language I did not understand. Love and joy have a language of their own. Contentment in those circumstances endeared me to people and opened up their hearts.
We live in a world geared towards discontent. Most advertising is built upon creating a need based around dissatisfaction. An unreal world is created, of which we are not a part, less we purchase the product that makes us acceptible. Retail therapy is supposed to make us happy. Our self-worth depends upon being seen in right places with the right people. In order for someone to be in, someone else, by definition, has to be out. Hardly Christian, and not worth the effort.
Contentment is so much more than possession and recognition. How we perceive ourselves is an assessment best derived from a Revelation of God. When we know who the father is in himself we get a true idea of value. The Holy Spirit teaches us to see ourselves in the person of Jesus. As he is, so are we. Made in his image. We give life to another buy our perception. We create a value that can embrace people in love of God.
Contentment: the capacity to live in a state of peaceful happiness with the Lord, yourself, and others.
Assignment – what are your current areas of personal discontent? Where are the areas in relationship where you have not been accepted? What would you most like to change about yourself?
Commission – what would contentment look like for you? Describe. What is the father’s perception of you? Summarize. Write a Psalm of Thanksgiving to the Lord in joyful recognition of all his good thoughts about you.