A TWELVE POINT CURE FOR COMPLAINING...how to not let circumstances and attitudes rob you of your joy, contentment, and hope

by Bill Izard
Complaining is unbecoming of the true Christian and yet we are proficient at it. The cure is found in these verses. In Christ we are never hopeless or forsaken. Every trial has meaning. Meditate on this cure in order to change both your language and your heart.

1. GOD COMMANDS ME NEVER TO COMPLAIN.
Do all things without complaining and disputing. Philippians 2:14(NAS)

2. GOD COMMANDS ME TO GIVE THANKS IN EVERY CIRCUMSTANCE.
In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

3. GOD COMMANDS ME TO REJOICE ALWAYS, AND ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF TRIAL.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Phil. 4:4; Rejoice always. 1 Thessalonians 5:16; Count it all joy when you fall into various trials. James 1:2

4. I ALWAYS DESERVE MUCH WORSE THAN WHAT I AM SUFFERING NOW¾IN FACT, I DESERVE HELL.
Why should any living mortal, or any man, offer complaint in view of his sins? Lamentations 3:39 Do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, no; but unless you repent you will all likewise perish. Luke 13:2-3

5. IN LIGHT OF THE ETERNAL HAPPINESS AND GLORY THAT I WILL EXPERIENCE IN HEAVEN, THIS PRESENT TRIAL IS EXTREMELY BRIEF AND INSIGNIFICANT, EVEN IF IT WERE TO LAST A LIFETIME.
The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. Rom. 8:18; For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 2 Corinthians 4:19

6. MY SUFFERING IS FAR LESS THAN THAT WHICH CHRIST SUFFERED, AND HE DID NOT COMPLAIN.
Who when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when he suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. 1 Peter 2:23

7. TO COMPLAIN IS TO SAY GOD IS NOT JUST.
Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right? Genesis 18:25

8. FAITH AND PRAYER EXCLUDE COMPLAINING.
I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered from all my fears. Psalm 34:4

9. THIS DIFFICULTY IS BEING USED BY GOD FOR MY GOOD AND IT IS FOOLISH FOR ME TO COMPLAIN AGAINST IT.
And we know that all things work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

10. THOSE MORE FAITHFUL THAN I HAVE SUFFERED FAR WORSE THAN I, AND DID SO WITHOUT COMPLAINT.
…and others were tortured, not accepting their release, in order that they might obtain a better resurrection; and others experienced mockings and scourgings, yes, also chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground. All these, having gained approval through their faith… Hebrews 11:35-39

11. COMPLAINING DENIES THAT GOD'S GRACE IS ENTIRELY SUFFICIENT.
My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9

12. THE GREATEST SUFFERING, THE WORST TRIAL OR DIFFICULTY, CAN NEVER ROB ME OF THAT WHICH IS OF GREATEST VALUE TO ME AND MY GREATEST JOY, NAMELY THE LOVE OF CHRIST.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered." But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35-39

Copyright © 2001 Bill Izard

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JONATHAN EDWARDS: RESOLVED TO GRACE...enjoying the beauty and sweetness of Christ

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,
training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions,
and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
-Titus 2:11-12

Jonathan Edwards kept a diary where he “rigorously” evaluated his progress and later came to say regarding this rigor “as involving ‘too great a dependence on my own strength; which afterwards proved a great damage to me.’” (see his 70 Resolutions)

A new friend in ministry (who wrote his dissertation on Edwards) shared this helpful insight:

Written within 1-2 years of his conversion, Edwards’ resolutions were more reflective of his admitted immaturity and youthful zeal than of his later reflections of the nature of the Christian life. For the mature Edwards, the steadfast life of faith is built upon a love of the beauty of God’s perfections as most prominently displayed in the person and redemptive work of Christ. As we grow in such love and knowledge, so we are increasingly conformed to the image of Christ, and in a love reflected in faithfulness to Him in thought and deed. The later reflections of Edwards are a far cry from the slavish and often painful attempts of Edwards at sanctification by resolution. We do well to learn from his lessons, and not to imitate what he himself came to view as problematic.

