The Subtleties of Complaining (III) : Complaining When You're Commenting

ISSUE: ‘I’m just making casual conversation!’

‘nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.’  I Corinthians 10:10

RESEARCH AND STUDY

Do you realize how often people complain in casual conversation? Remember, complaining means to protest, whine, find fault, nitpick, nag, object, and criticize.  But you can be engaging in small talk and someone will comment about how hot it is.   Ask someone how they’re doing and you’ll get a litany of ailments.  Compliment someone and they’ll tell you how inexpensive the item you just complimented really is.  Let’s not even bring up President Obama and the economy.  The common denominator in each example – complaining.   You may not have intentionally set out to complain, but by your casual conversation you ended up there. 

Or let’s use another example of commenting when you’re actually complaining. Say for instance a man is unattractive. The object of his affection commented to her friends he was so ugly that he looked like a backyard frog.  What she said – was it a complaint or a comment?  If you answered both, you’re correct.  We learned in our last issue that another definition of complaining means to curse and when you curse you are saying something bad about someone. So you see her comment while having a casual conversation with her friends was actually a complaint. 

Others complain or speak bad about people or situations because they feel that by doing so they’re telling it like it is. True, but that doesn’t make it right or that you were suppose to tell anything at all. God once told me to keep my penetrating observations to myself.  Remember when our parents told us that ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ – that’s sound advice. 

Once again, 1 Corinthians 10:10 says, ‘…some of them complained and were destroyed by the destroyer.’  Remember, destroy means to lose.  So let me ask you a question.  If you knew that every comment, fly remark, or witty repertoire you took part in would result in you actually losing something, would you say it?  Yeah, you might but know your verbal assaults will cost you something.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Listen to yourself, I mean really listen.  Pay attention to how much of your day is spent casually commenting.   Ask yourself, ‘will these conversations cause me to lose something?’  If so, ask God to forgive you and ask Him for grace for your casual conversations. 

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

Enlist your relatives, friends, and co-workers.  Take up a collection every time one of you complains.  The person with the fewest occurrences wins!

RESOURCES

https://ww2.micahtek.com/nexolive/nShop_Detail.cfm?zItem=527&CFID=31573023&CFTOKEN=61596017

Complaining (II) : Is Arguing the Same as Complaining?

ISSUE: ‘I like to argue.’

‘nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.’  I Corinthians 10:10

RESEARCH AND STUDY

There are several components to complaining; one of which is arguing.  According to Wikipedia, when you argue you are trying ‘to persuade someone, by giving reason or evidence for accepting a particular conclusion.’  Simply put, you have opinions or ideas in which you see as right and you want to persuade other people to do or think the same way you do.  If however, those people don’t share those same opinions or ideas, you become combative.  So much so that you’ll raise your voice, work your neck, use hand gestures, throw objects, or become verbally or physically abusive.

You might ask, what does arguing have to do with complaining?  Well, complain means ‘to protest, whine, find fault, nitpick, nag, object, and criticize’ to name a few.  So when you argue, aren’t you usually protesting, nagging, or objecting to what they said, did, or were intending to do?  Weren’t you trying to loudly persuade them?  Thus by default and quite subtly, arguing is a component of complaining.

But remember I Corinthians 10:10 says that when ‘some of them complained’, the destroyer destroyed.  Destroy means to lose – so when you complain, you’ll lose and when you argue, you’ll lose.  But what?  The grace needed to persuade in that situation. 

I know there’ll be times when you’ll be tempted to argue.  I mean you can’t let them talk to you like that.  But at the end of the day, what’s more important; that you won the argument or that you lost God’s grace?

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Pay attention to the situations, people, or things that cause you to complain or argue. Write them down if you need to.  See if you notice a pattern.  If so, pray and ask God how to handle those situations. 

Complaining

ISSUE: What’s wrong with complaining?

‘nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer.’  I Corinthians 10:10

RESEARCH AND STUDY

According to scripture, when ‘some of them complained’, they ‘were destroyed by the destroyer.’ Destroy means ‘to perish’ or ‘lose’.  Thus when you complain, ‘loss’ will occur. But what will you lose?  The grace needed to overcome in that situation.

Why?  Because when you complain you are speaking the destroyer’s language and thus invoking his ability to work in your life.  What you complain about will begin to work against you because you are now directing his words toward that object, person, or situation and not God’s word.  And without God’s word, there will be no grace available to ensure victory over whatever or whomever brought about the situation in the first place.

Whenever there’s an opportunity to complain, ask God for grace not to.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Ask God to begin to reveal to you the subtleties of complaining.  Ask Him to bring it to your attention every time you complain and then pray for grace.

Economic Revelations (III): U.S. Social Security Act enTITLEment 4

ISSUE: ‘I’m on food stamps and section 8. So what?’

RESEARCH AND STUDY

Again while reading the text for my Macro Economics course, the author states that those with higher incomes essentially pay for welfare, social security, and Medicare benefits. After reading that I began to think that I have to become wealthy so that I can help my nation!

The epiphany that my having been poor accounted for the federal government having to increase their spending, in order to provide services for lower-income individuals, such as myself was sobering.  At the time, I needed the service of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families; but eventually, that need for assistance gave me a sense of entitlement.  But that’s what poverty does.  Because someone, other than myself, was taking care of my needs, I became accustomed to their provision.  I began to think they were required to give me assistance and meet my needs.

