“Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world .” (Phil. 2:14-15)
Christians are some of the biggest cry babies on the planet. The degree of their whining and griping can, at times and in some, rival if not exceed that of the non-Christian. It is such a trap into which we can so easily fall and become ensnared into a habit of complaining and disputing that ends up betraying our profession of faith.
When the rod of discipline (Prov. 3:12; Heb. 12:6) strikes the so-called Christians cries the loudest, “What have I done to deserve this from God?”
I have been exercised in this very thing as of late and have had the profoundest conviction of my sinful complaining to God as though I should deserve something better from the hand of the Almighty. Let me ask you, dear Reader, that which I asked recently myself:
“Why should I complain of God's working in my life? Just what is it I think I deserve from the hand of God: all sunshine and never a storm cloud and a life where all the good guys wear white hates and the black hooded bad guys always lose the battle between good and evil?”
Sure, we are more than conquerors through Christ but read the entire text:
What exactly does, “...all these things...” refer to? Well, if you check the preceding verses, 1-36, you will find what this phrase “all these things” is speaking to:
As it is written:
“ For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us...” (Romans 8:35-37)
You cannot be a conqueror with out something over which to conqueror, right? This is talking about the trials and tribulations that God in His sovereignty ordains in our lives. If you never have the tribulations, distresses, persecutions, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, then you will never know what it is to be a conqueror. So, why gripe about it?
Think about how much of the carnal nature you still have in your life and you will soon come to realize just how much you need God's loving hand of discipline (the rod), harsh as it might feel, to draw the corruption out of you. Figure out just how much there is of the flesh there is left in you mixed with what sanctification you have and then can you really bellyache over the discipling hand of God that has come to rid you of it? Is the tribulation really too hard to bear when you need it so badly to make you more and more into the imagine of our Precious Lord Jesus Christ?
Look at it this way: Does not the fact of trials and tribulations in your life prove that there is much to do with regard to the Holy Spirit's sanctification in your life? Does not the degree of pain and agony in the problems you face indicate that there is much to purge from your sinful flesh to be conformed to the imagine of Christ? (See Romans 8:28-30) And the louder and louder you scream in despair in the trials of your life does this not prove just how much you lack submission to the will of God in your life?
The harder and louder you kick and scream against the trials of life the harder they will be and the longer you will have to endure them. The sooner you recognize and submit to the fact that it is God hand that has wrought the tribulations the quicker you will be able to endure them with the help of the Spirit of God. God corrects in love and in doing so has in His mind the goal to change you into a more holy creation. Stop resisting.
Hebrews 12:6 (New King James Version)
For whom the LORD loves He chastens,And scourges every son whom He receives.”
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