MATTHEW 20:25-28-But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
By creation, we are “wired” to live our lives with satisfying purpose, fulfillment, and contentment. By sin, we got “short-circuited” leading us to being disconnected to what truly gives life purpose, fulfillment, and contentment – walking with our Creator in the harmony of holy fellowship. But God, in His mercy, love, and far-reaching grace came to us in the Gospel of His Son, the Lord Jesus and “fixed the wiring” problem in the believing sinner. We now may obtain in life, as a foretaste of heaven, true purpose, fulfillment, and contentment.
However, and this reaffirms human beings are sheep prone to wander, we still want to find purpose, fulfillment, and contentment in the things of this world and of our own choosing. And sadly, this includes Christians. We too often seek purpose in life by education, vocations, and achievements. We too often seek fulfillment in life through human relationships. And we too often seek contentment in life by material things, earthly pleasures, and fleshly recreations. A good exercise to do when tempted to seek what only Christ may provide is to remember the words of King Solomon who sought and achieved all those: Vanity, vanity, all is vanity(Ecclesiastes 1:2). But we have hope to end up like King Solomon . . .
As Christians, the reason why we experience times of depressing purposeless, lack of fulfilling and disconnected lives is because we forget our identity. We forget we are the bought property of the Lord Jesus; His servants, His slaves and that 100% of our person and 100% of our time: “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body (1Corinthians 6:19-20). When we lose sight of the call of Jesus as His bought property, a call to complete surrender of our wills, desires, expectations, material goods, relationships, and everything else about us, we revert back to attitudes we had “pre-salvation”, attitudes marked by purposeless living, unfulfilled and discontented lives. Identity is everything in the Christian life.
So, if we want to live as God intends and provides for us, lives of purpose, fulfillment, and contentment, we must recover and maintain the chief principle in all Christian living; the principle of continual self-denial in our identity of being Christ’s servants. Always remember, purpose, fulfillment, and contentment in life are never achieved by being absorbed with oneself, but in denying oneself. To live for oneself guarantees a joyless existence while living for Christ and others, as His humble servant, is the pathway to joyful purpose, fulfillment and contentment in life – the very things provided for in the Gospel of Jesus Christ and living under His complete Lordship as His bought servants.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to see that to live selfless, not selfish, is Your way to happy contentment.”
QUOTE: “Happy contentment is never achieved by being absorbed with oneself, but in denying oneself.”