In a distorted way, poverty provoked that sense of entitlement.  I thought that because I qualified for programs that gave me certain benefits, that I was entitled to assistance.  I then began to live my life in entitlement mode.  I believed it was the governments’ responsibility to ensure I received Supplemental Nutritional Assistance and to provide me with Public Housing.  In some convoluted way, poor people believe that the government has ‘all this money’ and that it is only right for them to help.  When in actuality that within itself is an oxymoron; because if one were educated enough on the current state of our nations economic status, they would know that our government, with its $98.5 billion dollar deficit, actually has no money at all.  But oftentimes, entitlement and ignorance go hand-in-hand. 

Hosea 4:6 says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.’ The word ‘destroyed’ in the Greek means ignorant or unwittingly unaware.  Those of us, who’ve lived on government assistance, have done so ignorantly.  Not ignorant as far as being unknowledgeable of employment and educational opportunities, but ignorantly unaware of what the Bible says about prosperity.  But why have those of us who are born-again, tongue talking, believers of the Lord Jesus Christ lived below the national poverty level and continued to depend on the government?  The Bible provides that answer explicitly.  Hosea 4:6 says, ‘Because [we] rejected knowledge.’  At some point in all of our poverty-stricken lives, God tried to give us knowledge of His ability to provide for us, but we either willfully ignored this knowledge or just downright refused to believe He was able.  Philippians 4:19 says ‘…my God shall supply all [my] needs according to His riches…’ not according to wealthy Americans.

My becoming prosperous, having the ability to ‘be self-sufficient [possessing enough to require no aid or support and furnished in abundance for every good work and charitable donation]’(2 Corinthians 9:8, Amplified Version) isn’t just for ‘me and mine’, but also for my country.  Prosperity would enable me to provide a service to my nation.  Just as our nations military and law enforcement provide a service of protection, my ability to be in a higher income bracket will give me the opportunity to assist those, who like my former self, have lived far below the national poverty level.  It’ll enable me to help my ignorant brethren, through my tithes and offerings, get the knowledge I no longer reject.  Won’t you join me? 

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

Ask God to forgive you for rejecting His knowledge.  Ask Him to reveal to you other areas of your life where you have felt entitled.  Repent and no longer hold anyone responsible for meeting your needs other than God.  Be sure to continue to feed your spirit on Biblical Prosperity.

If you are financially stable, ask God to reveal areas in which you have become overly independent on your finances.  Sow your experiences and provide opportunities to learn from your experiences to those you personally know are economically challenged. 

PRACTICAL APPLICATION

If someone you know has been unemployed or lived on section 8, food stamps, and government assistance for years, get this teaching to them.  Print a copy and take it to them or forward them this email.  Be sure to take them this entire ECONOMIC REVELATIONS series but also the OBEDIENCE series as well.  You may not need it but you know someone who does.

RESOURCES

http://flcbranson.org/listseries.php?archive_index=ProsperityProven.txt&seriestitle=1601+-+Prosperity+Proven

Economic Revelations (Part II): Soul Prosperity

RESEARCH AND STUDY

As I previously stated, how would I, as a 41-year-old, unemployed African-American woman and part time student who has lived well below the national poverty level for the last seven (7) years get in the game?  I seek God first.  Well for the last year, the Spirit of the Lord had impressed me to study prosperity.  I thought I already knew all I needed to know about it. I mean I knew God wanted me to prosper and I knew I didn’t have the money to be prosperous; so anytime I felt as if the Lord wanted me to actually study the subject of prosperity, I wouldn’t because I thought I already knew. 

But because I have not held a full-time job in over five years (really since 2002), I finally became convinced that something was wrong. (That’s another issue!) It wasn’t until I was sleeping in my niece’s bedroom with my 21-year-old son, at my stepmothers home that I knew - I mean really knew that something was wrong; but what?  I hadn’t been obedient.  I mean I was busy doing the works of trying to get prosperity; sending out thousands of resumes, completing hundreds of applications, going on numerous interviews, starting small businesses, going back to school to get my degree, and lest I forget I was a faithful tither and gave offerings when I really had nothing to give.  But I had failed to obey and do what I had been told to do; which was actually study prosperity.

So on Thursday, September 15^th, 2011, I wrote this in my journal:

‘I haven’t been able to prosper – get out of this situation because MY SOUL was not prosperous.  I had not been feeding my soul on PROSPERITY so I’ve been weak in this area.’

At that time I had begun to study Bro. Keith Moore’s teaching on ‘Prosperity Proven.’  In it, through the scriptures, he establishes and proves prosperity is the will of God and walks you through how God prospered the patriarchs.  After hearing his teaching, I then realized I had been living well-below the national poverty level because I had not prospered in my soul.  Though I heard other preachers preach out of their prosperous soul about it and listened to secular teachers teach from their prosperous souls how to be rich, I hadn’t prospered in my own.   

I encourage you to do the same but let me preface this by reminding you that before I started studying prosperity, I realized I had been disobedient.  Therefore, I had to study obedience to the point that I actually became obedient. (Hebrews 5:8) From there, I transitioned into prosperity.  Don’t jump the gun and study prosperity while you’re in disobedience.  Go back and re-read my issues on Obedience.  Then come back here when you’re ready to become prosperous. (Dt. 28)

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

If someone you know has been unemployed or lived on section 8, food stamps, and government assistance for years, get this teaching to them.  Print a copy and take it to them or forward them this email.  Be sure to take them this entire ECONOMIC REVELATIONS series but also the OBEDIENCE series as well.  You may not need it but you know someone who does.

RESOURCES

http://flcbranson.org/listseries.php?archive_index=ProsperityProven.txt&seriestitle=1601+-+Prosperity+Proven