Column by Sumter Pastor Joey Durham: Find contentment in life with Jesus

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Today's devotion asks this question, "Are you content with your life?" My text is found in Ecclesiastes 6:7, where we see these words from Solomon's pen, "All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled." (KJV)

Is there real contentment in your life? Not everyone can truthfully say that there is. Many seek fulfillment and contentment, but it always seems to elude them. No matter the places they go, no matter how much money they make, no matter how many pleasurable activities they experience and no matter how much power and prestige they attain, they are still afflicted with an emptiness and void that stares them in the face day after day.

As a result, they move from job to job, they sadly leave one husband or wife for another and break the sacred family bond. They seek pleasure in the entertainment of this wicked world and turn themselves over to alcohol or drugs to ease the pain in their soul because they know they don't have real contentment in their heart, their home or their life.

In our text verse, Solomon reveals the condition of the life that is trapped in the endless cycle of discontentment. In other words, all that mankind works for is to feed his mouth, but his appetite is never really satisfied. Solomon is revealing the discontentment of a person who is living their life without God's fulfillment in it. When a person learns to place more importance on the condition of their soul rather than for their body, then they will be able to comprehend the wisdom that real contentment in Jesus Christ can bring to their heart and life. Moses realized this when he was the prince of Egypt.

He truly had everything that Egypt's pleasurable world could offer him at his fingertips, and yet we read in Hebrews 11:25-26 that he made this choice, "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward." (KJV)

You see, Moses found out that the pleasures of this world cannot provide contentment, so he chose the peace and joy and satisfaction that is found in having a personal relationship with the God of Heaven. The truth is, only Jesus can satisfy the longing for contentment in your soul and your life.

Joey Durham is pastor at Open Bible Baptist Church at 180 Old Manning Road in Sumter. You can contact Pastor Durham at durham.joey@yahoo.com or call the church office at (803) 481-9315.