But godliness with contentment is great gain. 1 Timothy 6:6
How would you like to realize all of your financial and material dreams and plans in just a few months? That’s no problem at all, according to mega-church huckster Joel Olsteen. All you need to do is follow his program for channeling your dreams into reality by boosting your faith to a sufficiently high level. Just a small catch: you’ll need to buy a large number of Olsteen’s books and audio and video messages to make sure your faith level gets high enough. Olsteen is just one of the many thousands of get-rich-quick schemes that are floating all around us. It’s a standard ploy of most of the multi-level marketing systems. Lotteries dangle millions of dollars before anybody who will buy a few tickets as often as possible. And various scam attempts flood our inboxes and the various media around us all the time. There is a reason for that, of course. Everybody wants to be rich, to have all of the money they can possibly handle, all of the luxuries and toys that they can buy, all of the travel and thrills that they have ever dreamed of. And so if somebody offers them a shortcut to getting all of that, many people will jump at the chance. That is just greed and covetousness by people longing for satisfaction. How different the formula proposed by today’s text!
God wants to bless us with great gain, even greater gain than all of the schemes of men could ever produce. All it takes is a realignment of our priorities. And it’s available to any Christian who is interested. And you don’t need to sign up for any tapes or books or subscriptions or buy any tickets. Besides all that, the rewards are good for time and for eternity.
Godliness is the first element of this formula. Godliness simply means being as close to God’s character as possible, being the kind of person that God wants us to be. How do we know what God wants us to be like? By studying and meditating on His Word. The more we know of His Word, the more we know of Him. There is no shortcut here. It takes daily and consistent study and application, and the more we work at it, the greater the results will be. This means diverting time that we might spend on other things such as our personal pursuits and pleasures. But the payoff is huge in spiritual blessings… the gain is great.
The gain is also great if we develop contentment. All that that means is being satisfied with such things as God provides. Paul knew this contentment when he could say ‘I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content’ (Philippians 4:11). There is a saying that the world has two kinds of rich people: those who have a lot of money, and those who don’t care if they have a lot of money. In this grasping and greedy world, contentment is not common. But it is possible. When we consider what great blessings God has given us, we should be thankful. We should also be thankful for God’s promise that we will never be forsaken by Him, and that He will supply all of our needs (although not our greeds). If we can rest in thankful appreciation for these promises, we can learn to be content… the gain is great.
It’s not the path that the worldly wise would consider pursuing. But if God says godliness with contentment will result in great gain, we should take Him up on the offer. – Jim MacIntosh