Last night I was given the opportunity to teach on
Discontentment. It has really opened my eyes to so many things that I have
watered down in my life and tried to make acceptable in my walk with Him. I’ve
had many things resurface in the past few weeks as I prepared for last night
that I had thought were long dealt with. Just when I think I have this all
figured out and have forgiven, and asked for forgiveness and have laid down all
I know to, God gives me something like this to study on. It has been a long
journey but so worth it.
So, here are some of my notes from last night. I
pray that you will be able to take from this that living a life truly content
and at peace is achievable, but we must be given the tools that we need to
apply it correctly to our life.
So let’s ask God to speak to our hearts and allow
him to carve the love he has for us in the depth of our souls. Freedom and contentment are waiting for you…are
you willing to receive it?
Our God is faithful and loves us so much, I know he
will equip each of us with exactly what we need to accomplish this.
2
Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the
man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Today we are going to dive into two different
passages of Scripture and do exactly what 2 Timothy says. We are going to use
them for teaching, correcting & training so that we may be equipped
for every good work that he has called us to.
The
Vine and the Branches John 15:1-8
15 “I am the true vine, and my
Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears
no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be
even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I
have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No
branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you
bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me
and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6
If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away
and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7
If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish,
and it will be given you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you
bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
Ok, what this means for us is this.
When we give our life to Jesus we are agreeing that we believe certain things.
A few of them are that we are proclaiming that He is our Lord and Savior, we
believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and that through him (and
only Him) we will have eternal life in heaven. When we do this we become part
of the vine of Jesus.
What happens then is that God begins
to pluck and prune each thing in your life that does not bear fruit, in other
words the things that he wants removed out of your life, now here is the tricky
part. In most circumstances…you have to be willing.
I think what often happens when we
hear these verses is we tend to overlook the part that says, “he (God)cuts off
every branch in me that bears no fruit”, because really what we want to focus on
is “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, (The
KJV says, desire) and it will be given you.
When we come to Him we are not presenting
ourselves as pure and holy and sinless. We are all sinners and all fall short, we
come before Him in our real life circumstances, our real life problems and real
feelings of discontentment. I believe that the feeling of discontentment alone
is probably one of the main reasons that some of us even turn to Jesus. I know
that was one of the main reasons in my life. I was so miserable at times and so
discontent that I can remember thinking that there had to be more to this life.
Oh how thankful I am that he showed me.
#1 GOD CAN HANDLE THE PRUNING (on the Listening Guide hand out)
We were created to worship him and when
we choose to fill the voids in our life with anything other than God then I can
promise you one thing will continue to happen time and time again. We will live
a life unsatisfied and never content…how miserable.
Around 6 or 7 years ago I was
sitting in my room with my bible laid open in my lap. I had already at that
time re-committed my life to Christ. I remember out loud asking God why this
didn’t seem or feel real to me like I had seen in other people. Were they more
spiritual then me? Did they honestly love Jesus more than I did? Was the past
sin in my life so bad that part of my punishment was always searching but never
fully being fulfilled? I wanted to believe so bad what the Bible was telling
me, but the fact is I just didn’t always “feel” it.
So I asked God this question and it changed
every aspect of my walk with him from that moment on. “What is it in my life
that is hindering my relationship with you?” The thing that happened next was
more than just some “feeling”, it was more like an urgency to grab a pen and
piece of paper. I truly believed that God would answer me, and boy did he ever.
Before I knew it God laid out before me the most detailed intricate list about
my life, and it was not pretty. Three days into it I already had 8 items on
this list. I want you to understand that I let God lead me to what I needed to
put on this list, they were not things that I suggested or considered, it was
all from him and I was floored.
Most of the big ones were things
that I expected, the BIG sin in my life...What I didn’t realize at that time
was that God not only wanted me to walk away from sin, but he had no intention
of mending every relationship that I had back into a healthy relationship in my
life. More of the things that he
required of me to lay down weren’t as obvious to me as why they were a problem.
Then he then began to show me that even good things taken out of context can be
sin and those had to be laid down too. You want to talk about pruning?!?! I
felt like I was being plucked to death. And it was death, death of the old me
and this process had to take place so the new life could bear fruit.
