SHUT UP COMPLAINING ALREADY!

2 Corinthians 6:11  ¶Our mouth has spoken freely to you, O Corinthians, our heart is opened wide.
12  You are not restrained by us, but you are restrained in your own affections.

The Corinthian Church was a problem people in many ways.  They had some of the greatest apostle's travel through their region and some of the greatest teachers and yet they had problem after problem after problem and never seemed to get much right.  Paul summed it up here in 2 Corinthians, which was actually his third letter to them but one was lost, and told them...   IT IS YOUR FAULT!  

Today, be honest, most of you would be looking to start a committee to remove your pastor if they started talking to you like that.  If your church doesn't do the committee thing then you would start your own, murdering them with your mouth.  Truth is though...  It's OUR FAULT!  God has a problem with us and it isn't because of an issue on His end...  it is us restrained by our own affections.  

YOU KNOW GOD HAS A PROBLEM WITH YOU WHEN.....

1.  You never have time to pray, study, worship.  Yet you spend hours in front of a television getting better at Madden Football, watching favorite series or movies, Monday night football, or whatever else you use the thing for.

2.  You struggle getting to church regularly...  Yet it's easy to show up on time for the Thursday night bowling league (for the legalist that doesn't bowl and thinks this not applicable to them...insert various other things you show up regularly for).

3.  I have no money to give to others...  Yet you never seem to have a problem buying the latest electronic gadget that hits the market...  that 60" big screen HD television is a necessity of life...  the laptop, desktop, tablet, IPhone, and whatever all else needed more memory because the 2 Billion GB that you had just wasn't enough...  it is a must to have the ride detailed because you need to look good...  and after all, you can't help it because Starbucks charges so much for that fru-fru coffee drink that you can't live without.  

4.  You can't seem to find the time to fish for men...  but seem to have no problem grabbing all the high dollar fishing gear and loading it up in your boat with all the latest fish-finding equipment and fishing for a fish that you may or may not ever eat.  

5.  I know there is people in my church going hungry but I can't help them...  if you did you wouldn't be able to go to that all you can eat buffet on Sunday after church and it would be unfair for you to have to cut back on your food intake just because they can't "manage" their money properly.

6. (FOR YOUR SELF-RIGHTEOUS FOLK)  I haven't time to study the Scripture...  but I have time for church pot-lucks, men's and women's fellowship, board meetings, committee meetings, church building program meetings, youth group, choir practice/praise and worship practice, getting ready for the Sunday solo, fund raising for a mission trip, greeting people on Sunday, deacon meetings, family time, fellowship with the Jones'es....  Color it all good stuff but it still ain't studying, praying or any other such thing that is good for our spirits and pleasing to God!

Come on people seriously...  we waste more time in a day than is good for us anyway, much less a full week, and yet if I had a quarter for everyone that has used "time" as an excuse for why they don't do things they know they ought to do...  I'd make Bill Gates look like a destitute under-a-bridge dweller. Forget getting real with others...  we must get real with ourselves.  Like the children of Israel, we are a bunch of complaining people.  When stuff goes bad in our lives we start...  why me?  Why is God letting this happen to me?  I've been faithful!  Reality Check...  No you have not.  

We ask God to give us everything...  always wanting God to "have our back."  We seemed shocked when things fall apart around us because I mean we love the Lord!  Problem is...  if we'd of actually been spending time with the God we say we love...  most of our messes would have been seen clearly before they got to the point of being a mess.  We continue going nowhere and all the while we are claiming it in faith... "I AM SOMEBODY!"  We go on and on and on about being the "head and not the tail" as we carry on in life looking like the tail.  Reality Check Again...  you look like the tail because you are a tail and the reason...  you are restrained from becoming the head because you are restrained by your own affections.  Those silly little things in our lives that have no bearing on the grand scheme of eternal value and yet we justify continuing doing what we do by saying, "God doesn't mind us having enjoyment."  

Listen to me please...   there is a vast difference between taking a little time out of your life and enjoying it with your wife, friends, and even church family and simply wasting your time away doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter.  If you are above the age of say 12 then you should be old enough to put this together and understand the point.  All of our justification does not justify most of the time that we waste chasing after things that do not matter.  Those that want to speak of it being about "balance" and how we have to split that time...  wrap it up in whatever words you want to wrap it up in but it is still an excuse to remain restrained by your own affections.  God isn't asking us for "balance" but He demands from us obedience. 

Paul said this around 2000 years ago ...

1 Corinthians 7:29  But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none;
30  and those who weep, as though they did not weep; and those who rejoice, as though they did not rejoice; and those who buy, as though they did not possess;
31  and those who use the world, as though they did not make full use of it; for the form of this world is passing away.
 

Time is short and most reading this agree with that.  How much more then now and contextually Paul was speaking about it being better to be single so we could give ALL OUR TIME to God and the furtherance of the gospel and kingdom!  

Just something you might ponder.