Philippians 2:14-16 “Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, amongst whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labour in vain.”

Do believers ever become frustrated? Do they ever grow weary of certain tasks or perhaps find themselves in a position where they have to do some decidedly unpleasant thing? Of course they do! Although we are not “of” this world, we still live “in” this world. God, however, does not expect you to respond the way the rest of the world does. If we are forever asking him “why?” or complaining about what he has for us to do, we are just as disagreeable and disobedient as the rest of the world. We are instructed to be without blemish so that we stand apart from the rest of the crooked and twisted world in which we live. We are to be clothed in white, the raiment of a pure spirit and a pure heart. If we play in the same mud-hole as the rest of the world, we will be unrecognizable as anything but another worldly person. As a follower of Christ, we are only recognizable so long as we keep ourselves apart, having had the stains of sin washed whiter than snow by the blood of our Savior and determined to never again allow ourselves to be polluted by the world.

Pray: “Heavenly Father, forgive me all those times when I allowed my personal likes and dislikes to overflow into complaining and grumbling. My Savior, your son, did not grumble and complain when he went to the cross but instead kept silent. Help me to learn from his example. By keeping myself apart from the ways and things of the world, I can be a positive influence on those who might otherwise have resigned themselves to following the world because they did not have the strength to stand alone or because they had no other example to follow - Jesus, in your strength and not my own I pray - Amen.”