Complaining Spirit

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“Do everything without complaining and arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.” (Philippians 2:14,15 NLT)

Have you ever been around people who complain about everything?  Every word, every sentence, every thought is an expression of dissatisfaction about something.  Have you noticed that the middle of the complaint is about them or their perspective? A person who is constantly complaining is constantly thinking about themselves.  While the person is complaining, you start thinking about when you can get away because you are feeling nothing but negative vibes.  Well, there are basically two outcomes of hanging around a person who complains a lot: (1) You feel drained when you leave their presence, or (2) You end up just like them, starting to complain about the same things.  Or you bring up your own examples of complaints to feed into their story.  Now we have two individuals complaining about something with no intent of solving the problem.

Here are some factors in complaints:

1. Complaining is about you and your dissatisfaction. It focuses on everything about you.  Focusing on yourself leads to sin.  If your motive is all about you, never caring for others, that is what God hates.  (See Proverbs 6:16, 17, having Haughty Eyes) Lucifer (Satan) was dissatisfied in heaven because he wanted to be the ruler of all.  He wanted to be above God.  His pride is what got him kicked out of Heaven.  I’m still amazed that Lucifer was in a perfectly beautiful place, surrounded by God’s glory, and that wasn’t enough for HIM.  His Pride (selfish view and complaints) skewed his thoughts toward evil.  Remember, the children of Israel complained so much that they ended up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years until the next generation of Israelites were allowed to enter the promised land.
2. It blinds your view of the truth. If you are complaining about your house, you are missing the fact that you have a house. If you are complaining about your car, you are missing the point that you own one.  If you are complaining about your job, not getting enough money, or not liking your co-workers, you are missing the fact that you have a job and ARE earning some money.  Maybe God has you there at your job for a season to be a light in a dark place.
3. Complaining opens the door for the enemy to control your circumstances. If you are a believer in Christ, Satan and his demons can’t automatically do things to you unless YOU give them permission.  “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Proverbs 18:21
4. You become who you hang around. King Solomon gave a warning about hanging around the wrong people. One of them he calls “a miser”.  (Those who are greedy and stingy with money.)  Proverbs 23:6,7 “Don’t eat the bread of a miser, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he.”  Proverbs 26:4 (NKJV) “Don’t answer a fool according to his folly (foolishness), lest you become like him.”
5. Complaining to others has the danger of spreading. Remember the story of the 12 spies Moses sent to Canaan?  When the spies came back, 10 of them were complaining, saying there was no way they could take the land.  (a) Numbers 13:31,32 (NLT) “But the other men who had explored the land with him disagreed. “We can’t go up against them! They are stronger than we are!” So they spread this bad report about the land among the Israelites: “The land we traveled through and explored will devour anyone who goes to live there. All the people we saw were huge.” (b) Numbers 14:1,2 (NLT) “Then the whole community began weeping aloud, and they cried all night. Their voices rose in a great chorus of protest against Moses and Aaron.”

The dangers of complaining are that it spreads everywhere and doesn’t promote anything positive.

6. Complaining is in the same category as gossiping. The outcome of gossip is the same as spreading negative rumors around the community.  And Gossip is on the same list as the seven things that God hates.  (See Proverbs 6:16 – 19)
7. Complaining changes your thinking and eventually changes YOU.   As a believer, God leaves the responsibility for how we think to us.  Also known as Free-Will.  When you continue down the path of complaining, your thinking pattern changes to a state called a reprobate mind.  Reprobate in Greek (Strong’s Concordance G96, Adokimos) means rejected, worthless, not standing the test, and not approved.  From God’s perspective, a person who constantly complains has a worthless mind.  That is why you read in scriptures where God says, “…He abandoned them to their foolish thinking, and let them do things that should never be done.” (Romans 1:28) God will let you do and say whatever YOU want to do…for now.  But having that type of mind leads you away from God.  Yes, I said it.  Constant complaining will eventually lead you away from God.

