Complaining Or Loving

Philippians 4:19: But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

God has promised to meet all of our needs. So what do we have to complain about? When we complain, we are doubting His promise to meet ALL of our needs. Because He meets all of our needs, we are to meet the needs of others. Because we don*t have to worry about having our own needs met, we can concern ourselves with the needs of others. Complainers are too concerned with self and not concerned enough with others.

Too often when we complain, we complain about something that God has permitted into our lives for some purpose of His. When we complain, we are ignorantly complaining about God Himself, or we are complaining about His methods or we are complaining about His purposes. There is nothing that comes into our lives that He has not permitted. Therefore we should speak to Him about everything we want to complain about before we complain about it. We should ask Him what it is He wants to accomplish in our person and our lives that could only be accomplished by giving us the thing that we don*t want. Some of the things that we complain about can be changed and some cannot. When something we don*t want has been put into our lives by some unkind and unloving person, we should first speak to the Lord about it. He may want that thing to be in our life temporarily or permanently or He may want us to speak in a loving way to the unkind person about it.

Ephesians 5:20: Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

Complaining is NOT giving thanks. Sometimes our prayers are more like complaints than prayers.

Romans 8:28: And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

There are four things that are true of the most thankful people among us. They love God. They are called to do His will. They are doing His will. And they are loving others. They are the ones for whom He is working all things for good. If they love God, many things work for their good. If they love God and are called to do His will, more things work together for their good. If they love God, are called to do His will and are doing His will, ALL things work together for good to them.

Whenever I am in the presence of complainers, something I have not been able to define has bothered me. It bothers me just as much as hearing others using The Lord*s name in vain. I believe that I can define it now. They are complaining about the God that I want to praise. They are not loving Him and they are not loving others.

Care to discuss Complaining Or Loving with Ron?

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