Daily devotion – complaining
Phil 2: 12 Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. 13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
14 Do everything without complaining and arguing, 15 so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.
When I ask our grandchildren to do a task for us, they fulfil the request without hesitation or grumbling. Yet, I often have a different attitude when the shoe is on the other foot. I often need to come to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness and help so that I might not be a complainer or a murmurer.
I am fully aware of the seriousness of being one who complains and mutters when God seeks our obedience in living right before Him.
In the book of Hebrews, the children of Israel, after being set free from slavery, spent much of their 40-year wanderings whining and complaining to Moses about everything they could think of.
Hebrews 3:7 That is why the Holy Spirit says, “Today when you hear his voice, 8 don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled, when they tested me in the wilderness. 9 There your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. 10 So I was angry with them, and I said, ‘Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them.’
One who constantly complains or murmurs is a person who is dangerously heading towards being someone whose heart eventually hardens to the things of God. It is a serious sin that Paul tells us should not exist in our daily living. Such a wrong attitude also reveals that we are not grateful or understanding how much God has done and is doing in our lives.
This week, when a task comes your way, may we not be like the children of disobedience or hardness of heart. A life wandering in the wilderness will be the result continuing in such a lifestyle and mindset.
Let us serve the Lord and those to whom we can share the grace and love of God with the same beauty as did Christ when He, on the night of His betrayal, wrapped a towel around Himself, bent down and washed His disciples’ dirty feet.
You will want to spend time with a person who never grumbles or complains. May God help us be gracious and obedient in living before Him and others.