"For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh... But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the suprassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. ... I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Phi. 3:3, 7-8, 10-11)
One of the very best indicators of the reality and depth and vitality of your relationship with Christ and mine is the issue of what we are content with and what we are discontent with in our lives. My answer to that tremendously important question is this: Be content with the gifts God has given you. Be discontent with the current state of your spiritual life. Be content, be happily, peacefully, and gratefully satisfied with any and every gift that our sovereign God has chosen to give you in his wisdom and love. Be discontent, zealously discontent, with your knowledge and experience of God—with the intensity with which you worship his majesty, with the depth and breadth with which you understand his truth revealed in Scripture, with the purity and holiness with which you seek his righteousness in your life, with the zeal and determination and drive with which you pursue his kingdom and its advance.
Perhaps a better term would be "holy dissatisfaction," for what I am talking about is a restless dissatisfaction with the current state of our walk with God that does not lead us into grumbling or coveting. It does not lead us into fretfulness or anxiety or hopelessness or fear. Rather this holy discontent, this holy dissatisfaction will lead us to a true humility and brokenness before the majestic and holy God whom we know so little due to our sin, and to an unquenchable thirst and a zealous desire to know and experience more of this God to the end that, in Paul's words, we might be "filled with all the fullness of God" (Eph. 3:19). That's what I long for in my own life and that's what I pray God will pour out on you all as well in great abundance.
Now this holy discontentment should be experienced in regard to the depth and vitality and richness of other relationships in our lives as well—with our marriages; with our relationships with our parents and our children; with the depth of fellowship and community among Christian brothers and sisters, in a cell group, for example; with the sincerity and fervency and practicality with which we love our neighbor, both friend and foe, as ourselves. But for us as Christians, the primary relationship in any of our lives must be with the Lord, and it is in terms of this relationship that our holy discontentment must be expressed most profoundly. That's where we see Paul's discontent in Philippians 3.
Paul's dissatisfaction came from his ability to look at himself accurately and honestly. Paul was humble enough to recognize the imperfections and sins that existed within his own being. May God pour out a spirit of humility on each of us so we too could heartily admit our own sin and weakness and imperfection. Take a long look at yourselves, brothers and sisters, in the mirror of the Word. Seasons of biblically saturated introspection are good for all of us. Now this introspection, if it is accurate and perceptive and done in integrity, will be humbling for our souls, but it will be very good for us in the long run. It will be good because a humble and accurate view of ourselves in all of our sin and imperfection is the first step in developing a holy discontentment.
There is always more of Christ to know and experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment