Day 1
But godliness with contentment is great gain.
A discipline is something you do not because of enjoying but because its value to your life. People who lived contented life are likely to operate at their full potential compared to people full of complaints.
So One spiritual discipline you will need is the spirit of contentment. This like we have seen before involves learning not to covet, learning to be contented with what you have now. And that must not be mistaken to mean that you are not going to be ambitious. No. Ambition is biblically okay, since it is wanting to be better for the glory of God. If you are a junior there is nothing wrong with wanting to work hard so that the next time they are looking for somebody to promote it is you who will be promoted. But that does not mean you cannot enjoy the current job you are doing.
Contented people don’t live in tomorrow. They learn to live in one day compartment at a time without necessarily stopping yourself from hoping you will go to another compartment tomorrow. For example you are in a bedsitter. Enjoy it. After all most likely earlier you were living with your parents. Now you have a place of your own. Be happy about this gift of God. But that doesn’t stop you having an ambition to go into a one-bedroomed house or into a two-bedroomed house as the finances become available.
But it will be very important to learn to be contented where you are. There is a story given of a young man who was going by train from Nairobi to Mombasa. His aunt was going to wait for him on the railway station in Mombasa. And he had never made such a trip. So the parents put him in the train and off he went. And he realized he is allowed to walk between the coaches although he was given a seat. He was so curious to see how the other coaches are, he kept moving from coach to coach to coach. By the time he was trying to settle down they arrived in Mombasa. That guy never enjoyed his coach, and obviously it meant that he was a very tired person by the end of the journey.
Why can’t you enjoy your current position? For example, you are single, you are not married. Enjoy all the benefits of being single. I put a chapter in my book; finding a life partner, to remind single people there are a lot of benefits in being single. And that does not mean there is something wrong with becoming married. But you can be a contented single person, living a holy life and enjoying it. There will be challenges that will stop certain of your freedoms as a single person, the moment you are married. Enjoy them now. But similarly, once you are married, learn to enjoy the marriage institution. There are certain benefits you now have in marriage you could not have when you were single. So you will learn to live in one day compartment at a time and enjoy it. Every Christian will need this.
There are three reasons why this is a very important spiritual discipline. Number one, when you don’t live in this spirit of contentment, you tend to become a complaining person, bitter person, which is not a biblically right thing. You cannot be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ when you are always complaining, never seeing anything good.
Also You have no spirit of gratitude. And you know it is very important to be glad. But You don’t have that spirit. It will soon lead you to sin of complaining.
Number two, when you don’t have the spirit of contentment, you very easily end up with the spirit of coveting, which is against the last commandment or the Ten Commandments given in Exodus chapter twenty. The spirit of contentment makes you never covet other people’s property. You are happy with what you have, you are working hard so that at God’s time to have more. But for now you are happy where you are and with what you have. So you don’t suffer from coveting.
Day 2
Deuteronomy 5
21 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor’s house or land, his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
Also the reason why you need this discipline, being contented where you are ,is because the opposite is to become corrupt. Many people who end up in corruption, who end up taking what does not belong to them, start from lack of spirit of contentment. If you are not contented, you feel like you are justified to take a bit of your employer’s property. After all he doesn’t pay you enough salary, after all you have been in one job for too long without promotion. Once you get that after all mentality, you are permanently dissatisfied, you are frustrated and there is a very big likelihood that if there are things the company doesn’t guard well, they will soon find their way to your house.
And all that started from lack of contentment thus it is critical that you are clear in your mind that you don’t want to go that route. You don’t want to become a corrupt person, or a person without integrity. Contentment is the foundation for integrity. When you are happy where you are for now, you will not end up lacking integrity. So it is a very important discipline that every Christian needs to be taught for without it you will not have a Christian life. The Christian life that you would want to have does not include corruption.
Next contentment gives you balance. You know, if you really want to live a life of contentment, you must live a balanced life. You know, much of life is a question of maintaining balance. You are ambitious but you are not so ambitious that you can start doing wrong things in order to realize your ambition. You need to create a balance. But again, it doesn’t mean that because you want contentment that you have no ambition. Too much ambition is bad, no ambition is also bad, there is a balance between the two and it is a very important balance.
