Today’s Message: Are You Serving God With Sadness and Murmuring?

SERVING GOD WITH MURMURING AND SADNESS HAS COSTLY CONSEQUENCES

Meditation:

“Also that day they offered great sacrifices, and rejoiced: for God had made them rejoice with great joy: the wives also and the children rejoiced: so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off.” (Nehemiah 12:43)

Today’s text: Nehemiah 12:30-47:

We fail to appreciate God for things done but allow the devil to remind us of things not yet done. Learn to be grateful to God in all things.

Be joyful and thankful for His mercies while yet looking forward to new ones. In the text above, Nehemiah and the children of Israel had just completed repairs on the gates and walls of Jerusalem and were rejoicing for God’s enablement.

Can you rejoice that God has enabled you to complete the work of the kingdom?

When the Israelites miraculously passed on dry land across the Red Sea, their excitement and happiness towards God knew no bounds. That was their deliverance and salvation.

They feared the Lord exceedingly, believed Him and sang praises unto Him saying, “I will sing unto the LORD, for he hath triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea.

The LORD is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father’s God, and I will exalt him. The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name. Pharaoh’s chariots and his host hath he cast into the sea: his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red sea.” (Exodus 15:1-4)

When last did you sing unto the Lord with joy and gratitude for good deeds received? Are you excited in church when miracles happen? Or is it always sadness and murmuring that engulfs your heart?

Right through the scriptures, the people indulged in unrestrained joy anytime God touched their lives in a spectacular way. Jehoshaphat and Judah in 2 Chronicles danced, ate and gave glory to God when He delivered them from a joint coalition of Mount Seir, Ammon and Moab.

Nehemiah and the children of Israel offered sacrifices and rejoiced at the dedication of the walls and gates of Jerusalem which God had enabled them to complete in spite of all odds.

Serve God with joy, take away bitterness of heart, stop all these murmurings and cold face. When worried and devoid of sleep, just recall and count your numerous blessings, name them one after the other and you cannot but be glad to be a servant of a great God.

Prayers:

2. In place of sadness, ask God for a cheerful countenance

Confession:  Lord, from today onwards, I will serve you faithfully with joy and a heart of thanksgiving.

Further study:

Philippians 2:14:

“Do all things without murmurings and disputings.”

Proverbs 15:13:

“A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”

Proverbs 15:15:

“All the days of the afflicted are evil: but he that is of a merry heart hath a continual feast.”

1 Corinthians 10:10:

“Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.”

Source: Introspect