Official Announcement:
KS Retreat 2012 will be held from 18 - 22 December (Tue - Sat). More information will be coming your way in the coming months. Please inform your parents, siblings, grandparents, uncles, aunties, cousins, nephews, nieces, teachers, classmates, dogs, cats, hamsters, fish, birds, airlines, travel agents, teachers, principals, HODs, CCAs etc. to avoid any conflicts in your schedule. Thank you.
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Monday 2 July 2012
The Rare Jewel
" Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."
- Philippians 4:11
Paul, the holy apostle of Christ, speaks thus of himself: that he has learned, or rather, has had to learn, to be content. It is learned, for it is not something natural. We all have to learn this skill of contentment by the Word of God and the Spirit's help. This contentment I speak of is specifically Christian contentment, a jewel with which only Christians can be adorned.
Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) was an English puritan preacher who possessed in his character two seemingly contradictory traits: a fervent zeal for purity of doctrine and worship, and a peaceable spirit. He was outstanding among his fellows in the latter. He wrote the book "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment", a most worthy textbook of the uninspired kind (meaning apart from the Bible) on this subject. He did not add an "Epistle to the Reader" as puritan writers like John Owen or John Flavel do, providing glimpses of the author's heart and mind as he presents his discourse to the reader, telling of the motivations of his writing. Doubtless, though, Burroughs had intended to instruct fellow saints who were downcast during the "sad and sinking times" (in his own words) in which they lived. He saw how a contented Christian could scarcely be found, hence the title of his book. I will draw mainly from his book.
We must begin with a definition of what Christian contentment is. I find it meet to quote Burroughs in full: Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposals in every condition. Notice it is inward, and not merely an outward calm that remains undisturbed whatever befalls. For it is a very easy thing to achieve, without any learning, to by sheer violence of will restrain outward manifestations of discontentment, while murmurings are festering inside the heart. "Truly my soul waiteth upon God" (Psalm 62:1), your soul must be at peace. It was an easy thing to appear calm when the dismissal time in BMT was continually pushed back and my platoon mates grumbled incessantly, but it was a difficult thing to control my own grumblings inside. Notice too that to be content, one must freely submit to and delight in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. It is not only submission to God's hand, saying with a disgruntled spirit, "this is the Lord's will, He will do as He pleases." but a submission made freely and delightfully, " Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice." - (Philippians 4:4). We have to have this joy in the Lord always. It is easy to say that something is of the hand of God when it profits us, but what about when it is something unpleasant? When the stress of examinations was overwhelming me and my results were sub-optimal, I could hardly rejoice in the Lord, for I had not learned contentment. It hardly entered into my mind to see this as from the hand of God, and part of His loving dispensations towards me. Hence, I could not freely and delightfully submit to His disposals.
Very well then, so much for what contentment is, but is it so big an issue? It certainly is. Consider the words of Jude 14-16: " And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage." hard speeches spoken against God, murmurers, complainers. These are among the sins that are especially highlighted. What kind of spirit gives rise to these? A spirit of discontentment. Murmuring is a sin of great ungodliness, for it is rebellion against God. It is contrary to the worship of God that is in contentedness. In the worship of God we humbly bow before Him, and declare Him Lord, but in murmuring in our hearts we tell God that He has not done for us as He ought. Must God indeed give you good success? Must He grant you to fulfill the lusts of your heart? Must He make you free from the obligations of school or work? If in any condition we murmur in our hearts, we are accusing God of withdrawing His love (which is eternal) from us. Consider the murmurings of the children of Israel in the wilderness, and the judgment of God upon them.
Ah, some may say, you do not know what a terrible condition I am in, and you tell me to be content! You can most certainly talk about contentment when you are having peace. But be in my place, and you would not be talking about contentment at all. To such I would reply, that holy Scripture tells us to be content, and therefore all are bound to this. We all go through our own sad and sinking times, but even the darkest pits of hell on this side hell cannot excuse us from this duty. The duty to be content is upon us both in good times and bad. When I had to leave church early on the Lord's Day because the army forced me to, I knew I had to be content. No matter how much I was displeased at it, I had to delight myself in the Lord.
