3 Facts About Attitude
Proverbs 23:7
Next to knowing Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, nothing is more important than having a good positive attitude.
Your attitude WILL:
1. MAKE OR BREAK YOU
2. HEAL OR HURT YOU
3. Make FRIENDS or ENEMIES
4. HAPPY OR MISERABLE
5. A SUCCESS OR A FAILURE
ATTITUDE Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. 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 fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string 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.
Some people think that the whole world stinks. Once a cranky grandpa took a nap. His grandson put some limburger cheese on his mustache, right under his nose. Grandpa awoke with a snort, staggered out of the bedroom and shouted, "This room stinks!" On through the house he went, shouting louder, "This whole house stinks!" He charged out on the porch and shouted as loud as he could, "The whole world stinks!" The truth is, it was grandpa who stunk. The problem was right under his own nose.
95 times out of 100, when we feel that life stinks, It is not others, but with ourselves.
The problem is our attitude has become negative.
Change your negative attitudes to positive ones, and you can change your world.
this topic applies to everyone here, because
we all have attitudes
Sometimes they’re good sometimes they’re not so good
and other times they’re just plain nasty.
Let’s look at 3 facts about our attitude........
FACT #1: YOUR ATTITUDE - REVEALS THE REAL YOU
A. How important is your attitude?
Your attitude is more important than:
A. Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. 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 fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string 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.
B. Your attitude is much deeper than just a few thoughts you might think or not think.
C. Your attitude comes out of the core of your being.
1. Your attitude represents your disposition, your outlook, your very character.
The Bible says in Pr 23:7; "For as a man thinks in his heart, so he is..." (NKJV)
ILLUSTRATION:
JAR OF WATER -- PUT A LID ON IT LOOSELY – SHAKE THE JAR VIGOROUSLY UNTIL WATER FALLS OUT.WHY Did the water spill? LID LOOSE - JAR SHOOK - GRAVITY
NO, THE REASON THE WATER CAME OUT WAS BECAUSE THE JAR WAS FILLED WITH WATER.
WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE IS WHAT COMES OUT.
Jesus said, in
MATT. 15:17-20, “17Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? 18But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. 19For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. 20These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man
Your attitudes always become actions or reactions.
D. Much Louder than the words you speak is your attitude that
keeps telling people what you are really like.
1. When I have a negative, nasty, critical attitude that’s the real me and when you have one that’s the real you.
2. Understand we don’t have an attitude just because we had a bad day (all that a bad Day can ever do is shake our jar). The reason you have a bad attitude is because you have a bad attitude inside of you/inside of your jar.
FACT #1; YOUR ATTITUDE REVEALS THE REAL YOU.
FACT #2 Our Attitude Determines the Success and Failure of Every Relationship in Your Life.
A.Your attitude affects every relationship in your life.
Bad attitudes affect:
1. your marriage relationship
2.Your relationship with your kids
3.Your work relationships
4.Your church relationships
5.Your Friends
Like the jar of water w/loose lid, a bad attitude is eventually going to spill out into some negative actions - destructive words and deeds.
In Numbers 12:1-11, we read about 2 brothers and a sister. One brother Moses, had a good attitude. The Bible says that "Moses was a humble man, more humble than anyone on the face of the earth.." In other words, Moses was teachable and cooperative. He treated people as he wanted to be treated and he lived a life that was properly lined up with his heavenly father.
Miriam and Aaron chose a bad attitude - and they eventually spilled out.
Miriam seems to have had the worst attitude and she infected her brother, Aaron.
In verse one of Numbers 12 we read, "Miriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife.."
Here they are, family members whom Moses thought he could count on and trust, going around behind his back, criticizing him, stirring up trouble among God’s people against their leader, their own brother Moses.
B. You see, most people who stir up trouble do so not out of right reasons but out of bad attitudes.
1.The fact that Moses had married a Cushite wife was not the real problem - it just shook Miriam’s jar. This was just a symptom, an excuse.
2.The real problem was that Miriam had a longstanding bad attitude that stemmed from jealousy of her brother Moses and him being leader. It was out of her own poor self-esteem she allowed herself to become critical and choose to cause trouble.
3.Many times the things that we criticize and get all stirred up about are not really the problem at all. The problem is our own bad attitude.
4. I’ve seen bad attitudes; Destroy; marriages/families/work
environments/board meeting/ladies meeting/church services...etc
6 When you have an individual or a group of people filled with a bad attitude and wearing a loose lid, trouble is bound to happen, things will rapidly get negative.
Fact #1 You attitude reveals the Real YOU
Fact #2 Attitude determines success or failure of every relationship in your life.
FACT#3 Your Attitude is always Your Choice
The human mind is awesome .
1. God has given us the ability to think,
2.To reason
3. To choose whether we will focus on positive thoughts or negative thoughts.
4.There is the positive and the negative In every one of our lives.
5.The choice as to which one we will focus on and feed, nurture is up to us.
Norman Cousins tells of being hospitalized with a rare, crippling disease. When he was diagnosed as incurable, Cousins checked out of the hospital. Aware of the harmful effects that negative emotions can have on the body, Cousins reasoned the reverse was true. So he borrowed a movie projector and prescribed his own treatment, consisting of Marx Brothers films and old "Candid Camera" reruns.
