The Power of Christian Contentment: Finding Deeper, Richer Christ-Centered Joy

My Rating – Put it on your list

Level – Quick, Easy

Summary
The book is broken into four parts – The Secret of Contentment, How to Find Contentment, The Value of Contentment, and Keeping Content. Each section is contains two to four chapters, for a total of 12. The two chapters of part one, set out the foundation of the book. He refers to The Rare Jewel of  Christian Contentment, a collection of sermons by Puritan pastor Jeremiah Burroughs. In the second chapter, he points to Paul and all he suffered, and to the well known verses in Philippians 4, where Paul states that he has learned to be content in all situations. Davis refers back to The Rare Jewel and Paul’s writings throughout the rest of his book.

My Thoughts
I think overall this is a pretty good book. I’m always hesitant to recommend a book that seems to just expand on another book (other than the Bible). The cynical side of me would say skip this book read Rare Jewels instead, especially because you can find it for free online. That said it is written by a Puritan and (at least the copy I found) isn’t updated English. In addition, Burroughs could not have imagined the power, let alone prosperity Christians find themselves in today, so an update is needed.

The strength of the book, and probably worth the read on it’s own, is Chapter 10, Contentment in Prosperity. This is the main issue with the American Church today, and he has a good bit of stats and convicting challenges in this chapter. I’m not big into marking up my books, but I had to make notes on a few pages on this chapter.  I think he makes an important call to Christians. Usually, the call to contentment is in a time of less, but he points out the ‘abundance’ we currently have, and yet we are still not content (on the whole), so we seem to be doing something wrong.

This chapter, along with the commentary on a Paul and the distillation of the classic, Rare Jewels, this is a book to put on your list. If you are specifically interested/concerned with contentment, this is probably (outside of Paul) you best bet to get started. Davis is a strong writer that goes deep, but keeps it accessible to a wider audience.

* I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review