If we
are to win the war on negativity, we will need to allow the Lord to
deal with our hearts, thoughts and language. The verse “Out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45) comes to
mind. And what seems to be relevant to our theme, is that what comes
out of our mouths when we are crossed or in distress, is a real
indicator of the what is going on in our hearts. We talked earlier
about when someone crosses us that we need to come against the
offence and/or the offender in the opposite spirit (June 23). What I
want to say this morning, is that we need to deal with the root of
these things. Earlier we considered the weapons of our Christians
hope, of a heavenly perspective and the need to practice, practice
practice. And what we need to practice is thinking and speaking in a
positive mode.
I likely
need to say again that we are not talking here about the power of
positive thinking. Certainly there is power in the declaration of
Biblical truth, but there is a big difference between pretending,
and practicing what is true. And part of what we practice is thinking on
“whatever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely and of good
report” (Philippians 4:8). If we are having a hard time finding
such things to think about, we can always turn to the virtues of our
amazing beautiful God, to the character of Jesus, to the hope of
heaven, and to the heroes of the faith. We also need to capture self
doubt and stop saying things like “I could never do that.” We
replace such thoughts with “I can do all things through Christ who
strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13). We need to stop beating
ourselves up when we blow it. So that when we have confessed our sin,
we can dwell on the reliability of His promise to forgive and cleans
us (1 John 1:9).
And
then there are the put downs, that we have all likely received from
time to time. “You are just like your father, he was no good and
neither are you!” We need to take such thoughts and words captive.
It is a question of moving into, and embracing, our identity in
Christ. We need to think and to say “I am loved by almighty God.”
We can make it a prayer “Father, I am Your beloved son (daughter),
and You are well pleased with me.” This last one is true, because
God has no favourites (Romans 2:11), so then what He says to Jesus
He says to us (Mark 1:11). But you say “I don’t feel it.” Well,
remember that thoughts come with emotions attached, and if you
believe that you are junk, you will feel like junk. This is why we
need to take every thought (and so every emotion) captive to the
truth. And the truth is God don’t make no junk! And we need to
practice such truths until we believe them, and then practice them
because we believe them.
Father,
when we have spent our whole lives in negativity, we will not
overcome these things in a day. There are times Lord when we will
likely need to say “I am choosing to believe, please help my
unbelief.” Thank You again Lord for Your help and patience in these things (Philippians 2:13). Help us Lord to care more about what You
think about us than what others do. And You think we are amazing in Jesus Name Amen
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