Christian, do not be down on yourself. Run to new heights in the love of God in Christ, by trusting in Him and adoring His hand toward you in seasons of ease and difficulty.

They say that April showers bring May flowers. Well, that might ring true for many parts of the country, but in central Texas, it’s usually May showers that bring June flowers. There’s quite a bit more rainfall in May. It’s always beautiful seeing the Indian paintbrushes, Indian blankets, and pink evening primroses rise up and cover the fields. The scenery from our God far surpasses even the most alluring Bob Ross paintings, as the landscape is dotted with radiant colors that seem to dance with the wind.
But as you know with flowers, as beautiful as the bright reds, the vibrant yellows, and the glowing pinks are…they do not last for long. That is especially true in the middle of a Texas summer. The rains have usually gone, and the heat scorches the once blooming and thriving floral landscapes. The colorful vista becomes light brown, with a dull green intermingled.
Something similar can occur within us, it’s something we are prone to in our fallenness. When the heat of trials are turned up and the fires are stoked, a certain flower that is designed to remain constant in the Christian life, begins to wither in us all at particular moments in time. The flower that I am speaking of is that of Christian contentment. Yet, it is a flower that does not have to fade or droop over from exasperation.
Christians have such a treasure that the world does not possess. By the grace of God, everyone who has believed in Jesus Christ, who laid down His life for sinners as a propitiatory sacrifice to the Father, who has risen gloriously from the dead, can be content––always. That’s moving news! However, it might not sound all that earth-shattering to your ears at first (or your eyes in this case since you’re reading this), but let me illustrate.
For the people of the world who remain at enmity with God, their contentment is only superficial. The burden of their sins remains fastly strapped to their backs. It cannot be shaken off permanently even with a seared conscience (cf. Matt 27:5 ; 1 Tim 4:2 ). There is a settled recognition that something is wrong and that judgment will come because of it. The contentment of the world, when it does appear, it never lasts because the object of their contentment is never sure (cf. Matt 7:24–29 ).
For some, it might be difficult to remember the discontentment that you had in your life before coming to love Jesus Christ. It might be tough to remember the fear of your guilty standing before a holy God. What liberty and freedom you have now. That knowledge of a perfect Judge which once made the skies sullen now makes them bright in the light of the gospel of Christ.
Having said that, even in salvation…as precious as that reality is, discontentment isn’t entirely absolved around us, or in us. For some of you, you do love the Lord Jesus, and you know all about discontentment in your life, even as you are reading this article.
There are at least two reasons for this. First, the world around us thrives on discontentment. Second, what became natural in us because of the fall, in our flesh, is discontentment.
It should come as no surprise that most people in this world are not content. Satan both knows this and loves this reality. He does everything he can to fan the flame toward more unsettledness in the world (always wanting but never having). It’s why in the United States last year according to Forbes, 300 billion dollars were being spent on advertising. For some perspective, it would take 9,500 years to count to that number without sleeping. Don’t let your head spin too much on that.
The number $300 billion is not consumers buying products. It’s only companies paying for their products to be displayed on TV, on the internet, and in print. Just for some additional perspective, that amount of money is more than the GDP of the 41st most wealthy country in the world, which is Chile, which is in front of Finland, Egypt, Portugal, Greece, and most other countries. That’s a lot of money. And that’s just for the US. When you add in the rest of the world by the same article approximately one trillion dollars were spent on advertising in 2021. The advertising business is predicated upon causing you to believe that you need something that you don’t presently have when you have probably been living just fine without having whatever they’re selling and didn’t realize you “needed” their trinket until you saw their message…just some food for thought.
Discontentment is not just bred through looking at advertisements alone. That’s something we all know. It can come through the relationships you have, even with brothers and sisters in the church. It can happen when you go over to someone’s house and see that they have the new this, that, or the other name it appliance. It can be when a family talks about the vacation they just went on to the mountains or through wanting to keep up with the Jones’. Or maybe it’s through social media in seeing someone wear a certain brand of clothing or living in a certain house or doing something in particular that causes you to think…“if only I had that…if only I were there too.”
Dissatisfaction can happen almost anywhere, at any time. There is a battle for your contentment, and it’s a battle that began long before you or I were born. You can trace the battle for contentment all the way back to the garden. Think about what the god of this age says to Eve, “For God knows that in the day you eat from it (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
We can postulate what went on between Eve’s ears. “You mean, serpent, there’s more to life than what I currently know? There’s more that I can have in this world? I have been misled and duped?” This leads us to the underlying accusation, the place where Satan wanted Eve. It’s where he wants you, and me, “Why would a good God withhold that from me?” That right there is an affront to and a charge against a perfect God. It’s nothing new, and it’s what we battle against today.
The goal of this brief post is to show you that God has given you, Christian, a Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. I have seen no better definition of contentment than that of the puritan pastor, Jeremiah Burroughs in the aforementioned work. He wrote in 1648,
Contentment is the inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, freely submitting to and taking pleasure in God’s disposal in every condition.Jeremiah Burroughs, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment
With those words, Burroughs, based on Scriptural texts (of which we will consider), opens the doors of your heart for greater joy in contentment in Christ.
