Contentment With Money

“But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.”

Everyone wants more money.  

This is not necessarily a sin.  Sin enters the picture when we examine our motives.  If we read further in I Timothy, verse 10 says “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils.”  From the love of money springs envy, lust, pride and greed.  In today’s consumer culture, we have lost any ability to discern between what we want and what we actually need.  To us, everything is a “need”.  Perhaps the COVID-19 outbreak is one way God will help us come to a better understanding of our true needs (like toilet paper).  We see the stock market crashing and people laid off from work.  It’s easy to panic and worry in the moment.  Let’s take the long view instead.

Our discontent with our circumstances is rooted in our selfishness and fear.  There will always be someone who has more.  God does not choose to bless us all equally.  But He does have the same requirements of those gifts He gives us—that we be good stewards of them, and use them for His glory (see Matthew 25:14-30).  Instead they of complaining, we must work wisely with what we have.  

However, there will also always be someone who has less.  It doesn’t take long to find someone who is worse off than you are.  I Timothy 6:7 is actually an echo of the words of Job (Job 1:21): “Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.""  Job lost more than we ever will, and suffered more than we ever will.  And yet, he understood that everything he had was not really his to begin with.  Our money and possessions are merely tools.  Tools we are borrowing from God, to do work for Him.  If He chose not to give us a certain tool, we can rest assured He gave it to someone else in the body.  What a blessing it is to be generous and help each other!  After all, we have to give the tools back when we’re done.