As you may now already know, it is a very difficult thing to be content, or else we would not have to learn it. So how may we learn it? By Scripture, and by a proper, Spirit-guided reasoning from the truths thereof. Burroughs gave many directions to the attainment of Christian contentment, I shall here only mention a few, particularly those which I have found most helpful to me in my current difficulty, and I trust that they will be helpful to you too.
The first is to consider the greatness of the mercies of God which He bestows upon us, particularly our salvation and the many spiritual blessings. " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:" (Psalm 103:2) Remember His abundant goodness to us in every way, consider how His mercy faileth never. How can we be discontented with lacking what the ungodly can have, when we already have what they cannot have? "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:" (Ephesians 1:3) How ashamed we should be, if we vex ourselves over vain things when we have God as our inheritance! Do not we as Christians already possess so great a treasure? He has blessed us in heavenly places. Should we be angry at losing earthly things, which are so lowly and insignificant in comparison? In my life I have known some losses and wants, some of which put me in a state of depression. We all go through some of this. But why must we cry over losing a few dollar bills when we have a full vault of gold?
The next direction is to consider our lowliness, and how much we deserve to suffer and die. We are so lowly. What are we compared to the glory of God? We are mere mortals, we are weak, and our lives are fleeting moments. We are sinful and rebellious against God by nature. How great is the magnitude of grace God shows towards us by not utterly destroying us! And dare we now be discontented with our conditions, seeing we still have breath? "For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." (Psalm 103:14) See how Scripture describes us. We are dust. Do you treasure dust? I think not. Yet the Lord takes pity on us in our ever-so-mean conditions, the problem being we do not see it, and think He ought to do more for us. Let us be like Mephibosheth, who said to David, "What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?" (2 Samuel 9:8) Many times in my work I feel so helpless against the winds and waves that toss and buffet, but I remember how I do not at all even deserve to be alive, and that it is ridiculous to be complaining when I am not in hell.
The third direction is to see God's hand of love in everything He makes us go through. We all know what Romans 8:28 says. But do we truly appreciate the meaning of "all things"? Not some things, not most things, but all things. The flood of assignments to finish, the ridicule you suffer for being a Christian, the loss of a gadget you rely on, not being able to be with the guy/girl you like, and so on. Anything and everything that happens to a child of God is going to contribute in some way to his or her final good. That is the precious promise of Scripture, and it is because of God's love for us that He makes all things work out for our good. Seeing this, how can we be murmuring against God in doing something for us out of love? It is difficult to see how a trial can be sent our way because of love. But on this matter, Scripture already tells us why trials are valuable (James 1:2-4). See then how gracious God is, by giving us reason after reason in Scripture to trust in Him and delight in Him. Murmuring on our part, therefore, should be inexcusable.
A final consideration I would include here, is that we have a sure insurance in heaven. Insurers pay us a sum of money (under certain conditions) when we suffer losses against which we are insured, like houses or cars, even parts and functions of our body. Christians have a full insurance, which is in heaven. All losses we suffer here on earth will be more than made up in heaven. "This world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue." Think about the words of this familiar song I quoted here. We have treasure in heaven, it will pay for all. What good can we possibly lose here that will not be repaid in heaven? An eternity in the presence of God awaits us, free from all evil, all sin, all sorrow! Will you then be discontented with your current state, as if this will be your lot forever? But a little while, and we shall pass through the gates of pearly splendor, into an eternity of joy. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" (2 Corinthians 4:17)
There is yet so much more to be said about this weighty subject, but I trust that this will suffice. I pray that the Lord would help us to learn this skill of contentment, especially in this age of abundance, where people expect much comfort and are apt to show their displeasure at the slightest of trivialities. I trust that you will find contentment to be indeed a very precious jewel, when you meet with sad and sinking times of your own.
"Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;" - Philippians 2:14-15
Written by: Asaph
- Philippians 4:11
Paul, the holy apostle of Christ, speaks thus of himself: that he has learned, or rather, has had to learn, to be content. It is learned, for it is not something natural. We all have to learn this skill of contentment by the Word of God and the Spirit's help. This contentment I speak of is specifically Christian contentment, a jewel with which only Christians can be adorned.
Jeremiah Burroughs (1599-1646) was an English puritan preacher who possessed in his character two seemingly contradictory traits: a fervent zeal for purity of doctrine and worship, and a peaceable spirit. He was outstanding among his fellows in the latter. He wrote the book "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment", a most worthy textbook of the uninspired kind (meaning apart from the Bible) on this subject. He did not add an "Epistle to the Reader" as puritan writers like John Owen or John Flavel do, providing glimpses of the author's heart and mind as he presents his discourse to the reader, telling of the motivations of his writing. Doubtless, though, Burroughs had intended to instruct fellow saints who were downcast during the "sad and sinking times" (in his own words) in which they lived. He saw how a contented Christian could scarcely be found, hence the title of his book. I will draw mainly from his book.
We must begin with a definition of what Christian contentment is. I find it meet to quote Burroughs in full: Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposals in every condition. Notice it is inward, and not merely an outward calm that remains undisturbed whatever befalls. For it is a very easy thing to achieve, without any learning, to by sheer violence of will restrain outward manifestations of discontentment, while murmurings are festering inside the heart. "Truly my soul waiteth upon God" (Psalm 62:1), your soul must be at peace. It was an easy thing to appear calm when the dismissal time in BMT was continually pushed back and my platoon mates grumbled incessantly, but it was a difficult thing to control my own grumblings inside. Notice too that to be content, one must freely submit to and delight in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. It is not only submission to God's hand, saying with a disgruntled spirit, "this is the Lord's will, He will do as He pleases." but a submission made freely and delightfully, " Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice." - (Philippians 4:4). We have to have this joy in the Lord always. It is easy to say that something is of the hand of God when it profits us, but what about when it is something unpleasant? When the stress of examinations was overwhelming me and my results were sub-optimal, I could hardly rejoice in the Lord, for I had not learned contentment. It hardly entered into my mind to see this as from the hand of God, and part of His loving dispensations towards me. Hence, I could not freely and delightfully submit to His disposals.
Very well then, so much for what contentment is, but is it so big an issue? It certainly is. Consider the words of Jude 14-16: " And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage." hard speeches spoken against God, murmurers, complainers. These are among the sins that are especially highlighted. What kind of spirit gives rise to these? A spirit of discontentment. Murmuring is a sin of great ungodliness, for it is rebellion against God. It is contrary to the worship of God that is in contentedness. In the worship of God we humbly bow before Him, and declare Him Lord, but in murmuring in our hearts we tell God that He has not done for us as He ought. Must God indeed give you good success? Must He grant you to fulfill the lusts of your heart? Must He make you free from the obligations of school or work? If in any condition we murmur in our hearts, we are accusing God of withdrawing His love (which is eternal) from us. Consider the murmurings of the children of Israel in the wilderness, and the judgment of God upon them.
Ah, some may say, you do not know what a terrible condition I am in, and you tell me to be content! You can most certainly talk about contentment when you are having peace. But be in my place, and you would not be talking about contentment at all. To such I would reply, that holy Scripture tells us to be content, and therefore all are bound to this. We all go through our own sad and sinking times, but even the darkest pits of hell on this side hell cannot excuse us from this duty. The duty to be content is upon us both in good times and bad. When I had to leave church early on the Lord's Day because the army forced me to, I knew I had to be content. No matter how much I was displeased at it, I had to delight myself in the Lord.
