Rare Jewel: Chapter Seven

Here are the notes from Chapter 7: The Excellence of Contentment.

1. By contentment we come to give God the worship that is due to him.
2. There is much exercise of grace in contentment.
    a. There is faith, humility, love, patience, wisdom, and hope which are tried.
    b. There is a great deal of strength found in quiet contentment.
    c. There is a great deal of beauty of grace. God's glory appears in the man living quietly in adversity.
3. By contentment, the soul is fitted with quietness to receive mercy.
4. And the soul is fitted to do service, once it has been quieted.
5. Contentment delivers us from an abundance of temptations.
6. There is an abundance of comforts in contentment.
    a. He doesn't depend on any else for comfort but God.
    b. If God raises him, he is assured it is by love.
    c. No matter storms or tempests, there will be light in his soul.
 7. God fashions our spirits to our conditions.
        a. Possessions won't bring contentment like grace in the soul.
        b. Possessions don't better my soul.
        c. Satisfied desires can be the result of self-love versus contentment which is from love to God.
        d. Acquiring one thing, we'll only desire more and more, while true contentment brings comfort in all conditions.
8. Contentment is a great blessing upon the soul.
9. God will give the comfort of the thing which we are contented to be without or something in lieu of it.
10. Through contentment, the soul comes the closest possible to God.

Rare Jewel: Chapters Five and Six

Notes from Chapters 5 and 6
The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

Christ Teaches Contentment

1. He teaches it through self denial.
   a. We are nothing in ourselves.
   b. We deserve nothing.
   c. We can do nothing.
   d. We cannot, of ourselves, even receive good.
   e. We can make no use of what we have if God withdraws from us.
   f. We are worse than nothing.
   g. If we perish, it will be no loss. God can raise another to serve.
   h. The soul comes to rejoice and take satisfaction in all of God's ways, even those which don't suit our own ends.

A discontented heart is troubled because he has no more comfort, but a self-denying man rather wonders that he has as much as he has.

2. He teaches it through the knowledge that all things of the world are vanity. There is nothing which will feed our hearts.

3. He teaches it through the fear of eternity. Earthly concerns seem to have no consequence in comparison.

4. He teaches we are pilgrims on earth; our momentary stay needs little comfort.

5. He teaches the good we do have is from God's hand; it can draw us closer to God, and it can cause us to be of better service.

6. He teaches us to examine our own hearts.
   a. We'll find the root of our discontent.
   b. In the affliction, we'll know it is suited for us, particularly.
   c. We'll be content knowing what we can manage, and that this condition is perfect for us.

7. He teaches that the prosperous condition is a burden.
   a. There is a burden of trouble.
   b. There is a burden of danger.
   c. There is a burden of duty.
   d. There is the burden to give account to God.

8. He teaches it is a great evil to be given up to the heart's desires. Better a plague than a hard heart.

9. He teaches the right knowledge of God's providence.
   a. God's providence has universality. Nothing is outside of it.
   b. God's providence is not altered by us, even our loudest rantings.
   c. All the infinite varieties of providence work in an orderly way.
   d. He makes us familiar with God's ways of working.

       * God's ordinary course is that his people in this world will be afflicted.
       * Often when God intends the greatest mercy, he brings a person into the lowest condition.
          i.e. Joseph in prison, David hunted, Christ crucified.
       * God will often use evil for his good.

Rare Jewel: Chapter Three and Four

Continuing on in this book of awesome, here are the notes from Chapter 3 and 4.

1. The contented believer lives on God's blessing
    a. knowing what he has is God's love.
    b. knowing what he has is sanctified for his good.
    c. knowing he won't be called to pay for what he has as it's already been purchased by Christ.
    d. knowing what he has is an earnest for future glory.
2. The contented believer sees God's sweet love in all afflictions, evils, and mercies.
3. The contented believer sees the afflictions are sanctified in Christ who suffered the same and takes the curse of the current affliction.
4. The contented believer brings Christ's strength into his soul.
5. The contented believer makes up all loses in God. He has the Kingdom within him.
6. The contented believer gains contentment through the Covenant of Grace
    a. when seeing disorder in his life, he knows there is order in the everlasting covenant
    b. by seizing the promises of God.
7. The contented believer makes up all his outward wants from what he finds within himself, as he has God within.
8. The contented believer makes the Kingdom of Heaven present by faith in the midst of trial.
9. The contented believer opens and lets his heart cry to God.

