
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO VERSION: https://youtu.be/UxxSfhKmRaw
Hello My Friends,
I want to talk to you today about how important it is to not be a complainer. The word complain is defined to express dissatisfaction or annoyance about something, grumble, find fault with someone or something, criticize.
Since God has given us what we have, if we complain we are saying God what you have done for me is not enough. Let that sink in for a moment. We are telling God that everything you have done for me is not good enough. He created life. He created us. He came and died to repair the damage that a man done to the world God created. We are saying that the work of the cross is not even enough.
I often speak about our words and how they have power. I am passionate about this subject because I know firsthand how complaining and looking at everything negatively can destroy a person. When I was suffering with depression, I made it worse by focusing on the negative. It made the hole I was in even deeper, darker and more hopeless by complaining and speaking negativity.
The things we focus on, we magnify in our life. If we focus on God, his place in our life becomes bigger. IF we focus on negativity and wrong it will become bigger in our lives. Complaining is making God smaller and magnifying the enemy. I recently had a friend tell me they heard a minister say, “Complaining is worship to the enemy.” I think this is true, because you definitely are not magnifying the Lord with complaining lips. It is not edifying to anyone.
We go to God in prayer for something. The act of prayer plants a faith seed about a situation. Then we complain about the situation we have asked God to fix. What is that complaint doing to the faith? It is killing the faith seed.
When we speak faith about the situation, even when it doesn’t look like it is going our way, God honors our faith. That faith seed grows into a faith tree.
Phil 2:13-15
13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings: 15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;
Paul tells the church at Phillipi to do all thing without murmuring and disputings, which means complaining, so that they stay free of blame. That they can be without rebuke which means that God will show his disapproval if we complain. He actually punished Children of Israel for complaining and speaking words of murmuring and negativity.
Numbers 14:26–30 And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, 27 How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. 28 Say unto them, As truly as I live, saith the Lord, as ye have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: 29 Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward which have murmured against me. 30 Doubtless ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun.
Several times the Children of Israel complained against God. They accused him of bringing them into the wilderness to die. That was like saying God had evil intentions. When he set them free, he wanted them to have an abundant life in the promised land. But their constant negativity ended up being their destruction.
God finally realized that they were not ever going to trust him fully and quit complaining. He set them to wandering around and around in circles until all of those that came out of Egypt from twenty years old and older died in the wilderness. Except Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb had faith and trusted God at his word. They are the only two out of the twelve spies that went to spy out the promised land.
They didn’t go to see that it was good. It was everything that God said it would be, they were sent to check out the stronghold of the inhabitants there and to make a strategy to take the land. But the other ten allowed their fear to override their faith. Then they spoke out that fear and negativity. God allowed their words to define their destiny.
God let their words define their destiny. Many had complained that he brought them out of Egypt to die in the wilderness. So that is what happened to them. They never received what God had for them because of complaints.
Think today about the words you say. Are they complaints? Are they words of faith? I pray they are words of faith. Faith can move mountains. Complaining keeps you going around the same mountain as you wander in the desert.
Tune in tomorrow for part two of this subject.
Until next time, BE BOLD, BE BRAVE AND KEEP YOUR GOD FOCUS
