I announced this morning that the subject tonight would be “The Joy of Positive Living.” And I got to thinking about making that announcement as the title, wondering if you might think that this would sound something like that “last seminar” that you went to. You know, one of those things where the company sends you for personal enrichment, and so on, and so forth. And, of course, the only difference is that they probably paid about $200.00 for you to go to that, and this lesson tonight won’t cost you anything at all. But, no, it isn’t something that’s out of the Covey Institute (a group that goes around the country conducting personal enrichment seminars), doesn’t have anything to do with the “touchy, feely” kinds of things that we get involved with in our place of work, and so on. It has to do with, once again, an attitude that we need to have as God’s children as we live this life. Every person—every one of us—is a POW. Now, that may shock you—that may concern you. You may wonder what I’m talking about, and what I refer to there, the acronym—the initials— “POW”, mean(s) that we are a “Product of Our World”…a Product of Our World. And this has to do with our mental outlook, the mental set that we have.
The writer of Proverbs tells us that “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he,” [Proverbs 23:7, King James Version of the Bible]. In other words, we are what we think. We behave after the pattern that we think, and we live after the pattern that we think. And, in the same way, not only are we products of our world, but in a sense, we are prisoners of our world, because we set the bounds—the parameters, if you will—for the way we live, for what we do, for how far we might reach, or whether we reach at all.
Have you ever heard this phrase: “Things are the way they are without, because things are the way they are within.” Let me say that again: “Things are the way they are without, because things are the way they are within.”
And let me ask us this evening, How is our living? How is your living? How would you describe your living? How would you characterize it? Is your life full of joy? Or is your life better characterized by sadness, rather than gladness? Do you walk with “pep in your step?” Or do you walk with a stoop? Is this just about as happy and joyful as you plan to be? Well, I trust it isn’t.
In this lesson, I want to share some thoughts on positive living, which is the alternative to negative living. And I believe that positive living comes from Biblical thinking. And this is God’s Will—this is God’s wish for us in our lives.
Negative thinking comes from our thoughts, and negative thinking produces negative living. First let me point out and clarify some things that positive and joyful living is not.
First, joyful, positive living is not positive thinking. A number of years ago, a very popular book that resulted in seminars being held, and the like, was “The Power of Positive Thinking.” And that’s great. We need to think positively. But we can think and not necessarily do. So positive living is not just positive thinking.
Positive living is not freedom from our problems. That can just never be in this existence. We know that. Intuitively, we know that this life that we live in the world as human beings is going to be fraught with problems and difficulties. Job 14:1 says, “Man that is born of woman is of a few days, and full of trouble.”
Positive living is not some financial reward. Positive living is not some blind pseudo optimism, and positive living is not ignoring the challenges of life—sort of “dropping out”, which became popular back in the ‘60’s.
And I believe that there are at least two keys to producing positive living. First, positive living is a decision that we make to put Christ first in our lives, to put Christ and His kingdom, and the things which are associated with His kingdom, of first order—of first priority—in our life.
And secondly, positive living is a stance, or a position of mind, that we take. It begins here [John points to his head] in our minds.
Let’s look at some basic facts about positive living. And again, think about positive living as being just one step beyond positive thinking.
First, positive living comes from positive programming. And what I mean by that is, it has to do with God’s divine law of “sowing and reaping.” You always get back what you sow. This is God’s law. This is something that irrefutable, and it’s something that we shouldn’t try to kid ourselves about.
Paul writes in Galatians 6, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life,” Galatians 6, verses 7 and 8.
And our mind is the soil in which we sow. That’s what we plant the seed in. In the well-known parable of “The Sower” that’s found in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus indicates that the soil that He uses in that parable represents our hearts, or represents our minds. And it’s upon that surface, or it’s within that element, that the seed is planted. And so, once again, you reap what you sow. What is put into the mind is what comes out of the mind.
And moreover, there are a couple of other principles that we can learn from that parable of the Sower: You always reap more than you sow. And we know that from the standpoint of maybe planting a garden, or planting a field. One seed will produce a crop which will be considerably more than just that one seed. And as Jesus puts it in that parable, you reap 30, 60, maybe even 100 times more than what is planted. So what is planted in our mind, again, that is what comes out of our minds, but more comes out of our minds than perhaps goes into our minds.
And also, what you reap will be realized somewhere down the road. It will take some time for the growing and developing process to take place. So we must sow positive things to reap a positive life. And if we sow positive things in our minds, we will reap more positive things as time goes by.
The mind of man is like a computer. You get back what you put in. And I know I used this illustration a number of weeks ago, talking about something similar to this—the old acronym GIGO, meaning “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. That’s the way it works with a computer—if you don’t put in the right information, you get bad results, and that’s certainly the way it works with our minds.
Next, positive living comes from right thinking. I can’t overstress that verse from Proverbs 23 enough. We are what we think. We are the product of what we think, and what comes out of our minds is the product of what goes into it. And that is God’s rule. And so, in order to live right, we must think right. And there are, of course, many areas that we should think right about. And I’ll just mention a few of them for us tonight.
We must think right about God. Paul tells those assembled there in the city of Athens as he was speaking to them from Mars Hill, and he was talking about God, and he said, “He is our heavenly Father, and in Him we live, and move and have our very being.” And Paul goes on to say that we should not think of the Divine Being as being like gold or silver or stone—an image that’s made by man’s design and skill, Acts 17, verse 29.
We should think right about ourselves. We are not the product of “natural selection.” We are not the product of “random chance.” We are special beings, created with purpose and intent, and moreover, created in God’s image, Genesis, chapter 1.
