Isaiah 55:1-2 (NIV) 1 “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. 2 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.
I Timothy 6:6-8, 10 (NIV) 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Most of us have times when we are between completing one task and not quite ready to begin the next one. The early church leaders called this “times of holy leisure.” They saw these in between times as the opportunity to refocus life on the matters that were really important, to balance life between the competing demands and responsibilities, and perhaps most importantly to remember the calling to be Christians before being called to do anything.
False teaching abounds, telling us we must have more and that we must do more to be happy. Without some space for holy leisure we are very likely to buy into these promises and proddings almost without knowing it. Amidst all the noise of the false teachers comes the quiet voice of the Apostle Paul. There is something to be gained from our faith and it is called Godliness with contentment.
Paul is speaking of the kind of contentment where Timothy could rest on the confidence that God will supply every need according to the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus. This is the contentment promised, but Paul says this contentment comes as a part of Godliness. Godliness is a kind of mind-set that develops as we respond to God in faith and in obedience as best we can. We learn contentment as we respond to the daily events of our life out of whatever faith we have. That is the way Godliness is formed. The shedding of the old mind-set and the building of the new one takes place where we live and work day to day, where we respond with confidence in God. If Jesus is only some veneer on an already polished life we may see Him simply as a quick fix for a problem. If He is one more responsibility in an overcrowded schedule His power will not be found and felt by us.
Holy leisure requires that we live in the passive voice, and allow and ask and give permission to the living Christ to prepare us for whatever the future holds for us. It is a time to remember that God is present to us, that God is at work, and that we are constantly being called to respond to life events out of our confidence in God.
From a sermon preached by Henry Dobbs Pope August 30, 1992
© Rhonda Hinkle Mitchell
No comments:
Post a Comment