CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT by L. A. S.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 24, 1901

CHRISTIAN CONTENTMENT.

By L. A. S.

“I have learned,” wrote the apostle Paul, “in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” If everybody in this country could truthfully make this affirmation, there would be none of the unrest and strife and outbreaks of violence and anarchy which so often disturb the peace and prosperity of society.

And everybody might join in this affirmation of the apostle’s if they would. The only thing to prevent any person is his own unwillingness. It is the privilege offered to every one by Christianity. Paul was able to make this statement only because he had become converted, and was a Christian.

Every outbreak of strife and violence in the land only emphasizes the truth that the one great need of to-day in this world is Christianity. It is not the discovery of some new theory of life, or the application of some new theory of government, that is needed, but the old remedy for evil that was instituted by Omniscience and has been proclaimed to mankind since time began.

He who is always content will never be creating a disturbance. He will never be complaining of the inequality of social conditions or of the injustice of government. He will instruct men in the principles of right and justice, but he will never be an agitator, inciting men to deeds of violence. He points out the right way and walks in that way himself, but there his duty ends. If others do not choose to obey the right and walk in the light which comes to them, he leaves them to answer for their conduct to the Supreme Ruler, to whom all men must finally give account. The Christian does not try to make men answerable to himself, because he does not need to. His own needs are supplied, and for himself, he is content.

The Christian’s needs are perfectly supplied because he has Jesus Christ. The Christian is crucified with Christ, but Christ lives in him. The mystery of godliness is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” “All things are yours,” wrote Paul to the Christians at Corinth; and to those at Rome he gave the assurance, “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” “I in them, and thou in me,” prayed Jesus in His final petition for His disciples. God is in Christ, and Christ is in the heart of the believer. What more can any person desire? The Christian has Him who can give rest to all that “labor and are heavy laden,” Him whose blessing on a small amount can make it suffice for the needs of many, as did the five loaves and the two fishes. He has no reason to fear for his temporal needs, and carries no burden of anxiety for the morrow, knowing that God, who dwells with him, and who clothes the grass of the field and feeds the sparrows, knows perfectly about his temporal needs, and will provide for them in the wisest possible way.

Jesus Christ is the “desire of all nations.” He is the desire of all people, though they know it not. He is the object of all striving and endeavor, whether of rich or poor, however far from Him men in their ignorance and blindness may turn their faces. Riches do not satisfy, honor and power do not satisfy; nothing for which men seek will give the satisfaction and contentment which all men covet, save the divine Gift provided for a fallen race. The poor will complain of social inequality and governmental injustice, and seek to obtain satisfaction by violent measures; the rich will use their power unjustly in the struggle to obtain supremacy over their competitors, or for some other end which they fancy will bring them the satisfaction they desire; and there will be bitter strife and tumults and violence, and plottings against government, and the setting aside of all reason, right, and justice, all because men will choose to remain in their sins, without Christ, ruled by the carnal nature, seeking the advancement of self rather than the welfare of others.

Christianity seeks not to reform the world and its governments to suit the unreformed individual, but it reforms the individual so that he is saved from the world. It seeks not to change the world to save the individual, but it lifts the individual above the world, raising him up to sit with Christ “in heavenly places,” so that he is above the need of any participation in worldly strifes.

But Paul’s assertion that he was content with his lot did not mean that he was indifferent to his circumstances, like the slothful, lazy man who is devoid of self-respect, or like the fatalist who makes no effort to alter what he believes to be the ordained course of his existence. If all men would be as active and energetic as Paul was, there would be no one complaining that he could not succeed in life because he had no chance, but all would work out their own salvation from the ills of poverty or other adverse conditions, surmounting the obstacles which fortune might have placed in their path. The true Christian is never a sluggard, for it is Christ who manifests himself through the flesh in every Christian life, and He is the source of all activity in every righteous work.

There was a time in Paul’s experience when he was far from being contented with his lot; for we find that at one time his feelings were expressed by the words, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The apostle was never satisfied with any state which reflected dishonor upon his character, and never counseled indifference to uprightness in others. He would not rest a moment until he had found deliverance from such a state, and his whole life from the time of his conversion was an example of, and an exhortation to, untiring zeal and endeavor in the cause of Christ. He had found the one aim that was above all others in this life, and to that he devoted all his time and energy. With his lot, whatever he found it under such circumstances, he was content; although, as he tells us, he had “suffered the loss of all things.” He counted all things else as nothing if he might win Christ, and attain unto the resurrection of the just. And this is the experience of every true Christian; he is content in whatsoever state he is, not because he is averse to labor or indifferent to the proper things of life, but because he feels that he has not time and energy enough to devote to the cause of Christ, and because he has in his heart, which has become the throne of Christ, that peace and satisfaction for which men of the world strive in vain. Now, as never before, the one great need of men everywhere is pure Christianity. L. A. S.