The word complacent means to be “pleased or satisfied” or especially, to be “extremely self-satisfied.”
This seems to describe many people that I know. They are complacent, perhaps not materially, but certainly spiritually. They are content to sit back, with no concern for their non-material well-being and little remorse for a lifestyle that is less then optimum; they are complacent.
God doesn’t like complacency. Through the prophet Zephaniah, he says he will search out the complacent people and punish them.
They are even complacent about his response to their complacency, for God specifically says that they assume he will do nothing to them, neither good nor bad. They are truly complacent and God is ticked off.
Another group of people who suffer from complacency is the church in the city of Laodicea. To them God simply says he will spit them out. What an apt image of disgust — and for one who wants to be close to God, what a frightening picture of separation and aloneness.
I hope that God never finds me complacent — the consequences are too great.
[See Zephaniah 1:12 and Revelation 3:14-16.]
A lifelong student of the Bible, Peter DeHaan, PhD, wrote the 1,000-page website ABibleADay.com to encourage people to explore the Bible. His main blog and many books urge Christians to push past the status quo and reconsider how they practice their faith in every area of their lives.
