Dr. Rick Mandl - August 21, 2020
Spiritual Amnesia
Spiritual Amnesia
Friday, August 21, 2020
Hey church family. Are you a complainer? Are you a person, who will at times grumble and fuss? Do you have a bad attitude?
We might not want to admit it, but questions like these can hit pretty close to home for many of us. They are a lot of complainers found in that pages of scripture. Cain, complained that his punishment for killing his brother was too severe. Miriam and Aaron, the sister and brother of Moses, complained because they thought God was showing favoritism. After the Children of Israel, were freed from their slavery and miraculously delivered out of Egypt they spent the next forty years, complaining about everything under the sun.
You look at their story and you wonder how they could complain. The God of the universe had just brought the most powerful man on the face of the earth, to his knees. God didn’t just humble Pharaoh; he broke his spirit and revealed Pharaoh’s impotence. A slave people, and their God, left Pharaoh and his nation in shambles. This display of power, sent vibrations throughout the entire world, inspiring fear and awe. And yet Israel’s response to this spectacular deliverance from Egypt, was not mainly praise, worship, and wholehearted trust. Instead, Israel responds with grumbling — complaining, murmuring and quarreling. What was their problem?
Their problem was Spiritual Amnesia – their problem was forgetting God’s deliverance and provision — And it is a deadly disease. The people of Israel, on the heels of unthinkable miracles, with their pockets full of Egyptian jewelry, begin to grumble because life in the desert wasn’t as easy as they thought it should be. What we need to realize is that grumbling, whining, and thanklessness, are not ultimately out heart’s responses to circumstances, but rather our heart’s response to God. Israel grumbled at their enslavement, grumbled when Moses came on the scene, and still grumbled as they wandered safely in the wilderness. Their complaining wasn’t rooted in their scenery, but in their heart.
A lot of us have a really hard time letting God be God. We expect God to do our will, and whenever He doesn’t do it our way, or in our timing – we complain. Whether it’s grumbling under my breath or an outright confrontation, where I shake my fist at him. I have complained against God and so have many of you. However, God’s Word teaches us that this is sin.
Consider what Paul writes in Romans 9. “‘Who are you, a mere human being, to argue with God? Should the thing that was created say to the one who created it, “Why have you made me like this?”‘ (Rom 9:20 NLT) There may be nothing that demonstrates our faith in God more clearly, than resisting the temptation to complain. If I really believe that God is God, and that He knows everything and can do anything, than I need to be praying more than I need to be complaining. If complaining is something that you sometimes struggle with, I encourage you to join us this weekend as we continue our new series called “Stay Positive” and look together at “The Cure For Complaining.” I’m hoping that this will help us to take Paul’s words to heart and... ‘Do everything without complaining and arguing.’
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