Building Great Attitudes For The New Year Series

INTRODUCTION:

Happy New Year to everyone!

Welcome to the year 2016.

This is the year of the new beginnings for most of us.

This is the year when we will reaffirm our goals and purposes why we are on earth.

This is the year when we will leave behind and not dwell our past mistakes.

This is the year when we will acknowledge the plans of God for our lives.

This is the year when we will press on and persevere to the goal that God has set before us.

This is a beautiful year ahead for all of us as we dedicate our lives to God.

We could only do all of these things if we build and establish positive attitudes for the New Year.

Attitude is everything if we want to do better for this New year of 2016.

Charles Swindoll says, “The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important: than facts, than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do, than appearances, than giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company. . . a church. . . a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past.

We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one thing we have, and that is our attitude.

I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you. . . We are in charge of our attitudes.”

I totally agree, don't you think so?

Look at this picture. Attitude is everything, so pick a good one.

Everything that is good in life starts with a great attitude.

And if we want to accomplish more good things this New year, we had to start building an attitude that will last for a lifetime.

Because the past is past and we cannot change it.

It is how we react to the future that counts.

We are in charge of our attitudes on how we should act at church, our attitude in how we perform our ministry, our attitude in the things we do at home, our attitudes when we accomplish our reports at work.

Good attitude means we will maintain our joy in spite of the difficult situations.

Attitude means we will continue our passion to serve God even if others do not appreciate our work.

I say it again, great attitudes are essential for a happy and prosperous life this New Year.

Today, we will continue our sermon series on the Book of Joshua by studying chapter 14.

We will focus on the life story of Caleb.

He was one of the twelve spies sent by Moses to assess the Promised Land.

During that time, ten of the spies did not believe that they could take the land of Canaan and their negative attitudes spread like gangrene to the entire camp of Israel.

This negativism prompted Israel to doubt God's power and God's purpose that eventually brought their downfall and death in the wilderness.

However, only Joshua and Caleb believed God.

And because of their positive attitudes, they were spared from the judgment of that entire generation.

In fact, they were the only ones who were able to possess the Promised land.

And they were able to maintain and carry on that positive attitude even in their old age.

God allowed them to accomplish far greater things ahead because of that positive attitude that had been developed over the years.

You see, if we allow negative attitudes to dominate our thinking this year, we will end up doubting God's power in our lives and fail to reach the goals God has placed for our lives.

But if we learn to build our positive outlook in life, God knows how far we can reach this New year.

We must therefore build a great attitude for the New Year.

Attitudes that will help us keep on believing in God and in our ability to serve Him.

Positive attitudes that will overcome those that are trying to discourage and dampen our spirits.

We must build positive attitudes that will make us endure and persevere even through tough and difficult times.

We may not be able to change our present circumstances or situations but we can control our attitudes by controlling how we react to them.

I want you to look carefully at the picture of two attitudes displayed by this woman.

The one on the left is a picture of a woman who has a very negative attitude at life.

Always feeling hurt, always rehearsing in the mind the pain she experienced in the past, very sensitive to what people would say to her, depressed most of the time, she seemed to get sick more often, pessimistic in life, unhappy, bitter, dejected, discouraged, push down.