When It Comes To My Attitude Series

It’s Not About Me… When It Comes To:

ATTITUDE

Philipians 2:5-11

Video Clip: Facing The Giants

My attitude is a window to my heart. Not necessarily my desired heart, but my true heart… depraved and self-serving as it is.

We all fight with our attitudes. The victories are many times hard fought and the defeats come more often than we would like. When we lose the battle very little good, if any, comes from it. We usually end up embarrassing ourselves and others while bruising our testimony.

I searched several dictionaries for an appropriate definition of attitude and here is a personal rendering of what I discovered.

Attitude is a complex mental state involving beliefs and feelings and values and dispositions to act in certain ways; often indicated by body posture and position.

In the end my bad attitude indicates, that I at that moment, I believe it’s “all about me.”

If you think about it there are many attitudes:

Positive Attitudes

Negative Attitudes

Attitudes of Indifference

Selfish Attitudes

Caring Attitudes

Carefree Attitudes

Responsible Attitudes

Irresponsible Attitudes

The list is long. So it’s rather impossible for us to look at each individual attitude. Rather, if we could find a scriptural example of the perfect attitude maybe we could gain some insight that would help us improve ours.

Now… when it comes to a perfect attitude there is only one place to turn… Jesus Christ exemplified the perfect attitude. His responses are flawless, His answers penetrating and dead accurate, His composure was unmatched, and His compassion without limits. That is where we must look… Because after all it’s all about Him… right?

Philippians 2:5-11 5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: 6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: 7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

PRAYER

In verse 5 the Greek word for “mind” is phroneō, which has to do with one’s attitude. Paul tells the Philippians that they should have the same attitude that Jesus Christ had.

Now understand that the bar has not been lowered for us. We too must have the same attitude that Christ had. He demonstrated for us how to respond in such a way as to bring glory to our heavenly Father… which, by the way, was His main objective… 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

- When Jesus was tired, He kept going because He wanted to glorify the Father.

- When others mocked Him for centering His life around God’s word, He marched on because He wanted to glorify the Father.

- When He faced death and even prayed that the cup be passed from Him… He endured the cross because He wanted to glorify the Father.

An ironically enough, the Father’s main motivation in allowing Jesus Christ to endure so much was His intense love for you… and Jesus, being one with the Father and Holy Spirit, had the same motivation… love for you and a desire to glorify the Father held Him to that cross…

Don’t think for a moment that Roman nails were capable of holding the King of Kings on two pieces of rough lumber… NO… it was His love for you that held Him there!

Many times ministry and our walk with Christ becomes difficult, or maybe old and stale… when that happens, our attitude usually follows suit. Attitude is so important in remaining committed to Jesus Christ and His church…

Much has been written about attitude…

REBECCA MANLEY PIPPERT

God . . . gives me the freedom to acknowledge my negative attitudes before him but not the freedom to act them out because they are as destructive for me as they are for the other person.

ED HOWE (1853–1937)

If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old.

WILLIAM JAMES (1842–1910)

People can alter their lives by altering their attitudes.

VIKTOR E. FRANKL (1905– )

We who lived in the concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number; but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of his freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.