"GODLINESS WITH CONTENTMENT IS GREAT GAIN"
GODLINESS WITH CONTENTMENT IS GREAT GAIN
Sunday, November 9, 2014, the Year of Our Lord
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
As Christians we again approach our annual season of leading a nation into Thanksgiving. After a hard year, we can declare with great joy, “I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” (Phil 4:11)
2014 has been a very hard year for almost every one I know across Christendom. In January, my life was launched on a rocket ship called “survival”. I buckled up my seat belt, put the pedal to the metal and held onto the “horns of the altar”. This is not a boast, nor am I yet able to reflect on my destination or on the journey itself. I should say “our destination”, because there are others on the journey.
This I do know, when we are “called out” to “go through”, those of us who are willing to trust the Lord KNOW, we are going into more Godliness, growth and grace in Christ who will be revealed through our lives. We count it all joy! I can say with a certainty that I count it all joy for all the survival journeys of my life.
In addition to our personal trials, our nation has been in serious warfare for survival this past year. Satan has every intention of destroying the power of Christianity over our nation. The battle took us to our knees in prayer crying out for mercy. Even the attack on our church in January 2014, was the spirit of anti-Christ attacking our rights to hold Christian services on federal land. This was certainly a “sign of the times” and a “sign” of the battle for the soul of the nation which was to follow.
The Lord has given the United States two years of grace to take the battle to the spirit of the anti-Christian agenda. We must not consider for one moment that the moderate publicans have any other agenda but political and financial power. I am convinced the Obama agenda has been for Islamic spiritual power. He is using all other “minorities” of the party as his smoke screen to support his spiritual ideology
I remember a Word of Wisdom was given to me Thursday Morning at 8:00 a.m. prayer at the Cannon Prayer Watch at the National Day of Prayer-2014.
Back up to Wednesday evening at the Prayer Reception and remarks given by David Butts, Chairman of National Day of Prayer.
Rev. Butts said “There are three areas of power: (1) Financial power; (2) Political Power; (3) Spiritual Power.
His words resonated with me!
All of my life I have “snubbed” or could I say remained “aloof” to (1) Financial power and (2) Political power because I know that Jesus has been given all power and authority in Heaven and earth and I went to the “top” seeking Him to whom had all power and authority. This and seeking after the Holy Spirit of Truth” has been my life quest.
I awoke on Thursday morning pondering the wisdom spoken by Rev. Butts from the world’s perspective.
When we were in prayer, a revelation and Word of Wisdom/Knowledge came to me.
“In the coming days of Harvest, the Lord God of Heaven and Earth to whom has been given all power, is sovereignly going to marry (1) Spiritual power; (2) Economic Power; and (3) Political power; in and under the Kingdom of God Governmental Power. This union will be brought together without the leaven of the Pharisees, religious spirits, political spirits (Jezebel/Ahab), vain glory, or the greed of mammon. The thrust of this Kingdom governmental authority will be militant and bold yet peaceful as the Army of God spear-heads a great awakening in this nation as the deaf ears and blind eyes are opened.” (Carolyn Sissom)
Ephesians 1:10: “In the dispensation of the fullness of times, He might gather together in One all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth even in Him. In whom we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who works all things after the counsel of His own will.”
(quote from sermon by: Carolyn Sissom 5/4/14, the Year of Our Lord and quote from Rev. David Butts)
Then in the latter part of May, the Lord commissioned our annual conference, “The Call of the Warrior”. It was a clarion call to spiritual battle as well as “war”. By the time the date of the July conference had arrived, our nation was again at war. We had been attacked spiritually, politically and in the natural by the Islamic terrorist organization I.S.I.S.
The spiritual battle in Houston, Texas this summer against Mayor Anise Parker was a “key signal” to how aggressive and emboldened the anti-Christian war had become. Thanks to the leadership of the five Christian pastors, a line was drawn in the sand.
In the 2014 election, the Lord in his mercy “turned the battle at the gate” giving our nation a window of grace for the next two years. We must not let up. We must continue in prayer. The battle is not won. It has only just begun. We must use every spiritual weapon in our arsenal to defeat the anti-Christian agenda to take-over the United States. We must do this first by turning the hearts of Christians to the Lord. Only then will we be able to turn the heart of our nation back to God.
Let us first pray for the salvation of the leaders of this nation; that each and every one will have a visitation and personal encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ. Once we have had a personal encounter with Christ and His Holy Spirit, every fiber of our being is set for the defense of the gospel. This does not mean that we are politically correct affirming evil to be good. No! In love we must defend the gospel. We must take the battle to the spirit of political correctness and disarm it.
We come before our Lord with a heart of thanksgiving during this season and throughout the year. For this I KNOW, whatever the journey, “It is God who works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” We are bought and paid for by the precious Blood of Jesus. He owns us yet gives us liberty to choose.
In the midst of the battles, how do we stay in perfect peace, in rest, and that place of contentment where we are not moved by stress, fretting, murmuring, complaining, worry, pressures, doubt or fear?
1 Tim. 6:6: “But Godliness with contentment is great gain.”
“Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”(Jeremiah Burroughs)
This state of being is not absent of trials, sickness, grief, failure, battles, rejection, etc. But in the midst of the trial, our soul is quiet before the Lord in trust and faith in Who He is and His promises.