And if you want to live this type of balance that gives you this contentment, I suggest several things. Avoid dictatorship of the urgent. In other words don’t allow something that you feel is urgent to rule you. I must have it now, now, now. That kind of life is not very good. It is very important to always look at life and prioritize what needs to be done, when. So you don’t do things that are urgent but not important.
In my book, The Leader Source of Influence, I say self-management is what will make people want to ask you to lead them. But self-management means you are at the level where you know that some things are urgent but not important, some things are important but not urgent. So before you do anything find out what is both urgent and important. You prioritize things that are both urgent and important. Then you now move to things that are important but not urgent. Urgent but not important things, which are normally the ones that force themselves to be done, you should now do them last in case there is still time . There are many things which even if you don’t do, nothing will go wrong.
So you cannot live a life of contentment when you allow your life to be without order. You need a disciplined private life. And here I have introduced the word disciplined living. This life of contentment is a very disciplined life. What is to be disciplined? To be disciplined is to do what needs to be done for you to realize your vision even if you don’t like doing it. That’s what we mean by discipline. So you do something because that’s what needs to be done. It is important,because it helps you reach your calling. It is helping you to live the life God has called you to live. And that will be very, very important live a disciplined life.
Day 3
Philippians 4:11
11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
So for you to live this contented life I am talking about, it is a life of discipline. You don’t just do what you feel like doing, you don’t do just what pleases you, you do what jesus master would want you to do. So you are disciplined. And decisions are made on how well the item is supposed to help in fulfillment of your call rather than what other people think. So it means this person who lives a life of contentment has defined what success means to him. And success is not becoming wealthy, success is not becoming famous, success is not becoming powerful, successful is being what God created you to be.
So people who have this contentment have clarity because they know what God brought them on earth to achieve and they are working on it. As long as they are achieving it, they are happy. They are contented although they are not as famous as so and so, or they are not as rich as so and so. As long as they are in the center of God’s will for their lives, they are contented at the position they are in.They believe that God will keep opening more and more chances. But for now you are fully utilizing the opportunities given by God .You don’t define yourself by fame. Are you the most famous? Are you the most powerful? But are you doing what God wants you to do?
Like Steve Covey says in the Seven Habits book, be very careful that you don’t quickly climb the wall, only to discover at the top of the wall, panting and tired, that you were climbing the wrong wall. It will frustrate you.Discipline will help you in making decisions on the basis of your calling. It will also help you to live this contented life.
So what then does that mean? That you will have an ability to say no, and ability to say yes to what deserves that answer. You know some people, everything to them is yes, yes, yes. They feel like they don’t want to hurt others by saying no. So they say yes. What in the end happens? They live a very frustrated life because they have too many people controlling them. They don’t want to meet people because they made promises which they cannot keep.
There are others whose reply to everything is no, no, no, not me, no, no, no. In the end there are many opportunities for them to realize their vision that they will not take because people have accepted that their answer is permanently no. So they don’t involve them. Again, the question of balance. Once you are clear about your vision and calling, then it should be easy to say no to anything that is not leading you there, and to say yes to those things that are leading you there, and that can fit in the time schedule that is required. I think that will be something that helps you.
Day 4
1 Corinthians 10:23
I have the right to do anything you say but not everything is beneficial. I have the right to do anything but not everything is constructive. No one should seek their own good but the good of others.
In other words if you want to have this life of contentment, you must avoid being addicted to anything. What is addiction? Addiction is something you do not because you want but because you must. If something must be done, yet not after a very reasoned process or basis, then that means it is an addiction. So addiction is literally loss of control of your life, and you no longer are doing things because they fulfill your mission, you are doing them because you must.
You know that’s why we tell young people, don’t even try cigarettes’ smoking. Why? It is addictive. You start by smoking because you want to show off to the other young people, within no time you will smoke it whether you like it or not. That will give you frustration. Many people who are smoking don’t want to smoke. So how can you say they are living contented lives when they actually don’t want to smoke yet they must ? It is the same thing with every addictive product, whether it is alcohol or even sex. That’s where we avoid even a little alcohol. Why? We don’t want something that can end up controlling us, especially when it doesn’t add additional things.