There is only one word used in the New Testament for contentment. That sounds simple enough. But here’s the kicker, the word is found in three different forms (as a verb, adjective, and noun). The forms have slightly different nuances.
The verb form is “ἀρκέω.” It is used eight times and speaks of sufficiency or satisfaction (depending on the context). The idea is that there is nothing that is lacking. For example, Paul says in 2 Cor 12:10 , “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions and hardships, for the sake of Christ, for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Paul was saying that amid all the hardships he went through: the beatings, imprisonments, sleepless nights, etc, he was sustained and content.
At which point, the world would say, “that’s simply not possible.” But the reason for this state was due to the Lord Himself. In 2 Cor 12:7–9 , we see the key turn in the lock of the truth revealed in verse 10.
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me⁠—to keep me from exalting myself! Concerning this I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast in my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.2 Cor 12:7–9
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There remain many faithful pastors humbly doing God’s work. God not only has a remnant of faithful believers, he still has many pastors faithfully holding to God’s Word and proclaiming it weekly from their pulpit. Some of these men are not well known outside their congregations or their association of churches. 

Of late many high-profile apostasies have rattled evangelical Christianity. Some of the men who have departed from the faith were much admired and loved for their earlier writings and teachings. After all, they were pastors and Christian leaders. News of their exodus from the Promised Land back into Egypt exploded on social media.
Fear and anxiety is sometimes the result of hearing such news. Or even, for some, nagging doubts arise over the truthfulness of Christianity. Some wonder, “What did these “pastors” know about Christianity that I don’t?”
I don’t want to address the specific apostasy of any one individual. Instead, I want to remind us of some important facts that tend to get lost in explosive, scandalous nature of such stories, especially when they happen in a string.
#1 There is still a remnant. God always has a remnant. Let’s say (God forbid) all the celebrities comprising T4G apostatized tomorrow. The Scriptures teach that God still has elect chosen by grace (1 Kings 19:18). Even today, there is not only a “remnant” of Gentile believers throughout the world, but there is even a remnant of Jewish believers as well, members of the church of Jesus Christ, throughout the world (Rom 9:27; 11:5).
#2 Apostates have no secret knowledge. Christianity is an open book. The Bible’s teachings are perspicuous. Pastors do not have some secret knowledge. Skilled pastors grow in knowledge of God’s Word and its truth. They grow in faith in what Scripture has revealed. Seminary training is very important to this end. While seminaries do offer in-depth teaching of Scripture, seminaries don’t impart secrets. Your pastor doesn’t have some kind of cryptic code or insider knowledge. The teachings of Christians throughout the history of the church are not under some guarded lock and key. Everything we believe is right there in Scripture, for us to receive by faith. All Christians have a responsibility to grow personally in their knowledge of divine truth. As the old catechism question goes:
Q. May all people use the Bible?
A. All people are not only permitted, but commanded and exhorted to read, hear, and understand the Holy Bible.
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As believers, we are called by God to train our minds and hearts to firmly latch onto the biblical teaching that we are passing through this world as pilgrims and strangers. We can never allow ourselves to become comfortable here. We are merely sojourners passing through this world on our way to glory. From the first promise of redemption in the garden (Gen. 3:15) to the glorious heavenly vision of the City of God (Rev. 22), the totality of the Bible focuses on the pilgrimage for which God has redeemed His people.
When God called Abraham to leave his family and his homeland, he “went out, not knowing where he was going” (Heb. 11:8). “By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise” (11:9). Moving from place to place, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob walked by faith in the promises of God. The Lord had promised Abraham that he would inherit the land; yet, the only land he ever possessed during his pilgrimage was a tiny plot that served as a burial place for him and for his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. The act of burial was the last great act of faith. It proved that he was looking for something better—the hope of the resurrection. Abraham never had a permanent home until he died. When he died in faith, he settled in “the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10).
Joseph also lived and died as a pilgrim and stranger on the earth. Abraham’s great-grandson spent the better part of his life as an alien in a foreign land. He was cut off from his earthly family until the end of his father’s life. He was instrumental in the rest of his brethren coming and dwelling in a foreign land. When he died, Joseph “made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave directions concerning his bones” (Heb. 11:22). By charging his brethren to take his bones up from Egypt and into the promised land (which would not occur until some four hundred years after he died), Joseph was teaching the Israelites that there was a better city—one for which God would raise him up, body and soul.
After Moses fled from Egypt into the wilderness of Midian, he married the daughter of the Midian priest Jethro and fathered a son with her. Moses named his firstborn son Gershom (literally meaning “stranger there”). Scripture teaches us the rich biblical theological meaning of this name in Exodus 2:21–22, where we read: “Moses was content to dwell with the man, and he gave Moses his daughter Zipporah. She gave birth to a son, and he called his name Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’”
We discover the secret to spiritual pilgrimage when we read:
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.  (Heb. 11:13–16)