Shane Legler

As I’ve shared with my congregation, I have come to positively hate the phrase “I deserve.” In fact, hate may have become too watered down with use to convey my meaning. For clarity, I have come to loathe and detest it to the point of actively discouraging its use. 

There is nowhere that we can turn without hearing either “I deserve” or “you deserve.” Advertisers, interest groups and politicians are always using it to manipulate people because it works. They come to us, much as the serpent came to Eve, and say, “You deserve this and you deserve that,” and before long, they have us agreeing with them, “I do deserve the finest. I do deserve free medical care. I do deserve free housing. I do deserve a better wage.” I deserve … I deserve … there is no end to all that we deserve. 

Is it any wonder that we are so discontented with all that God has given us when we never have all we deserve? Is it any wonder that we are so ungrateful despite having so much? Do we really think that we deserve to have the world handed to us on a silver platter just for having been born into it? Life itself is the gift of God, but rather than be grateful to him for it,  we sniff and say, “I deserve better.”   

If we really take God at his word, then we must agree with him when he says that “the wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) If you are a sinner like me, may I gently say that, like me, you deserve the wages of your sin, and anything short of that is better than you deserve. Yet, Christ, who did not deserve to die, died to provide for the forgiveness of your sins and mine, while we were
still his enemies.

In light of that reality, is it not perfectly reasonable for the Lord to tell us, “Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5) The command is contentedness for “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.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8)

The Apostle John tells us “For all that is in the world — the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life — is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1 John 2:16-17) We’re never content because we’re always wanting more, but this craving is worldly rather than godly. 

Christ tells us to be content with what we have received from his hand. Given our sinful nature, this is often a daily struggle, but it is something that we must, with the Holy Spirit’s help, struggle to do. This is not only for the sake of honoring God, but for the sake of our own pleasure and happiness. We all know someone who wallows in discontentment. Is that person happy? I’ve never known anyone to be happy who cannot be content with what God has given them.

That said, I would be remiss if I did not share the one thing necessary to keep the Lord’s command to be content. It is simple gratitude for what you have. It is very hard for us to be grateful when we simply don’t know what we have. For anyone who hasn’t seen how the rest of the world lives with their own eyes, it’s purely academic to say that one ought to be grateful for having been born in America. 

My first mission focus while serving in the military was Africa. A soldier of African ancestry who I worked with at the time told me, “all of our ancestors paid a price to get to America, and mine arguably paid a higher price than yours, but I thank God they paid that price because I do not want to live in Africa.” In seeing what true poverty was, that soldier realized how blessed she was and gave God thanks. If she had thought about it, she might have said that she was surprised by gratitude.

Gratitude is not something that generally comes to us naturally. It is an attitude that must be cultivated and, in my mind, a spiritual discipline that must be practiced. There is a hymn we sing that tells us, “Count your blessings, name them one by one; count your many blessings, see what God hath done.” If we can make it the habit of our lives to take inventory, not of what we don’t have, but of what we do have and to give God thanks for it, we will be content, and in contentment, we may just find ourselves surprised by happiness.

(Shane Legler is the pastor of Powell Church of God.)