Saturday, June 25, 2011

Satisfied or Dissatisfied?

“Happy are those who know they are spiritually poor;
the Kingdom of heaven belongs to them!
Happy are those who mourn;
God will comfort them!
Happy are those who are humble;
they will receive what God has promised!
Happy are those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires;
God will satisfy them fully!”         Matt. 5:3-6  GNT

 God operates only in holy, not unholy, dissatisfaction.

This means dissatisfaction in spirit, not in the flesh.  Jesus referred to this as being “poor in the spirit” and the result of this poverty is to receive the “Kingdom of heaven”.  ( Matt. 5:3)

The Bible is full of dissatisfied holy people.   David built his kingdom with men who were tired of Saul’s spiritual arrogance, his collection of men, “in distress…..in debt….discontent…” was the raw material for his empire.  (I Sam. 22:2)

The disciples of John the Baptist were men who were tired of the world’s politics of greed and selfishness; they longed to see God’s Kingdom in operation on this earth.

No matter where I look in church history, I see a trail of dissatisfied men and women who longed for greater and deeper things of God.   They sought and found a spiritual ideal and left a spiritual empire behind.

Holy dissatisfaction always begins with God and ends with God.   I can be easily dissatisfied about politics, money, love or people but that is usually selfish.

Holy dissatisfaction begins within me, within my spirit, it sees the poverty and then it begins the quest for satisfaction that is only found in God.

I will never be much of a disciple unless I have felt this kind of dissatisfaction, the greater the dissatisfaction, the stronger my discipleship.

I must continue to ask myself:  Are you satisfied?     If I answer yes, then I can become my own obstacle to a flourishing discipleship for Christ.

 “Don’t let your heart envy sinners,
but fear the LORD constantly; then you will have a future,
and your hope won’t be cut off.”     Proverbs  23:17-18  CEB

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