It didn’t take long for him to discover that 10 minutes of laughter provided two hours of pain free sleep. Amazingly, his debilitating disease was eventually reversed. After the account of his victory appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, Cousins received more than 3000 letters from appreciative physicians throughout the world.
6.You can’t choose what will happen to you today (it’s beyond your control) -- but you can choose your own attitude - we each have the power to decide how we will respond to what happens to us.
7. No matter what you are facing-- the choice of attitude is still yours.
8. Jesus Christ wants to help you choose and cultivate a positive attitude.
9.To BLAME our bad attitudes on someone else or on a difficult circumstance is a cop-out.
7.If we allow things and people to cause us to be negative we are only hurting ourselves And know we are forced to live with the effects and misery our bad attitudes will bring.
YOUR ATTITUDE
1.REVEAL THE REAL YOU
2. Determines the Success of Every Relationship
3. Your attitude IS ALWAYS YOUR CHOICE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
STEPS that will help you be more positive
#1 START SPEAKING POSITIVE WORDS
A. Work at learning to speak positive words. Notice, I said learn.
1.It does not come naturally.
2.It is always easier to talk negatively, to criticize.
3.You help create the atmosphere in which you live by the words you speak.
When your words are positive:
you produce a creative, loving, accepting, positive environment.
When you speak negative words:
you create suspicion, mistrust and a can’t do anything right atmosphere.
4.The task of a Christian:
a.The First things is to eliminate words that hurt and tear down
b.The Second things is to speak words that build up, edify and encourage other people.
The first sermon I ever preached was negative..very!!
To everyone you meet, whether it’s at a gas station, at a store, at home, at work or at church -- try to say something positive and uplifting.
Do it this for one day this week and see what happens.
You’ll probably have a great day.
Why?
Because positive words create a loving, creative environment in which to live.
i.Start speaking positive words
II.
LOOK FOR GOOD in ever situation
1.A positive person doesn’t refuse to recognize the negative, but he refuses
to dwell on them negative and and chooses to be positive in every person or situation.
2.Develop the habit of looking for the best even from the worst conditions... And the fact is that when you look for good you will find it.
3.I can choose to dwell on the bad, the pain or I can focus on the good
5.We can see giants or we see a land flowing with milk and honey. it’s a matter of choosing what you will look for.
A farmer went into his banker and announced that he had bad news and good news. "First, the bad news...""Well," said the farmer, "I can’t make my mortgage payments. And that crop loan I’ve taken out for the past 10 years -- I can’t pay that off, either. Not only that, I won’t be able to pay you the couple of hundred thousand I still have outstanding on my tractors and other equipment. So I’m going to have to give up the farm and turn it all over to you for whatever you can salvage out of it.
"Silence prevailed for a minute and then the banker said ,
"What’s the good news?" ----------------------------------
----------"The good news is that I’m going to keep on banking with you," said the farmer.
1.Start speaking positive words
2.Look for good in every situation
III. TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR THOUGHT LIFE
A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in a hospital. "You have lost an arm in the great cause," he said. "No," said the soldier with a smile. "I didn’t lose it--I gave it." In that same way, Jesus did not lose His life. He gave it purposefully.
The 3 F’s of taking charge if your thought life
#1 FIX; 6Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.
7Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. 8And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. 9Keep putting into practice all you and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you. (Phil 4:6-9 NLT)
We are not to let our mind wander all over the place, but rather we are to take command of it and choose positive thoughts over negative ones.
#2 FILTER: In like manner if you want to really take control of your thought life you need to filter the garbage out there.
#3 FEED: Question: what are you feeding your mind?
Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. (Phil 4:8)
One of the greatest source of good thoughts is God’s word.
Put God in get God out.
Put God’s word into your mind and it will come out in your speech..
Feed your minds on verses such as
Ephesians 3:20 20Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us
Isa. 41:10 IS10Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’
Phil 4:19 19And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Heb 13:6 6So we may boldly say: “The LORD is my helper; I will not fear. What can people do to me?”£
1. Start speaking positive words
2..Look for good in every situation
3. TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR THOUGHT LIFE
IV. NEVER SURRENDER LEADERSHIP TO THE
NEGATIVE, ALWAYS LOOK FOR THE POSITIVE
When you feel the mighty onslaught of a negative emotion
Here’s what you need to do:
1. Admit it.
2. Face it. But don’t give in to it.
3. The way to destroy a negative emotion is to replace it with a
positive thought--example:
4. REPLACE:
1. Anger with Love
2. Fear with Faith
3. Complaining with Gratitude
4. Bitterness with Forgiveness
5. Judgment with Acceptance
5.Feeling sorry for yourself with helping someone else
Here is a sure way for gaining victory over negative emotions.
Learn to pray out your emotions.
Learn to cry them out and pray them out until you pray through to victory.
Did you know that Jesus prayed aloud and with emotion?
In Hebrews 5:7, we read; "During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him form death and he was heard because of His reverent submission..."
In other words Jesus shows us here by His own example how to pray out negative emotions to our heavenly father.
Hebrews 4:15, teaches us that our high Priest, "is touched by the feelings of our
weaknesses..."
