SCRIPTURE
"At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.’"
Zephaniah 1:12
KEY STATEMENT
One thing is wishing advancement another thing is working hard to deal with wrong mindset and attitudes hindering it.
AMONG MANY REASONS FOR STAGNATION, ONE OF THEM IS TOO MUCH COMPLACENCY IN OUR LIVES AND IN OUR CHURCHES. What is complacency? What are the signs showing complacency? How to deal with complacency
WHAT IS COMPLACENCY?
Webster’s definition of the word “complacency” is “a feeling of being satisfied with how things are and not wanting to try to make them better.
Complacency is self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies. This sound like a very dangerous place to be if you are a Christian.
From Scriptures, it is clearly revealed that the Lord punishes complacency because it is a sin like any other sin. This is what we read in Zephaniah 1:12
"At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad.’"
WHAT ARE THE SIGNS SHOWING THAT SOMEONE BECOMES COMPLACENT?
1st sign : When someone becones complacent, he lacks zeal. His heart stops burning for prayer, for the Word, for bible studies, for church attendance, for spiritual warfare.
We find in the Bible the case of David the man after God's heart who used to be a zealous man of God. Unfortunately, along the way of his journey with the Lord, he became complacent. His heart stopped burning for the Lord. One day, while the army went to fight the battle of the Lord, complacency caused him to stay idle at home and spend his time sleeping. We all know what happened to him. He committed adultery with Uria's wife and killed Uria.
A WORD FOR YOU : THE SAME WAY FLIES NEVER STEP IN A HOT PLATE, THE SAME WAY THE DEVIL CAN NEVER STOP THE HOT HEART BURNING FOR THE LORD.
Jesus' heart was so hot for the house of his Father that he could not tolerate the nonsense of people selling and changing money in it.
"My heart was hot within me, While I was musing the fire burned; Then I spoke with my tongue" (Psalm 39:3)
2nd sign : When someone is complacent, he stops looking ahead and stops looking up. As a matter of fact, he stops going ahead and stops going up.
When the Lord delivered the people from Egypt, they became so complacent that their eyes were not looking up to the Lord nor looking ahead to their promise land. Rather, their eyes were looking down to their challenges and looking back to the food they left in Egypt.
Because of complacency, they failed to enter into their promise land.
A WORD FOR YOU : LOOK BACK TO REMEMBER THE TESTIMONIES OF THE MIGHTY WORK OF THE LORD AND USE THEM TO GO AHEAD AND ADVANCE NOT TO STAGNATE.
- When David looked back to remember the mighty deliverances of the Lord in his life in the past, that remembrance empowered him to face and to defeat Goliath.
1 Samuel 17:37 "David said moreover, The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine. And Saul said unto David, Go, and the LORD be with thee."
3rd sign : When someone becomes complacent, he becomes so full that there is no more thirst or hunger for the Lord, for prayer, for the Word of the Lord, for the things of God, for teachings, for God's instructions and for the fellowship with the saints.
In 2 Kings 4:6 we read this, "And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said unto her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said unto her, [There is] not a vessel more. And the oil stayed."
From this text, we see that the woman was filling only empty vessels. So we see that when there were no more empty vessel, the oil stopped flowing. The same way in our journey with the Lord, we will be filled only when we are empty, thirsty and hungry of God. The moment we stop, the Lord also will stop.
That is why in John 7:37 the Lord Jesus makes a solemn call to everybody interested, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink."
A WORD FOR YOU : IF YOU THIRST AND HUNGER FOR GOD ALWAYS AND CONTINUALLY, GOD WILL FILL YOU AND ADVANCE YOU ALWAYS AND CONTINUALLY.
Jesus gives the parable of the man whose farm produced so bountifully that he was saying to himself,
"What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." (Luke 12:17-19)
Psalms 42:2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
Proverbs 13:7 There is that maketh himself rich, yet [hath] nothing: [there is] that maketh himself poor, yet [hath] great riches.
Revelation 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
4th sign : Complacent people are also perpetual complainers.
A complainer is a person who makes frequent complaints usually about little things.
One of the saddest cases of God's people complaining is recorded in Numbers 14, where God said to those who complained: "Your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness. ... Doubtless ye shall not come into the land." What a tragedy!
Israel complained about their leaders, their food supply, and the difficult challenge to occupy Canaan. God was fed up with such relentless carping. In fact, according to Deuteronomy 1:2, it should have taken the Israelites less than two weeks to travel from where they had received the Ten Commandments to the edge of the Promised Land. As it turned out, their trip took forty years.
It was God's way of telling them to "walk it off"!
A WORD FOR YOU : STOP COMPLAINING BECAUSE IT STOPS YOUR ADVANCEMENT.
- The moment Jesus took the 5 breads and the 2 fishes and gave thanks to the Father, the next moment they started to multiply into his hands.
- The moment Jesus gave thanks to the Father at Lazarus' grave, the next moment Lazarus came back to life.
PROPHETIC DECLARATIONS AND PRAYERS
# TODAY, I PRAY THE LORD GOD OF HEAVEN TO IGNITE THE FLAME OF HIS ZEAL IN YOUR SPIRIT AND HEART.
DECLARE AND PRAY ________________________
# TODAY, BECAUSE OF THE FLAME BURNING IN YOUR HEART, I PRAY THAT YOU WILL PURSUE WHAT DELIGHTS THE LORD AND FIGHT AGAINST WHAT DISHONORS HIM IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST. SO SHALL IT BE!
DECLARE AND PRAY ________________________
# TODAY, I PRAY THAT BY THE HOLY SPIRIT THE SPIRITUAL HEAT FLOWING OUT OF THE FIERY ALTAR OF GOD BREAKS DOWN ANY TRACE OF COMPLACENCY IN YOU IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST. SO SHALL IT BE!
DECLARE AND PRAY ________________________
# TODAY, I PRAY THAT THE LORD OF HOSTS CAUSES YOU BY HIS POWER TO ALWAYS LOOK UP AND ALWAYS LOOK AHEAD SO THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS GO UP AND GO AHEAD. LET IT BE SO IN YOUR LIFE IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!
DECLARE AND PRAY ________________________
# TODAY, I PRAY MY FATHER TO EMPTY YOU SO THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS THIRST AND ALWAYS HUNGER FOR GOD. LET IT BE SO IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!
DECLARE AND PRAY ________________________
# TODAY, I REBUKE THE COMPLAINING SPIRIT AND ATTITUDE IN YOU. I PRAY THAT THE LORD GOD BIRTH IN YOU THE SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING AND APPRECIATION IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST!
DECLARE AND PRAY ________________________
SO SHALL IT BE!
JESUS IS LORD!
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