How refreshing to see a man of Edwards' stature, learning, and influence come to a place of real resolve by relinquishing the vain pursuit of his own moorings to that which is grace-based upon the Word of God and the Spirit of God alone. "Having begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?" May Edwards' following words of humility encourage us all to "be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."

"My longings after it, put me upon pursuing and pressing after them. It was my continual strife day and night, and constant inquiry, how I should be more holy, and live more holily, and more becoming a child of God, and disciple of Christ. I sought an increase of grace and holiness, and that I might live an holy life, with vastly more earnestness, than ever I sought grace, before I had it. I used to be continually examining myself, and studying and contriving for likely ways and means, how I should live holily, with far greater diligence and earnestness, than ever I pursued anything in my life: but with too great a dependence on my own strength; which afterwards proved a great damage to me. My experience had not then taught me, as it has done since, my extreme feebleness and impotence, every manner of way; and the innumerable and bottomless depths of secret corruption and deceit, that there was in my heart."

Source of Edwards quote: (Marsden, Jonathan Edwards, 53). The quote is from his “Personal Narrative” in the Yale Works, 16:797.

THE AMERICANS WHO RISKED EVERYTHING...the cost of freedom was considered by them to be "sacred honor"

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world:
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.

We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. —

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. — John Hancock

New Hampshire: 
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: 
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
 Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut: 
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:
 William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
 Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania: 
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:
 Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:
 Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:
 George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:
 William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: 
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: 
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

this has been an encore presentation

HAVE YOU HAD ENOUGH AMERICA?...the citizenery finally speaks out

Over 1,000 cities across the fruited plains held anti-tax and spend protest rallies today. They are called T.E.A. Parties - Taxed Enough Already. 

What do you think? Are we over taxed? Have politicians forgot about balancing their own government checkbooks before asking more from ours? Is printing billions of dollars the solution to the economic crisis? Should banks, automakers, big business get TARP funds and bailout monies while average American individuals are losing their jobs at the rate of over 650,000 per month?

As one TP attendee so aptly painted on his sign today: "I'll keep my freedom; you keep the change!" One little girl at the Franklin rally that I attended had a great poster she made with a very clever slogan. It said, "Your pork has broke my piggy bank."

Priceless!

This is an historic day beloved; a real sea-change has occurred in American politics. The citizenery are returning to the fundamental constitutional belief that government should be "by the people, of the people, and for the people." What is impactful about these TP rallies is they are bi-partisan events. A broad base of Americans (Democrats, Republicans, and Independents) alike have had enough and are letting the good elected folk in Washington know their unfettered and unfiltered thoughts.

So don't miss out! Try and get to a TEA Party near you today...

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY: THE COST OF FREEDOM...the sacred honor of patriots

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” -Winston Churchill

Freedom is a precious commodity. It is paid for with the blood of patriots and bathed in the tears of their families. On this day, may we take a moment to thank the Lord for the great freedoms He has bestowed upon us in our nation and for those who have given their lives so that we may have it. We honor those brave men and women today.

If you haven't read The Declaration of Independence or The U.S. Constitution in a while, may I encourage you to do so today. They are unprecedented, in all of human history, on the principled and circumspect foundations of a free democratic-republic. They continue as the political plumbline and rule of law for a free society for all Americans. Also, you may also want to visit This Day in History - a very informative site that has a fathomless well of interesting facts about events on a myriad of subjects in history. I am sure you will enjoy this greatly and it is great for the kids too.

As Christians, may we use that freedom for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ; the furtherance of His gospel; and the joy of fellowship there is in His church with others who have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

Happy Independence Day from all of us at COT and A1M
Steve
1 Tim. 2:1-3, 1 Peter 2:13-17, Romans 13:1-7

REMEMBERING THOSE WHO HAVE SACRIFICED ALL FOR OUR FREEDOM

Here are some great links to a few articles that will inspire, humble and encourage you in giving thanks to the One Triune God for the brave men and women who have fought fearlessly and selflessly in defending our nation and freedoms that we enjoy each day.

Celebrate their courage and loyalty today.

Al Mohler

Rush Limbaugh

Jackie Gingrich Cushman

One Nation Under God,
Steve
Romans 13