Good morning friends. A couple of weeks ago I started wrapping up our look at Hebrews but was interrupted by Passion week. We were looking at a series of thoughts and a lot of teaching in a short space of writing so we were looking at it a morsel at a time. We did not get far, only one morsel, so if you want to refresh your memory you can go back to it here (Killing Our Own). If not we will continue with the next teaching.
This next bit of teaching puzzled me at first:
Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:4-6)
The subjects of marriage, money and trusting the Lord do not seem to have much in common at first. Well, that is not exactly true. I think most of us can see the connection between money and trusting the Lord and I think most of our credit cards show that this trust does not go very far. So why is marriage tangled in this subject? What if we were to remove the subject of money for a moment? "Marriage should be honoured by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. Be content with what you have." As I read the passage in this manner I had a moment of insight. Is discontentment not what causes most affairs, when one partner is no longer content with their choice and decides to try out someone else? Perhaps crude in thought but accurate in its reality.
Discontentment can cause many problems because we lack the proper perspective. Our contentment is not found in people, not even marriages, and it is not found in things, not even millions of dollars. We were designed to find contentment only in our relationship with our Creator:
Be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?"
How do marriages last a life-time? How are so many people joyful with so little to their name? Contentment can only be found when you realize that Jesus is everything you need. Marriage is meant to last a life-time, without affairs and wondering eyes. This can only happen when we allow our dissatisfaction in our relationships to be engulfed by the love of the Father. When his love is our security instead of other people's it is amazing how all these relationships turn around and we are able to approach them from a mature point of view. It is the same for our needs. When we realize that Jesus meets all those needs we will put away our credit cards and be content with what we have. Remember the Apostle Paul's famous words:
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. (Philippians 4:12-13)
Now, let us get something straight here: it does not mean that finding our contentment in Jesus will change anything but us. Our spouse may not fall in love with us all over again because that requires their heart to change as well. It does not mean that we will be saved from the financial disaster that we created. What it does mean is that our loveless marriage will suddenly be more bearable because the love of Jesus will fill our hearts. The chances are with such a change in us, a change will be provoked in our partner as well. It means that as we lose our possessions because we do not have the money, we will find it easier to deal with because we are content with what God provides. His love is what satisfies us, not all these toys.
I do not know what your situation is right now but I can tell you this: if you make Jesus the focus of your life you will find contentment in whatever you do, whatever you experience and whatever relationships you have. In fact, if you make Jesus the center of your life you will find everything transformed around you because of the new perspective he gives you. Relationships will no longer be your source of strength and neither will money be your security. The secret to contentment is having Jesus as the center of everything in your life:
Be content with what you have, because God has said,
"Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence,
"The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?"
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