Contentment

It is Tuesday morning, 21st December, the year 2021, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

"You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's."

Exodus 20:17

And then we go right across to Acts 20:33, this is Paul speaking. He says:

“I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel. Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me.”

The word covet means: “Yearns to possess something belonging to someone else.” Now, Jesus says that if you desire to follow Him, you are to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow after Him. Mark 8:34

So often we look at the cross that our neighbour carries and we covet it. “Oh, he has got a much easier walk, Lord. I would really love to have what he has” or “he has got such a wonderful business, or farm” or whatever it might be. I heard this wonderful story a long time ago: Jesus, He is a carpenter, is in the carpenter's shop, making a cross to fit every single one of us - especially fitted for our size. But this man didn’t like his cross, it was very uncomfortable.

So he went and he put it down on a heap of other crosses and decides to choose another one. He looks and he sees a beautiful cross adorned with the most beautiful roses. He picks it up but it is full of thorns and as soon as he picks it up and the thorns stick into his hands. So he put the cross down, very quickly. He looks around and finds another cross, a magnificent cross made out of pure solid gold. But when he picked up this cross, it was so heavy he could hardly put it on his shoulder, so he puts that one down. He looks around and finds a plain wooden cross, smooth, not too heavy and it fitted exactly into his shoulder. He decides this was the one that he wants, only to find out that that was the very one he had put down.

1 Timothy 6:6 says godliness with contentment is great gain. Just be content with your lot in life and thank Jesus for every day.

God bless you and have a wonderful day.
Goodbye.