So why is complaining a bad thing? Are you saying I can’t be true to myself and tell how I feel?  Now I have to lie to myself and keep all that I see that is wrong inside?  Pull my bootstraps, grit my teeth, and just hang in there?  No.  The key is HOW you address situations that seem to go wrong.  God never told us that we would not have problems.  Even Jesus told His disciples, “…In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for I have overcome the world!” (John 16:33)

The problem is that you focus on circumstances that are going wrong.  Notice, I didn’t say that the bad circumstances didn’t exist.  I’m NOT saying this is a mind over matter situation, or you’re playing your harp saying, “It doesn’t exist, it doesn’t exist.”  What I’m saying is that if you focus only on negative things, it becomes a distraction and prevents you from seeing the solution from God.  Complaining creates a circumference around your own abilities.  When you realize that you are limited, and just talk about what you can’t do, you are ignoring the one who can do the impossible.  Jesus said, “..With God, All things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26)

So what do you do?  Speak God’s Word!  Here is what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:

2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT) “ So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.”

I will be honest, being content in all things is not easy.  By reading Bible, I have learned that being content can be learned.

Philippians 4:11, 12 (NLT) “Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.”

The path to learning contentment is through reading the Word of God.  You must replace your thoughts with God’s Word.  When you read God’s Word, you learn what His promises are.  When you know God’s Promises, you can speak His promises.  This is the category of declaring God’s Promises over your life.  Declaring is you speaking what God has already said.  For example, “No weapon formed against me shall prosper!” (Isaiah 54:17) Saying things opposite to what God said is like you telling Him that He can’t help you.  You can always know where a person stands and whether they are reading the Word of God by what they say in negative circumstances.

King David had the right perspective on complaining.  Instead of complaining to others, he took them straight to God.  He has written many examples of his troubles in the book of Psalms, but he always finished with God’s promise or what he knows about God’s character.   Remember, when David was announced as the next King of Israel, the previous King Saul was so jealous of David that he sought to kill him.  David was on the run for years, being pursued by Saul.  David and his few men were getting tired.  So David had a lot of inner torment to complain about.

Psalm 31:9-13 (NLT)

⁹ Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am in distress.
Tears blur my eyes.
My body and soul are withering away.
¹⁰ I am dying from grief;
my years are shortened by sadness.
Sin has drained my strength;
I am wasting away from within.
¹¹ I am scorned by all my enemies
and despised by my neighbors—
even my friends are afraid to come near me.
When they see me on the street,
they run the other way.
¹² I am ignored as if I were dead,
as if I were a broken pot.
¹³ I have heard the many rumors about me,
and I am surrounded by terror.
My enemies conspire against me,
plotting to take my life.

But notice what David says in the next verse:

¹⁴ But I am trusting you, O Lord,
saying, “You are my God!”
¹⁵ My future is in your hands.
Rescue me from those who hunt me down relentlessly.

Now here is where David starts to remember God’s promises:

²¹ Praise the Lord,
for he has shown me the wonders of his unfailing love.
He kept me safe when my city was under attack.
²² In panic I cried out,
“I am cut off from the Lord!”
But you heard my cry for mercy
and answered my call for help.

David had a relationship with God.  He told God his fears, worries, and inner pain.  But he also remembered the goodness of God.  God knows what you are going through.  He wants you to come to Him first on everything.  You can pour out your heart and tell Him exactly how you feel about anything and everything.  God moves based on what He has said in His Word.

• You can’t complain and be grateful at the same time.
• You can’t complain and worship God at the same time.
• You can’t complain and be happy at the same time.
• You can’t complain and speak blessings to others at the same time.

I will end with this scripture from the book of James:

James 3:10-12 (NLT) “Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so. Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening?  Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both salt water and fresh.”

Read the Word of God and ask Him to help you remember His promises.  Replace complaining with speaking God’s promises!

Be Blessed!

Ron

Ron Cobbs Ministries © Copyright March 14th, 2026, All Rights Reserved