When things do not happen according to our hopes and expectations, and the tide of second causes runs so low that we see little in outward means to support our hopes and hearts, then the heart begins to reason as did the man on whom the king leaned. 2 Kings 7:2: “If the Lord should open the windows of heaven how should this be?” We know our Lord can open the eyes of the blind with clay and spittle. How then can He not work above, beyond, and even contrary to our means? He makes the sweetest perfume out of crushed flowers. In our brokenness and disappointments, He moves in providence and miracles. God’s blessing many times is a secret from his servants so we do not know from which way it is coming. “As you shall not see wind, neither shall you see rain, yet the valley shall be filled with water. (2 Kings 3:17).
God delights that we will depend on him though we do not see how the situation will be changed. Though an affliction come upon us let us not allow our heart to sink under it.
Trusting the Lord is opposite of sinful shifting to get relief and help. When we take matters into our own hands, if we tithe in faith, but steal or cheat in fear, then we have not trusted the Lord to give the provision.
We see this in scripture with Saul running to the witch of Endor, and offering sacrifice before Samuel came. Good King Jehoshaphat joins himself with Ahaziah
(2 Chron. 30:35). President Obama joins himself with Iran, ‘not relying upon the Lord’. Asa goes to Benhadad, King of Syria for help, ‘not relying upon the Lord’, though the Lord had delivered the Ethiopian army into his hands consisting of a thousand-thousand (2 Chron. 14:12). Good Jacob joined with his mother in lying to Isaac; not content to wait God’s time and use God’s means.
This is the story of many through the corruption of their hearts and the weakness of their faith because they are not able to trust God and follow him fully in all things and all ways. However, “God can hit straight with a crooked stick”. This is my comfort for every time I have ever tried to take matters in my own hands, fix the situation and help God. We have the witness of scripture that in every circumstance, those who got ahead of God with their own solutions, bore temporal crosses they would otherwise not have had to bear.
Isa. 48: `7-`9: “I am the Lord your God who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way that you should go. O that you had listened to my commandments! Then your peace would be as a river and your righteousness as the waves of the sea.”
I am Jehovah the Elohim which teaches you to profit. This is inclusive of a financial blessing of prosperity as well as peace, wholeness, soundness, health, holiness, contentment, and every other good of every kind which would have been like a river flowing abundantly, even overflowing its banks.
I am persuaded that contentment is a grace and even a compound of many graces. When we encounter what is known in our culture as people who are “high maintenance”, in order to have a relationship with those people, we constantly have to continually “give”, “perform”, “placate” and “pamper”. If you are one of those dear saints, I doubt if you will find me a suitable pastor for your temperament.
I may be chosen of the Lord to help you be delivered of the need to be carried around on a silver platter, but those who have appointed themselves to this position in life are not usually looking to be removed from the silver platter.
When contentment of heart springs from grace and not from our own resolution; natural reason; or a passive nature, the heart is very quick and lively in the service of God. The more gracious we become in the soul of the mind, will and emotions, the more fit we are for any service of God. A contented heart is very active and busy in the work of God. We are active and busy in sanctifying God’s name. When we are in the grace of contentment, we are not easily moved with vexation and trouble.
If a Christian is to be free from discontent and worry, it is not enough merely not to murmur, but to be actively glorifying God in the midst of the problem. That does not mean that we lie and deny the existence of the problem or deny that a situation is a problem. It simply means that we are not vexed, fearful, anxious, worried, and upset as we “walk through” any disappointment that becomes a fiery trial of faith.
Gracious contentment comes from the Holy Spirit beyond the strength of reason.
That a caring Christian would tell you that “you must be content” is below the grace of Godly contentment. This was one of the messages of Job’s comforters. No, it should be, “readily and freely ‘I will be content.’” I will be content because God is God, and I glorify His name in the midst of the fiery trial. He is God regardless of the circumstances of my life. Therefore, because He is God, I will glorify Him and be content in whatever state I am in.
That grace of contentment does not mean that we should not pray and seek the Lord to change our circumstances for the better. Of course not!!! He delights to bless us abundantly; above anything we could hope or ask. It simply means, “It is well with my soul” and I will praise the Lord for He is God and there is no other.
When Roger Teale told me to “take my hands off the church”, I understood that I was to stay in peace, and not get into strife. When the Lord spoke to me and told me that I was not to bring my tongue against any, I knew He was asking me to walk in the grace of trust, faith and contentment that He had His Church in the palm of His hands.
Contentment is freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal.
In one who is discontented, the heart will be unruly, and will even get above God, so far as discontent prevails. The grace of contentment sends us under the will and purposes of God as an act of obedience. This again is out of love for the Lord, His authority, majesty, and sovereignty.
Many Christians miss God’s greatest blessing for them out of rebellion to this grace of submission. It is often not convenient.
Phil 4:7: “And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”
This grace is a free work of the Holy Spirit. The heart is ready to yield. It is not by constraint and often goes against our natural understanding and almost always our carnal will.
The mystery of contentment is compounded grace upon grace that the Lord imparts to us as we journey with him from grace to grace and faith to faith. This evening I will minister on the Mystery of Contentment.
I have attempted to preach many messages on the graces of the Lord which is a subject wider, deeper, and higher than our finite minds can comprehend.
Divine grace is the spiritual condition of one governed by the power of Jesus Christ; of the merciful kindnesses by which God exerts his holy influence upon souls; turning us to Christ; keeps, strengthens, increases our faith, knowledge, affection and the exercise of Christian virtues.
Phil. 4:23: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”
Carolyn Sissom, Pastor
Eastgate Ministries Church
Scripture from K.J.V. – quotes from sermon notes by: Carolyn Sissom www.eastgateministries.com (page 1); quote by: Rev. David Butts, Chairman, National Day of Prayer; quotes by: Jeremiah Burroughs, the Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (public domain).