Of course there are things that are addictive by nature, but you would have no alternative to them for you need them in your life. But something like cigarettes, they actually damage your body. Something like alcohol is not medically fit for consumption. Thus if it is addictive, why would you want them to even take a little? So we are saying, if you want to live a contented life, don’t try anything that gets you addicted, because the moment you are addicted, that’s the beginning of having frustration because you lose control of your own life.
Yes by the way even sex can be addictive. You need to be careful as a single person. Don’t say, only once. Then when you do once, you will discover how difficult it is to not have sex another time after the first one. Wait until you are married and you can have it within confines of your marriage, these are the kind of things we don’t want to try. You want to avoid anything and everything that is addictive.
Day 5
1 Corinthians 10:24
24 No one should seek their own good, but the good of others.
Yeah, it is true. But not everything is beneficial. So why are you doing something which is not beneficial? Yeah, you say I have a right to do anything. But Paul says not everything is constructive. To live a contented life, you need to be in control of your life where you are able to seek the mind of God; is this beneficial, is this constructive? And you only do those things. The reason you do things will not be because of you.
Verse twenty four is saying,
no one should seek their own good but the good of others.
In other words you live in order to fulfill God’s calling in your life.God doesn’t just call you to meet your personal needs only. He calls you to make impact for his kingdom, that includes the people He has created.
The next thing you need to understand in this, if you really want to live a contented life is the importance of balancing expenses and income. That you must live within your income. There is absolutely no benefit when you live in debts, permanently in debts. It is possible to live within your income.
Of course you still must eat but you will be surprised how different it is in terms of eating. Once you make up your mind, what I want is food, and I want a balanced diet, you want starch, you want vitamins, you want protein, you can get them at reasonable prices. If you have no money, just buy beans for proteins. They will give you proteins. If you get richer, then you might buy beef. If you get even richer, you might go for chicken and sea foods as expensive as they are. They all give the same thing; protein. Why then spend beyond what God has given you at this stage yet it is for no extra benefit. You can live with beans.
Therefore all we are saying is, you must, for you to enjoy your life, to live a contented life, you must learn to budget. Don’t just spend, budget first and it will aid you to live within your means. It is not called a budget when you are putting more items on the expenditure side than is available on the income side. You must live within your income. And if you can’t do that, you may feel happy now that you are staying in a hotel, or you are eating things you can’t afford, but are you preparing yourself for trouble. How do people end up in jail? One of them, like I said earlier is coveting, the other one is simply you have put yourself in such a hole, the only way of coming out of it is to steal.
But when you learn to live within your means, you will never need to steal, you will never need to be corrupt because you are okay. Unlike the principle of what we are discussing, you have learnt to be contented at the current stage at the sametime being ambitious for more at a later stage. So we are learning then, in the process, at every situation to be contented. You are not doing what they used to tell you that must be done. To live a contented life you need to live a life of integrity.
Once there are no complications in your life, you will be happy. People come to audit your department, you don’t live under fear. You are contented. Why? You know you have not done anything fishy. If they discover anything, it will be a mistake rather than, you have not stolen anybody’s money. So you are not surprised. You know your wife comes and finds you in a hotel, and she had not told you she was coming. You are not afraid. There was nothing strange you were doing. A person of integrity lives a contented life. Integrity gives a life of contentment, and contentment leads to a life of integrity in turn. The two of them are two sides of the same coin. Integrity will give contentment, contentment will cause you to have integrity. You need both.
Day 6
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from the beginning. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live, that each of them may eat and drink and find satisfaction in their toil. This is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever. Nothing can be added to it and nothing can be taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. Whatever is has already been and whatever will be has been before. And God will call all of us to account.
That is the basis of living this happy life according to Solomon , that is what he is talking about in Ecclesiastes chapter three. You know verse eleven is saying, He has made everything beautiful in its time, which is the theme we are carrying in this spiritual discipline discussion. Learn that He has made everything beautiful but only in its time. So if you have sex before marriage you will end up with frustration. You stay in a house you cannot afford puts you into trouble and yet God is going to bless you with enough money in future, but you have done that before. Things are only right if it is in their time.
ALSO He has set eternity in the human hearts. So please understand that to live this life of contentment, do things in the light of eternity and you must accept there is timing for everything, and God makes things beautiful THEN. So don’t try to get something that is for the future now, or something for the past now. There is something appropriate for now. And I think that will be something that you have to ask yourself, whether you believe in it, and are living within it.