I know that this would be a lot more
fun for some of us if I were to give you the personal details of the people,
places & things that God required of me to lay down, but the fact is that
the things that hinder my relationship with him are probably so different for
each of us that it wouldn’t even make sense to you if I shared. My struggles aren’t
necessarily your struggles, and the things in my life that caused me to sin may
not hinder your walk with God in any way. All I can tell you is if you want to
see just how well God knows you, then ask him that question and then get ready.
*#2. GOD WILL PROVIDE US WITH OUR LIST
This list is my testimony…you will
hear me say this as often as God gives me the opportunity to because it is the
most active part of faith for me in my walk with Him. I often keep blank index
cards in my car or Bible and when I just don’t feel him sometimes or if I’m
struggling with something then I ask God to give me clarity over things and to
be specific at what it is that I need to lay down. Then I jot it down on my
card and start praying over it, I may not lay it down that day but eventually
when God equips me with the strength and the desire to lay it down I do just
that and then the craziest thing happens…I feel free of it.
Jesus
Talks With a Samaritan Woman John 4:1-14
4 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was
gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2 although in fact
it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. 3 When the Lord
learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to
a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his
son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was
from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her,
“Will you give me a drink?” 8 (His disciples had gone into the town to
buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a
Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate
with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it
is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given
you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and
the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12 Are you
greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself,
as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be
thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never
thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water
welling up to eternal life.”)
What was Jesus saying here? Was this a promise that the road that we would face ahead
would be one without doubt or fear or discontentment? No, you see we all still
have to keep on living real life here. There is nothing about being a Christian
that exempts us from that.
You know as I say this I keep thinking
about Tanya Coons and the Donlon’s and so many others in this room and even in
my own family that have been through so much. Jesus didn’t come to take away
our trails, but He came to empower us by trusting Him and believing that when
we enter the other side of it that we will know Him and love Him and feel loved
by Him in a way like never before. I talked to Tonya before study started and
she said that she was reminded that being content isn’t the same thing as being
happy.
Jesus says, you will thirst no more,
not that you will never have tragedy or disappointment or questions…and for me
it’s when our heart and our mind agree to trust the plan that God has for us
and to choose to live content within the boundaries and the load that he has entrusted
to us to bear. Then somewhere, somehow God fills those voids and we receive contentment
over them and eventually joy and happiness in his plan.
One thing that I hear Theresa say all
the time is that she has to stay in the Word and read it over and over again
because right now her mind knows it, but her heart doesn’t believe it.
I know that what I am suggesting
here today is a lot to process but I believe that it is the very first step in
the walk towards real freedom and contentment. Jeremiah 17:5-10
5 This is what the Lord says:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in man,(M)
who depends on flesh for his strength
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.(N)
6 He will be like a bush in the wastelands;
he will not see prosperity when it comes.
He will dwell in the parched places(O) of the desert,
in a salt(P) land where no one lives.
7 “But blessed(Q) is the man who trusts(R) in the Lord,
whose confidence is in him.
8 He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.(S)
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought(T)
and never fails to bear fruit.”(U)
9 The heart(V) is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart(W)
and examine the mind,(X)
to reward(Y) a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”(Z)
The KJV says, 10
I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every
man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.and examine the mind,(X)
to reward(Y) a man according to his conduct,
according to what his deeds deserve.”(Z)
And when we begin to live our life in such a way that we produce the fruit God says,
Psalm
37:4
John 15:9-17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain
in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love,
just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I
have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be
complete.(O) 12 My
command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.(P) 13 Greater
love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.(Q) 14 You
are my friends(R) if you do
what I command.(S) 15 I
no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s
business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned
from my Father I have made known to you.(T) 16 You
did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you(U) to go and
bear fruit(V)—fruit
that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.(W) 17 This is my command:
Love each other.(X)
I don’t know about you but I want to bear the fruit
that I was created to bear, not the fruit that you were created to, not the
fruit of my husband or children but my own. I want to walk with Him and never
thirst again. I want to know that when I feel parched that I simply need to
come to the foot of the cross and learn how to lay some things down. I want to
run through this journey and not grow weary and I want to learn how to live
content with the life that God has created for me. I believe that when we allow
him to so personally invade every crevice of our life and accept his will then
in return we become servant, wife, mother, sister, daughter and the friend that
we were meant to be.
*#3.
