Description
The Value of Godliness and Contentment
Join us in reflecting on a powerful yet often overlooked verse from 1 Timothy 6:… (visit YouTube for more)
Transcript
Now, here’s a little verse that can easily be overlooked and underestimated. So we’re gonna meditate on it today. One Timothy chapter six, verse six. But godliness with contentment is great gain.
Paul is saying to Timothy and to us don’t underestimate the value of these two things: godliness plus contentment. Are you content in your life?
It’s easy for us not to be content because we don’t have things that we feel we ought to have. We aren’t achieving the things that we feel we ought to be achieving. We are comparing ourselves with other people, and we don’t like the comparison.
It’s very easy to be in that position. It’s very easy to start doubting that God even cares about us. And all of these things, my friends, they are sinful because we’re not trusting our Holy Father.
So the first thing that we have to do is just to repent of those things and to say God I accept that you know best for me. I am going to ask you for things, but if you allow me those things or not, whatever the case may be, I will know that you have my best interests at heart and you will be glorified. So I will be content. Maybe we need to start by saying that to ourselves, to our souls: soul, be content.
And we pair this with godliness. Now, there are two aspects to godliness. There’s a godliness that’s imputed to us that we receive by virtue of the sacrifice of Christ. And then there’s a godliness that we work out in what we think, in how we behave. And those two things have to go together. In the one sense, we cannot increase in the godliness that Christ has bought for us. But in the other sense, we can increase in the godliness of how we live, starting by leaning into the Fruit of the Spirit and asking him to grow that Fruit in us.
So if we pair these two things together, the godliness from Christ, the godliness that we are working out in our lives plus contentment because we are relying and trusting on our God, then Paul says, this is great gain.