And that's a wrap!

Life with Lupus: In the Predni-ZONE

Logo from this blog.

An update as I'm living in the predni-ZONE. This is my second round of prednisone in my fall, 2012, flare. The first wasn't strong enough, so the dosage is doubled. At the 8 week mark of being housebound, I'm looking at 4 weeks in the zone. Hopefully, the flare cycle will be broken! 

There's a love/hate relationship with prednisone, that's for certain. As a powerful steroid, it has the potential to heal. It removes pain. But along with the: "I love, love, love how this works!" is the: "I hate this drug of evil evilness!" Here's the dialogue that might be exchanged these coming weeks. The response is always: "I'm in the predni-ZONE."

"It's 1 AM. You are still up?"

"It's 3 AM. You are starting your day?"

"Really? You can't concentrate?"

"Why are there cuts on your hands?"

"Are you drinking pickle juice?"

"I think your face has grown round as the moon."

"Why are you crying?"

All of this calls for the big guns. I finished reading A Place of Healing by Joni Eareckson Tada which was wonderful and encouraging. 

But now I return to A Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs. 

Ah, that bestseller from 1651. I began the work nearly 2 years ago. I'm starting over with a 99 cent Kindle download! 

Here's where I posted highlights previously:

Chapter One 

Chapter Two 

Contentment is the sweet, inward, quiet, gracious, frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wise disposal in every condition. Burroughs

Of course, that includes the predni-ZONE. I hope to add more chapter notes to encourage myself. Thanks to everyone for the cards, notes, gifts, and visits. I appreciate you each very much. Onward!

 

Rare Jewel: Chapter Two

I have the notes for Chapter Two, "The Mystery of Contentment." I found these concepts invaluable. Woot! These will sound odd to many, but remember I am a Calvinist. :~)


A. The Christian will be content but always unsatisfied until he is ultimately in God's presence. 
B. A Christian comes to contentment by subtraction. Bring your desires down to your possessions. Shrink your heart to what you have.
C. Meditate on the weight of your sin.
D. Metamorphose the afflictions into light. Find the benefit inside of the circumstance.
E. Do the work of the present circumstances faithfully. In this, serve the counsels of God. 
F. Melt your will into God's will. This is a higher act than merely submitting.
G. Purge your lusts and bitter humours. 


Onward! 

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment: Chapter One

I don't often bring my theology straightforwardly to my blog, but I'm reading this amazing work by Jeremiah Burroughs from 1648, and I thought it would be helpful for me to consolidate my notes from my journal to my blog. If it is of benefit to anyone else, I am thankful. I know many in the children's lit industry are not of this persuasion, so maybe you will pass this by. And that is okay.

Contentment is a blessed thing, and I seek it. So here is Chapter 1, largely in the paraphrased words of Burroughs.

"I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. Philippians 4:11

Contentment is a great art, a spiritual mystery, and it is to be learned. In a sense, it is only attributed to God who shares it in Christ according to each person's measure. It is to be able to say: I have a right to the covenant and an interest in Christ, therefore I am content.

Definition:
Contentment is the sweet, inward, quiet, gracious, frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wise disposal in every condition. 

Note:
1. You will still sense affliction.
2. You may in a submissive way complain to God.
3. You may grieve.
4. You may communicate the sad condition to your friends.
5. You may use lawful means to seek relief from the circumstances.
6. You will still exhibit quick and lively service to God
7. You will be active in sanctifying God's name in the affliction,
8. You will readily come to peace.
9. You will willingly, and freely submit, knowing the affliction is good because the hand of God is good.
10. You will look up to God, not at the means of the affliction.
11. You will submit no matter the affliction, no matter how long it lasts, or how many instances arrive.

Contentment is not:
1. a murmuring and repining
2. a vexing and fretting
3. a tumultuous spirit which can't think, act, or complete duties
4. a consuming distraction from Christ
5. a sinking discouragement
6. a welcoming of sinful shirks and shifts to find relief
7. a natural quietness of personality
8. a sturdy resolution
9. a natural reasoning

Contentment is to be satisfied in your judgment, the will submitting, and the thoughts and affections in order. It is a good mood, a constant temper of quietness. It is to be able to say: "Through God's mercy, mine is a good condition, despite being grievous and sore."

"Godliness creates an even disposition." Tom Lyon