Without Reservation

“Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.” (Philippians 4:11 NLT)

Are you content? If your life was to end today, would you have regrets? Why or why not? What is it that leads to regret? Are there ways to live without regret?

In a calendar devotional that I read every morning, I read: “People who are God’s without reservation ‘have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.’ His will becomes their will, and they strip themselves of everything, and in their nakedness find everything restored a hundredfold.”

What does that even mean – to be God’s without reservation? Let’s look more closely at what Paul wrote in the verse above. What did Paul mean when he wrote: “Not that I was ever in need.” In other places in Paul’s writings (see 2 Corinthians 11:24-29 as an example) he outlines many ways he suffered and had need of a lot of things. Was he deliberately lying? Or was he seeing things from a perspective we haven’t yet learned?

After all, notice his very next words: “for I have learned.” It causes me to wonder how much of the Bible we claim to not understand, not because we’re intellectually or spiritually deficient, but because we haven’t yet learned to see things from God’s perspective? How like us to blame God for Paul’s misfortunes when Paul himself rejoices in knowing he suffered those things to allow him to become more like Jesus.

We struggle to live without reservation for the Lord because we haven’t yet “learned how to be content with whatever I have.” What if what I have is floating in the ocean for a day and a night? What if it’s being beaten 39 lashes with a lead-tipped whip? What if it’s being stoned and left for dead? We pout if someone gets our seat at church or cuts the line at Starbucks, how will we ever learn to be content to love Jesus without reservation?

And please hear me, I’m not being critical of you, I’m investigating my own heart. At my core I’m still a slimeball who loves my creature comforts, but, by God’s grace, I’ve been on Mission’s trips to remote areas where I’ve slept on concrete floors, taken cold showers, and rejoiced for the privilege of leaving everything behind except the clothes on my back.

We have way more than we need as Americans. To be on welfare in America is to be among the wealthiest people in the world. What if living “without reservation” for Jesus meant living on less so we could give away more? What if it looked like loving others so much, we risked everything to tell them about Jesus? What if it meant less time on the golf course or fewer trips to the hair salon and more time serving the needs of the underprivileged?  

It will likely look different on some levels for each of us, but Paul wasn’t unique because of who he was, he accomplished so much and was used so mightily by God for who he believed God was. Is God simply your proverbial “genie in a bottle?’ You just rub His “prayer lamp” when you need His services? Or is He your lifeline, without whom you would literally have no life?

Until we learn to be content with whatever we have, we have no hope of living without reservation for Jesus or living life without regret.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