Christian Commentary Encouraging Devotions

Jon Gordon suggests five things to do instead of complaining:

1. Practice Gratitude. It’s physiologically impossible to be stressed and thankful at the same time. Two thoughts cannot occupy our mind at the same time. If you are focusing on gratitude, you can’t be negative.

2. Praise Others. Instead of complaining about what others are doing wrong, start focusing on what they are doing right.

3. Focus on Success. Start a success journal. Each night before you go to bed, write down the one great thing about your day. The one great conversation, accomplishment, or win that you are most proud of. Focus on your success, and you’ll look forward to creating more success tomorrow.

4. Let Go. Focus on the things that you have the power to change, and let go of the things that are beyond your control.

5. Pray and Meditate. When you are faced with the urge to complain or you are feeling stressed, stop, be still, plug-in to the ultimate power, and recharge.

Sound familiar?

Do all things without murmurings and disputings.

Do everything without complaining or arguing. Philippians 2:14

Why is this so important?

...so that you may become blameless and pure,

so that no one can criticize you,

children of God without fault

in a crooked and depraved generation,

in which you shine like stars in the universe. Philippians 2:15

Then there's The Goal of Life...

I once thought these things (everything other than Christ) were valuable,

but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.

Yes, everything else is worthless

when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

For his sake I have discarded everything else,

counting it all as garbage, rubbish, dung

so that I could gain Christ

and become one with him.

Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Philippians 3:7-9

This is such a challenging portion of scripture.

Valuable, worthless.

Gain, loss.

Forces us to consider what we think is most important.

And then, having agreed with the Word that knowing Christ is the highest goal,

are we willing to discard everything else to gain Christ?

And what does "discarding everything" look like?

Pressing toward the goal.

I keep working toward the day when I will finally be all that Christ Jesus saved me for and wants me to be.

I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Philippians 3:12

Focusing all my energies on this one thing:

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.

...the prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven. Philippians 3:13-14