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Today I want to give you some practical strategies

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for practicing contentment. We know we should

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be content. We know discontent is a spiritual

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place and we don't want to be in it. We know

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it is an emotional place we want to live. So

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how do we stay content? The first tool is praise

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and thanksgiving. Praise and Thanksgiving are

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great tools for all spiritual problems and roadblocks.

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If you are going to be content, praise and Thanksgiving

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are your foundation. Start your day with praise

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and Thanksgiving. Do not open your eyes first

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thing in the morning. Praise the Lord. Psalms

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34 -1 says, I will bless the Lord at all times.

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His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

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My soul shall make her boast in the Lord the

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humble shall hear thereof and be glad Oh magnify

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the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together

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I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered

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me from all my fears Simply good morning Lord.

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Thank you for today. I give you praise because

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you are good Let me just digress for a minute.

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Sometimes we hear praise in Thanksgiving. It's

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one concept But praise is giving the Lord the

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glory and honor he is due because he is God.

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Great, holy, righteous, pure, all those good

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things. Thanksgiving is, I give you thanks because

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you have. And it's a good differentiation, but

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just a sidebar. Another tool is what you say.

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Philippians 2 14, do all things without murmuring

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and disputing. That means complaining and arguing.

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This is generally a good rule to follow for good

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interpersonal relations, but this rule also applies

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to self -talk. Our thoughts. What are we saying

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where no one can hear us? My husband tells the

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story of his first job out of college and how

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he had a horrible boss. His job was miserable.

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Truly, it was. He would come home and just be

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so glad to be away from work. Our pastor preached

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a message on changing the attitude and giving

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thanks to God in every situation. My husband

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took that to heart, and every day on the way

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to work, he would thank God for his job, his

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boss, his day. And that changed his attitude.

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It changed my husband. His situation was the

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same. But he had learned the lesson and shortly

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thereafter he was moved on to a new job. Side

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note, him and I have a theme. Learn the lesson

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and get out of the trial. So don't be hard -headed

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and stiff -necked. Learn the lesson. Don't wander

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around in the desert like the Israelites. If

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the Lord tells you what to do, do it. Get her

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done. Move on. Ephesians 5 19 says speaking to

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yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual

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songs Singing and making melody in your heart

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to the Lord Giving thanks always for all things

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unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord

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Jesus Christ What is your self -talk? What conversations

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are you having with yourself? Stop yourself a

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couple of times today and review what you've

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been thinking about in the last few minutes Is

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it building contentment or fueling discontentment?

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Hebrews 13 5 let your conversation be without

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covetousness and be content with such things

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as you have For he has said, I will never leave

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thee nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly

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say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear

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what man shall do to me. Once we've chosen to

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praise God for what we have, be thankful for

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what he has, and have the correct conversation

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with our words and with our thoughts, we need

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to analyze our diet. What are we consuming in

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our eyes and ears? I'm picking the word consume

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on purpose. What are we eating in our minds?

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Is it breeding discontent? Is it disguised as

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improving our lives? After we bought our first

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house, I was complaining about my lawn with...

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I'm sorry, I was comparing my lawn with my neighbor's

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lawn. We had just moved in, we had bought a foreclosure

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and the lawn, and I use that word loosely, was

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up to my knees when we moved in. It was full

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of weeds. I love being barefoot and I remember

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stepping on these cut -off weeds that were woody

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and they were really painful. I pulled those

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things out of the lawn for several years. Anyways,

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my neighbor was a gentleman in his 80s and one

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day I was watching him mow his lawn, his lovely

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lawn. It was so green, it was even, it didn't

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seem to have any bare spots. And I was mentioning

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to him how lovely his lawn was and lamenting

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my own. He said, I'm pretty sure your lawn and

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my lawn are about the same. I knew the saying,

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the grass is greener on the other side, but I

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was incredulous that he would even make that

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statement. He clearly had a much better lawn.

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I knew that I was a pretty practical person,

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I don't sugarcoat much, so I just downplayed

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the statement as him being nice. A while later,

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I had walked into his backyard and realized it

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was mostly moss. He had these lovely old oak

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trees that shaded out all the grass. It looked

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green and lush from my yard because it was green

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and lush, but it was filled with moss, not grass,

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like I was assuming. Talk about literally realizing

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the grass is not always greener on the other

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side. This is a good illustration of what we

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consume because so much of it is the angle of

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the camera or the editing We don't see or hear

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reality And I'm not going to say much on the

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topic because we all know that we spend what

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we spend our time on what we consume affects

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our thought process. We just lie to ourselves,

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make excuses about it, about why it's okay for

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us to consume things that breed discontentment.

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We call it home improvement. We call it what

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we do in our downtime. We call it educational.

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But if we are discontent, we need to seriously

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look at our diet. Last time we talked about 2nd

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Corinthians and how generosity affects us. Others

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and blesses God. Let me just reiterate. Generosity

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changes our focus from what we want to what we

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have to give. You just start looking at your

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resources and your abundance. As Americans, we

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have an abundance. We have a tendency to look

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toward people who have more. But when we look

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at people who have a need and start looking at

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how to help them, our focus is on giving instead

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of accumulating. If you notice that you are discontent,

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make a conscious effort to look for who around

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you needs something and start giving and blessing.

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Practical strategies for contentment. Praise

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and thanksgiving, what you consume, what you

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talk about, and giving generously. Hebrews 13

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to says be not forgetful to entertain strangers

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for there but some have entertained angels unaware

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Remember them that are in bonds as bound with

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them and then which suffer adversity as being

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yourselves also in the body