You know, contentment is the opposite of coveting; like we have seen. A contented person still has more in future but he waits, we have been saying. But he is able to enjoy what he has for now. That’s what I wrote in my book, The Secret of Contentment, that ability to enjoy what is there now. Philippians 4:11 says,
I am not saying this because I am in need.
This is Paul’s statement, for I have learnt to be content whatever circumstances. Verse twelve,
I know what it means to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learnt the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want.
Are you getting Paul’s point? Paul is saying, to have this contentment is a Christian heritage, but unfortunately it is a secret. And Paul had to discover it. He discovered that sometimes he is having plenty and yet he is not contented. He is not happy. Sometimes he is very needy, yet he is not contented. And you realize you can actually be contented in every situation.
I have learnt, he said, to be content in whatever circumstance. And that’s the secret we are really talking about.
You know materialism will remove your contentment. Christians more so than anyone else should be the first to point out that material goods will not give you this contentment. Temporal pleasures, I am having a good time, it will give you happiness but not contentment. They can never be the object of a true human existence. Complicity in the worldly way of life, which is not the Christian way of life,undermines your devotion to God and your contentment .
So what is materialism? It is living only for what you can touch, what you can own, and not realizing you are not your own, but God’s instrument. You and all you possess are God’s instrument for God’s chosen mission. That’s why I have kept emphasizing you need to know, what is God’s calling in your life? Then live it. It will give you a lot of joy. You are wired for a given purpose. And you should not be where you feel like you must do anything to get material things, arguing that the end justifies the means. No. God is interested in the end but is also interested in the means. If you want to enjoy don’t just wait to enjoy the destination, enjoy the process.
Day 7
Colossians 3:5
5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.
Mistaking money for a mission rather than tool for the mission will also give you trouble. Money itself is nothing, money is just an instrument to help you fulfill the calling God has actually given you.
So realize greed is idolatry. Isn’t that what He is saying in Colossians 3:5,
put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature.
What are those things that belong to your earthly nature? Paul goes on;
sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, greed.
And then he goes on to conclude, greed is idolatry. The moment you cannot control what you want and you need, you end up worshipping material things. So you are in idolatry, you are worshipping idols, not Christ. Please realize you are a steward, not an owner of all the things you have.God will hold you to account for what you do with them. Isn’t that what He is saying in Deuteronomy 8:10?
When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your gold and silver increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
So this, attaching yourself to things, rather than having a mission to live for, living for materials things will soon make you forget God and not worship him. It is the same thing that I think Matthew 25:14 is saying, you know about the story of the talents. It is very important that you don’t mistake wealth, because if you don’t have the right perspective of wealth, it will bring you trouble.
Also don’t mistake wealth for a sign of God’s favour. Proverbs 10:22, Ecclesiastes 7:14, is emphasizing this. That God can, what He has given you is enough. The guy with more is not favoured more. Do not mistake your wealth for God’s favour. Just look at the number of people who don’t love the Lord and yet they are very rich. What you have, material things is adequate for the mission God has given you at this time. So do not start thinking God doesn’t love you because He has not given you many more things. And I think that will be something that you need to understand.
So fear God rather than man and you will live your life satisfied because as long as you are pleasing to God, He gives you a sense of satisfaction that allows you to worship him. So the fear of God will be the one that allows you to live happy. Even in the middle of a crisis, the moment you sense the presence of God with you and then you realize his Word is saying, He that is in us is greater than the that is in the world. Even in the hospital bed, there will be a spirit of contentment that the situation is under God’s control. And that will make you live a life of joy at whatever circumstance.
You will understand why Paul is saying I have learnt to be contented at any and every circumstance. So in the middle of serious troubles, you will still have a smile because you are aware God is in control of everything that you have. It is my prayer that even as you think about the things that you are facing that God will help you see everything in the right perspective, just like we read in Ecclesiastes three.
He has put eternity in the human heart.
May you see everything in the light of eternity, so that you see its importance as to how it can help you serve God, and He will be with you for all eternity. So this spiritual discipline of living in contentment in every situation is something good for us now and good for us into the future.