Focus on fighting the good fight of faith by eliminating the noise that keeps you mired in discontent.
Read / Listen to the chapter:
Read the chapter in an outlined format
1 Timothy 6 Summary
The final chapter in Paul's first letter to Pastor Timothy is nicely summarized in v6:
godliness with contentment is great gain...
In other words, being content with what you have materially allows you to focus on building yourself up spiritually instead of chasing the wind as it was described as we read Ecclesiastes a few weeks ago.
This godly contentment allows you to:
Honor your employer (v1-2)
Detect those peddling different doctrine (v3-5)
Protects you from wandering away from the faith as you crave the love of money (v10)
Paul uses aggressive language as he commands Timothy (and us) to have this sort of contentment, telling us to flee things that seek to drag you back into the trap of constantly wanting more. If Paul's advice to Pastor Timothy is to flee rather than to stay in tempting situations until he builds up the internal fortitude to resist them, how much more do people like us need to flee the things that tempt us!
Dig Deeper
You're constantly bombarded by noise, and most of it is unhealthy and distracting. How many times a day do you check the news or social media feed that ends up getting you riled up and angry?
The instruction that Paul gave Pastor Timothy two millennia ago seems even more relevant for us today:
Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge...” (v20)
How much irreverent babble and contradictions of knowledge are you scrolling through and streaming into your life each day? Is all of this noise making you more or less content?
Shut it off.
Instead, spend that time you were mindlessly scrolling guarding the deposit trusted to you (v20) as you pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness (v11).
AAA Prayer:
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Father God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see (v15-16)
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray for the strength needed to fight the good fight of the faith and to take hold of the eternal life to which you've been called (v12).
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