We must think right about others. And what I mean by “others” are the people who are outside of this assembly—the people that we encounter on a day-to-day basis—our neighbors, our co-workers. And the way to think about them would include recognizing and acknowledging that they are wandering and lost in sin, and that they are worthy of our concern and attention. We would be reminded of the great verse, John 3:16, that “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever would believe…” And we should put that into perspective, that “those others” that we encounter are indeed part of that “world,” and they are part of that “whosoever” that God is talking about in John 3:16. Luke 19, verse 10, says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save that which was lost.” And so that’s the right way to think about others. Think of the value that they have, and the potential that they have to be saved and become a part of the kingdom.
We should think right about the church. Jesus told Peter and the other apostles, in Matthew 16, verse 18, “On this rock…”, that is, upon Peter’s confession, “…I will build My church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.” The church is not a manmade institution. It’s not an organization of some kind that has no basis. It’s something that was built by Jesus, and it’s a powerful force…so powerful as a force that even Satan with all of his power and influence will not—cannot—prevail against it.
And we must think right about salvation. It is the free gift of God, and it is found in no one else but Jesus. For as is written in Acts, the fourth chapter, verse 12, “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which men must be saved.”
And so positive living comes from right thinking.
Also, positive living comes from right doing. As I’ve been stressing, positive living is one step beyond positive thinking. And as James tells us in James, the first chapter, and verse 22, “Do not merely listen to the Word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” This, if you will, is the “action phase” of Christianity.
Christianity is not just a feeling. It’s not some kind of mental assent. It is doing. It is acting. It is behaving. It is doing right. And I think the perspective that we need to keep on this is that it has to do with our position as servants. Paul tells us that we should have the same attitude of Christ Jesus. And His attitude was that He made Himself nothing, and took on the nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, Philippians 2:5 and 7.
We must remember, too, that we are known by our fruits. It doesn’t matter who we are. It doesn’t necessarily matter what we know. What really matters is what we do, and this is emphasized and illustrated, again, from the world of agriculture in talking about the produce, or the fruit that is produced by a tree, or by a vine. In John 15, Jesus uses that great analogy of the vine and the branches. And in that analogy, He identifies God as the gardener. He identifies Himself as the vine, and He identifies us as the branches. And He says as long as we remain in the vine, we will bear much fruit. And in Matthew 7, Jesus says that we will be known—we will be recognized for who we are—by the fruit that we bear. And this calls to mind the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.” And I believe it’s true.
Next, positive living comes from positive prayer. Prayer is the “power line” to heaven. Paul tells Timothy that he wants “men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer,” [1 Timothy 2:8]. In that same section of 1 Timothy 2, Paul says, and he urges, “that requests, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for everyone,” [1 Timothy 2:1]. Paul also instructs the church at Thessalonica to “pray without ceasing,” [1 Thessalonians 5:17].
And we must pray with the right attitude. This means praying in faith, Hebrews11, and verse 6. Also, from James 1, beginning with verse 2, James writes, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God Who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him; but when he asks, he must believe, and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” Prayer is our lifeline, and prayer is necessary to positive and joyous living.
Also, positive living comes from positive renewal. This is really the challenge of daily living, I suppose, in some regard. We turn over to Romans, the twelfth chapter and read verses 1 and 2. Paul says, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer yourselves as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s Will is—His good and pleasing and perfect Will.”
All that we are—all that we have—belongs to God. And we must set our minds on things above where Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father. In other words, we should think on heavenly things. And we must renew our minds. Paul tells us in Ephesians 4:23 to “be made new in the attitude of your minds.” And once again (we referred to this passage earlier, but we’ll look at it in its complete context), Philippians 2, beginning with verse 5, Paul says, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
Finally, positive living comes also from positive affirmations. We also get what we say, as well as what we think. I talked about this a number of weeks ago. It had to do with “positive self-talk”—the things that we say to ourselves, those conversations that continually go on in our mind. And we talked about how those things needed to be good things, and positive things, and things that lift up and build up. And I said then, and I’ll say again, that we need to practice repeating promises from God’s Word.
A salesman wrote “I am a good closer” 700 times so that he might implant and impact that thought on his mind. [A salesman who is a good closer is a salesman who is able to speak about a product, and close or complete the sale.] Experts say that to really commit something to memory, and really let it have an impact on your mind, it should be repeated at least 20 times.
Things that we might say to ourselves, things that we might commit to memory and say over and over and over, and impress upon our minds, that would become part of this positive self-talk, would be things like, “All things work together for good for me.” “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” Those are the kinds of things that we can commit to our memory, and then we can repeat them over and over again. And there is power in repetition. Paul tells us, in Philippians, chapter 4, verses 7 through 9, that there are some things that we should think upon. Beginning in verse 7, he says, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.”
I challenge you to affirm these truths often and commit them to memory. God’s Word is powerful. As the Hebrew writer says, “the Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart,” Hebrews 4 and verse 12.
So, in conclusion, let’s remember that each of us chooses how we’ll think and what we’ll think. And the end result of how we think and what we think will be how we act, how we live. And this choice is a constant one which we must regularly make. And we choose our actions because of the thoughts that we have chosen.
Once again, let me ask you, “How much joy is there in your living?” Are you a “POW” [Product of Our World] in the negative sense? If you are, you can escape today. It’s something within your control and your ability to do. And you can experience the great joy of positive living; and brethren, I believe very strongly, and I know you agree with me, that of all the people in this world, we should be the most joyous—we should be the happiest people—because we know God, and His Son, and we realize and understand what He’s done for us, and we’ve accepted Him in obedience, and we look forward to the hope of eternal life.
If you need some assistance in changing your outlook on things, let me just remind you of the points that we have made this evening: The joy of positive living, I think, can be enhanced by positive programming, by right thinking, by right doing, by positive prayer and by positive affirmations. I trust that each of us will strive to be as joyful, to be as happy, to be as glad as we can be in this life as citizens of the great kingdom of God, and as His children.