Don’t Grumble

Woman praying

Philippians 2:14-15
14 Do everything without grumbling and arguing, 15 so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world.
HCSB


There are a lot of people that seem to have plenty to grumble about, but what good does it do? Little if any at all. We all have issues, some of us could sell our life story to soap opera writers, I personally have grumbled more than my fair share, and I have had some decent reasons to grumble compared to many. Yet I have it better than a huge portion of the planet.  I used to live in Turkey, a country that touches both Asia and Europe, with Muslim roots. There were people there who did not have access to hot water for a bath, shortages that kept them from being able to use their gas stoves. They actually had a huge population of people who had to dig through garbage to find anything that they could sell or eat. Dirty diapers did not detour them from digging through American trash cans! And we grumble!

All grumbling does is multiply and share our misery! It sucks the energy right out of the room! I have known people who grumble so much that they could make your dream vacation seem like a cancer diagnosis! Dwelling on whatever is bothering them makes them feel worse, and it certainly won’t help you.

When non-Christians see us grumble it makes the Christian life seem miserable, why would  anyone want to be a Christian like you, if you are constantly grumbling?

Instead of grumbling try being grateful for what you do have,  praying, and asking your pastor and other church members for advice and prayer. Looking for solutions will bring more satisfaction than grumbling ever will, and will make you a better witness for Christ.


The link below is to my affiliate Amazon.com A purchase through this link will help support Smart Christian,net. I recommend this book to anyone struggling with depression or purpose.
kingdomtriangle

Kingdom Triangle: Recover the Christian Mind,
Renovate the Soul, Restore the Spirit’s Power

by J.P, Moreland

People pleasing

Life demands that we please certain people at least some of the time; our boss, our spouse, police officers… But trying to please everyone all the time is like drinking from a colander, you might get a few sips, but mostly you get all wet!  Jesus, however, notices every effort we make. Even if you don’t succeed in your efforts, if you are trying to please him, he will recognize that effort.
No, it isn’t selfish to say that you only want to please Jesus because if you are pleasing Jesus you will love your family, love the sick, the downtrodden, and even your enemies.  Some of those people will not appreciate your efforts, but if you are doing those things because you love Jesus there will always be one that is pleased by you.

 



The book below is sold by Amazon and a small percentage of the proceeds will help support this website.

kingdomtriangleKingdom Triangle
Our society is facing a terrible crisis.  Many people feel as if there is no meaning in life, and we have lost our moral code. JP Moreland explores how we can recover the Christian mind, renovate Christian spirituality, and cultivate the power of the Holy Spirit in ourselves and in the world today. 

Who is Jesus?

jesus-painting

We need Christ-the real Christ. A Christ born of empty speculation or created to squeeze into the philosopher’s pattern simply won’t do. A recycled Christ, a Christ of compromise, can redeem no one. A Christ watered down, stripped of power, debased of glory, reduced to a symbol, or made impotent by scholarly surgery is not Christ but Antichrist.

R. C. Sproul. Who Is Jesus? (Crucial Questions Series)

Do the simplest explanations, explain it away?

The seas are being parted
I recently saw a television show that talked about a rainstorm in Kansas City, Mo. That took place in the late 1800’s. This rainstorm for a brief time also included frogs falling from the sky. Way too many of them for them to have been nesting in the trees. It was such an unusual event that for years they thought the observers must have been mistaken. Later someone figured out that a waterspout could have been the explanation. A sort of water tornado picked up the frogs from a semi-local body of water and dropped them off as the waterspout was running out of energy. This explanation would have been fine for that event. They went one step further and said that the waterspout explained the plague of frogs, but would it?
The Biblical rain of frogs was not a surprise to Moses, God told Moses, and Moses told the Pharoh, and then Aaron was told to stretch out his staff over the local bodies of water before the plague of frogs came into being.  Then when the Pharoh told Moses to stop the frogs, Moses told him to wait till the next day. On the next day, all the frogs died, and everything stank.  The frogs in Kanas City left of their own free will. So the plague of frogs looked completely different than the surprise storm in Kansas City.
You have the other 9 plagues to consider, and how many of the plagues did not affect the Jews who wanted freedom from slavery.  If you want a natural explanation for the frogs in the Bible you have to explain away all ten plagues, and the reason why the Pharoh let the Jews go free.

When I was reading up on the ten plagues of the Bible, I remembered a story that I heard years ago.

A boy was sitting on a park bench with one hand resting on an open Bible. He was loudly exclaiming his praise to God. “Hallelujah! Hallelujah! God is great!” he yelled without worrying whether anyone heard him or not.

Shortly after, along came a man who had recently completed some studies at a local university. Feeling very enlightened in the ways of truth and very eager to show this enlightenment, he asked the boy about the source of his joy.

“Hey” asked the boy in return with a bright laugh, “Don’t you have any idea what God is able to do? I just read that God opened up the waves of the Red Sea and led the whole nation of Israel right through the middle.”

The enlightened man laughed lightly, sat down next to the boy and began to try to open his eyes to the “realities” of the miracles of the Bible. “That can all be very easily explained. Modern scholarship has shown that the Red Sea in that area was only 10-inches deep at that time. It was no problem for the Israelites to wade across.”

The boy was stumped. His eyes wandered from the man back to the Bible laying open in his lap. The man, content that he had enlightened a poor, naive young person to the finer points of scientific insight, turned to go. Scarcely had he taken two steps when the boy began to rejoice and praise louder than before. The man turned to ask the reason for this resumed jubilation.

“Wow!” exclaimed the boy happily, “God is greater than I thought! Not only did He lead the whole nation of Israel through the Red Sea, He topped it off by drowning the whole Egyptian army in 10 inches of water!”

You see context is important! You can explain away almost everything if you break it down into bits, but explaining away the whole narrative is extremely difficult, especially if the narrative is based on truth!

You may also be interested in reading Miracles, by C.S. Lewis