As you may now already know, it is a very difficult thing to be content, or else we would not have to learn it. So how may we learn it? By Scripture, and by a proper, Spirit-guided reasoning from the truths thereof. Burroughs gave many directions to the attainment of Christian contentment, I shall here only mention a few, particularly those which I have found most helpful to me in my current difficulty, and I trust that they will be helpful to you too.
The first is to consider the greatness of the mercies of God which He bestows upon us, particularly our salvation and the many spiritual blessings. " Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:" (Psalm 103:2) Remember His abundant goodness to us in every way, consider how His mercy faileth never. How can we be discontented with lacking what the ungodly can have, when we already have what they cannot have? "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:" (Ephesians 1:3) How ashamed we should be, if we vex ourselves over vain things when we have God as our inheritance! Do not we as Christians already possess so great a treasure? He has blessed us in heavenly places. Should we be angry at losing earthly things, which are so lowly and insignificant in comparison? In my life I have known some losses and wants, some of which put me in a state of depression. We all go through some of this. But why must we cry over losing a few dollar bills when we have a full vault of gold?
The next direction is to consider our lowliness, and how much we deserve to suffer and die. We are so lowly. What are we compared to the glory of God? We are mere mortals, we are weak, and our lives are fleeting moments. We are sinful and rebellious against God by nature. How great is the magnitude of grace God shows towards us by not utterly destroying us! And dare we now be discontented with our conditions, seeing we still have breath? "For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust." (Psalm 103:14) See how Scripture describes us. We are dust. Do you treasure dust? I think not. Yet the Lord takes pity on us in our ever-so-mean conditions, the problem being we do not see it, and think He ought to do more for us. Let us be like Mephibosheth, who said to David, "What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?" (2 Samuel 9:8) Many times in my work I feel so helpless against the winds and waves that toss and buffet, but I remember how I do not at all even deserve to be alive, and that it is ridiculous to be complaining when I am not in hell.
The third direction is to see God's hand of love in everything He makes us go through. We all know what Romans 8:28 says. But do we truly appreciate the meaning of "all things"? Not some things, not most things, but all things. The flood of assignments to finish, the ridicule you suffer for being a Christian, the loss of a gadget you rely on, not being able to be with the guy/girl you like, and so on. Anything and everything that happens to a child of God is going to contribute in some way to his or her final good. That is the precious promise of Scripture, and it is because of God's love for us that He makes all things work out for our good. Seeing this, how can we be murmuring against God in doing something for us out of love? It is difficult to see how a trial can be sent our way because of love. But on this matter, Scripture already tells us why trials are valuable (James 1:2-4). See then how gracious God is, by giving us reason after reason in Scripture to trust in Him and delight in Him. Murmuring on our part, therefore, should be inexcusable.
A final consideration I would include here, is that we have a sure insurance in heaven. Insurers pay us a sum of money (under certain conditions) when we suffer losses against which we are insured, like houses or cars, even parts and functions of our body. Christians have a full insurance, which is in heaven. All losses we suffer here on earth will be more than made up in heaven. "This world is not my home, I'm just a passin' through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue." Think about the words of this familiar song I quoted here. We have treasure in heaven, it will pay for all. What good can we possibly lose here that will not be repaid in heaven? An eternity in the presence of God awaits us, free from all evil, all sin, all sorrow! Will you then be discontented with your current state, as if this will be your lot forever? But a little while, and we shall pass through the gates of pearly splendor, into an eternity of joy. "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;" (2 Corinthians 4:17)
There is yet so much more to be said about this weighty subject, but I trust that this will suffice. I pray that the Lord would help us to learn this skill of contentment, especially in this age of abundance, where people expect much comfort and are apt to show their displeasure at the slightest of trivialities. I trust that you will find contentment to be indeed a very precious jewel, when you meet with sad and sinking times of your own.
"Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;" - Philippians 2:14-15
Written by: Asaph
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