GOD WILL EQUIP US WITH WHAT WE NEED TO LAY THEM DOWN
A few years ago I had lost my Wedding ring. At that
time I had a 3 year old and a 1 year old so I knew that there was no telling
where it had ended up. During that time in my life I was always taking it off
and setting it somewhere to change a dirty diaper, bath a child or cook. Will was
always getting onto me knowing I was going to lose it at some point, I had misplaced
it before but this time it was really gone.
We spent the next two weeks combing through every
part of my house, under every piece of furniture, through every drawer, high
and low we looked everywhere I could
think of and nothing.
I woke up one morning and had decided to give it one
more shot. I walked into my closet and got down on my knees to go through some
low drawers hoping that one of the kids had dropped it in there and maybe I had
missed it the last two times I searched there. Of course I looked again and
found nothing. I was so obsessed over my ring, I had worn it since I was 19 and
the thought of never having it again made me so sad. I was also dealing with
the materialistic side of it because I knew that Will would not and replace it
with something of the same quality. Since I was already down on my knees I
decided to pray. I asked God to give me peace over this and to not obsess over
it anymore. I also asked for forgiveness over being caught up in the value of
my ring for it was just the outward expression of my marriage and it didn’t matter
if I had a ring or not we were still married (ha!).
Just as I began to get up I felt the heaviness of
God come over me as if he did not want me to get up yet. It was such a strange
feeling but as strange as it was I knew it was him. I asked him (in my head)
what do you want me to do. Then I was reminded of something that Will and I
were going through.
What I haven’t told you is that I was upset with my husband
over something and I do mean bitter. Don’t think life altering situation here
but make no mistake I was mad. I’m laughing knowing that he will read this and
he is probably trying to figure out what in the world I am even talking about.
The truth is I’m not even sure I fully remember why I was so mad, but then
again I did have two kids under the age of three that I was with 24/7 so I know
it didn’t take much to set me off.
As I sat there in my closet I have to admit I was a
little perturbed that God wanted me to pray about the situation. After all Will
was in the wrong and I was mad (ha!) but the longer I said those things the
more I felt God press my actions towards my husband on my heart. I realized that even though my feelings were
valid, my actions were not acceptable and if God could heal me in this area than
certainly he could deal with Will… I got up off that floor after pouring my
heart out to God, I asked for forgiveness over the way I had acted and promised
to make amends with Will, and I truly believed that God would also lay it on Will’s
heart what he had done and I was happy about that!
I walked into the laundry room started a load of
clothes and headed back to the kitchen. There hanging on my pie stacker, eye
level in a place that I pass by a hundred times a day was my ring. It was like
a single ray of light shone upon it from a far window and I stood there in
shock. I had taken apart that pie stacker and everything on it twice, my sister
once, and there it had been all along.
We have to learn how to trust God and lay it down
because when he wants to, he will get our attention and believe me it hasn’t always
been as simple as a diamond ring.
I hung onto that hurt and bitterness for weeks, for
some of us it’s been years…
All he wants is for us to bend the knee and trust
him.
*#4.
GOD WILL FILL THE VOIDS
Pastor Scot preached a few weeks ago on the fact
that everything we have is God’s and that he has entrusted us to be good
stewards of it. He also said that he believes that God is more concerned with
our holiness then our happiness. I want you to know that some of the things
that God has required of me to lay down did not make me happy and honestly a
few of those things at times I have run back for because the thought of letting
them go or giving up the “control” I have over them is too much for me.
I
am a work in progress, just like the rest of us. And
I will continue to hold on to those things and carry them around with me until
I can bear the weight of them no longer and then I will bend the knee and lay
them down and walk away with that part of me healed.
This is all part of our walk with Him. God loves us
so much that Jesus died the most horrific, humiliating, gruesome death on the
cross for us. So that we may have real relationship with Him and eternal life
and to live free and content within the boundaries he has set for us.
We will close with this last bullet point. This for
me is the most important one of all and was told to me when I had just started
“The List” with him.
*#5.
GOD CAN CHANGE THE DESIRES OF OUR HEART
I had no idea how I would survive some of the
sifting God was doing within me. It wasn’t until someone told me that God could
change the desires of my heart did I realize that I did not have to go at this
alone. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He desires a real life relationship
with you and I promise you he will equip you with what you need to complete the
work to which he has called you.
I want to live free and content and I want to desire
the things and produce the fruit in which he has created me for.
Have a blessed week!
