CONTENTMENT: A GREAT FINANCIAL PRINCIPLE

photo credit: occam

1Ti 6:6 “Of course, godliness with contentment does bring a great profit.”

When asked which behaviors and attitudes are important for winning financially, most people would say, “Stay out of debt” or “Live on less than you make” or simply “Save”. All great answers. But how many of you would say, “Contentment”?

Contentment, in my opinion, is not only important, but essential to your financial peace. Allow me to explain.

The word contentment has, in many cases, gotten a bad rap in today’s go, fight, win world. After all, we reason, “If we are supposed to work as unto the Lord (Col 3:23). God expects us to be ambitious. Wouldn’t contentment, therefore, hold us back? Aren’t content people lackadaisical people?”

Good question, but it reveals the wrong meaning of contentment. The idea expressed in the above verse is a state or condition in life in which one needs no other help or support. And the verse reads, “godliness with contentment” which implies that our contentment is achieved because our God has and will supply our every need.

We live in a world full of advertisers who try to convince us that we can never be content unless we buy the product they are selling. And when we hear it often enough we start to believe it. For me, just when I start to pat myself on the back for my contentment, I walk through the tools section of Lowe’s or Home Depot and suddenly believe that I just HAVE to have this tool or gadget that was a million miles from my mind just seconds earlier.

Of course the purchase does not make me one bit happier and the problem is obvious: my contentment doesn’t come from stuff; it comes from the Lord. Paul wrote that he had learned to be content in whatever situation he found himself in (Phil 4:11). The more all of us learn that lesson, the more peace we will have in our lives and the more money we will have in our pockets.

Yes, contentment…contentment in the Lord…is not only important, but essential for our spiritual, emotional and financial well being. The verse is worth repeating, “…godliness with contentment does bring great profit.”