While we’re serving God it is embarrassingly easy to slip out of our place of ministry and into a place of grumbling. And we’re not alone.
Martha had prepared for a houseful. She’d worked long and hard to make Jesus and His disciples feel welcome in her home – and it was obvious she was the only one who would lift a finger to do it! Mary sat at Jesus feet, the nerve! While Martha slaved in the kitchen!
Immediately after making amends with Jesus (after Peter denied Him three times), he asks Jesus what is going to happen with John. Jesus tells him to focus on his own tasks and not worry about what He did in John’s life.
In Matthew 20 Jesus relates the parable of two sets of workers. One worked hard and long from the dawn of that day. The other was procured right before the work was over and only put in one hour’s worth of labor. Yet both were paid the same wage. The first set of laborers complained and grumbled against the master. He replied by asking them if they were envious simply because he had been generous.
Jesus’ followers also grumbled at His teaching:
Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble? As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore. So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God. John 6:60-62, 66-69 NAS
It’s easy to grumble. But NOT grumbling is crucial to our testimony.
Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world… Philippians 2:14-15 NAS
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