BELIEVE - Get Your Mind Right

Audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. Welcome to Turning Point Weekend Edition. Christians ought to be the most positive of people, but clearly that isn't the case. Today, Dr David Jeremiah hopes to change that by profiling an inspiring optimist, the Apostle Paul. Here's David to share his message, Believe, Get Your Mind Right.

This is Turning Point. I'm David Jeremiah. We're discussing what it means to move forward in life based on a new book that was just released the earlier part of this month. We've talked about what it means to have a vision and to pray that vision through to the end, to be willing to take risks or express faith. And today, we're going to talk about how important it is that you are a positive believing person.

This is important for all of us who call ourselves Christians, and we begin the discussion right now. I grew up knowing a lot more about doubting than believing. I was raised in a good church, but my church was better known for what it was against than what it was for. At the time I didn't realize how that can affect your outlook. To be sure, there's lots of things we should be against, but that mustn't be our primary focus. It took a while for me to learn that, but praise God, I did, or there's no way I'd be standing up here in front of you doing what I'm doing today. It takes a positive attitude to move forward. As you read that, you may be thinking, oh, oh, Dr. Jeremiah's fallen into the positive thinking trap. No, I'm not.

I know about that pitfall. We should guard against any self-help ideology that pushes God to the sidelines, magnifies human ability, and doesn't tell the whole truth. But there is a positive, hopeful, joyful optimism that is totally biblical, and it comes from Christ alone.

So I want to say this loudly and clearly. You can be a Christian and an optimist at the same time, and you should be. Faith adds a positive power to your life. Just listen to Philippians 4.13. Paul wrote, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I don't know how you listen to that, but that sounds pretty positive to me. The man who wrote those words was an optimist with a capital O. So for the next few minutes, let's sit at the feet of the great apostle and learn his powerful secrets for resilience and optimism and positive belief. By stepping into his story at critical moments, you can understand how he lived such a life, how he was so positive, how his accomplishment happened in his life, even though he had many hardships. It's the only way to plunge forward into the future that God has for you.

You need to learn to be positive. If I were in a big auditorium, I would say, can he get a witness? And everybody would say, amen. So number one, you have to be positive in your convictions. Paul's optimism started with what he believed, with his positive convictions. Now, I don't know if you know what a conviction is, but it's a fixed belief, a deeply held set of certainties that lodges at the center of your mind and heart. Paul's core convictions were the foundation of his incredible life and ministry.

And here's the best part. You can embrace them for yourself. Here are two examples of how to do just that as you move forward toward everything God has in store for you in the next phase of your life. Number one, be positive about God's love for you. The most basic conviction in life is rooted in understanding the nature of God. You see, without a good, powerful, loving, creative, eternal God, there's no reason to be optimistic. Consider Paul's words in Romans chapter 8, verses 38 and 39.

Consider the reasons for optimism packed into this passage. Not only is God real, but he loves us. And not only does he love us, but nothing we might ever experience can ever separate us from that love. The 10 things that Paul lists in these verses I just read could each one of them be a potential barrier between God and you. But Paul says with absolute assurance that none of them can ever separate you from God's love. The powerful words in Romans 8 about God's love are reinforced by a blessing Paul offered toward the end of the same book. It became a favorite verse for many people I know, especially for those who are going through difficult times in their lives.

Here's that promise. I'd like to suggest that you pray those words aloud every day, every noon, every morning, every evening until you know them by heart. That prayer can adjust your mindset in any given season of life, deepen your core convictions, strengthen your belief. Hope and optimism can become your everyday attitude. So be positive about God's love for you. And then secondly, be positive about God's plan for you. The apostle Paul constantly referred to the future. He put the past behind him. He strained forward toward what was ahead. And even when he was near death, Paul was excited about the future.

Think of it. While waiting on death row for his martyrdom, he was eager for tomorrow. The last known letter Paul wrote was to his friend Timothy, and it was written from a prison in Rome where he awaited certain death. Listen to what he said in the final chapter of his final book. For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought the good fight.

I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but also to all who have loved his appearing. Paul, you see, had an incredible perspective on living and dying.

Some years before, he kind of expressed that to the Philippians. In these words, he said, for to me, living means living for Christ, and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ, so I really don't know which is better. I am torn between the two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me.

But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. Perhaps Paul's remarkable perspective flowed from the time he was caught up to heaven and glimpsed the glories that were waiting for him up there. We have a blessing Paul didn't have. We have the book of Revelation, which was written after Paul's death. The final two chapters of that book describe the heavenly home where we are going to spend eternity. It's in great detail in Revelation 21 and 22, and the more we study these chapters, the more excited we become about tomorrow. As a follower of Christ, I'm ready to die and willing to live.

But either case, I can't wait to see what God's going to do next. I am positive about my convictions. If you want to have the mental attitude to be able to dream and to believe, you need to get your mind right. And when you get your mind right, you will have positive convictions. Now let me say something else. Along with positive convictions, you need to develop positive conversations. Let's talk about talking.

If you're positive in your core convictions, then you'll literally become more positive in the way you talk. In recent years, I've been working out with Todd Durkin at his gym. Fitness Quest number 10.

It's near my home in San Diego, and it's one of America's best gyms. Todd is more than a trainer. He's a dedicated Christian who speaks motivationally to large numbers of people. His upcoming book is entitled Get Your Mind Right. I'm not surprised by that title because whenever anyone walks into Todd's gym, they're greeted with a shout, get your mind right.

I need it. Getting out of bed, heading to the gym is no easy task every day. But an uplifting greeting and a positive shout really does improve your spirits. What does it mean to be positive in your conversations?

Number one, speak positively to yourself. Sometimes we have no one to encourage us at the break of day, so we have to speak to ourselves. We have to say something like Psalm 118, verse 24. This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Try saying that over and over throughout the day. This is the day the Lord has made, and I will rejoice and be glad in it. Outside of praying, your most important words are the words that you say to yourself. These words are silent, but they're significant. Pop psychologists call this positive self-talk, but I'm going to skip the trends and go straight to the scripture. My thesis, remember, involves Paul's example to us. So did Paul ever talk to himself? He said he strove to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. He said, for in my inner being, I delight in God's love and in his law. He said, I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he's able to keep what I've committed to him against that day. And as we've observed and learned, he also said, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I recall preaching a sermon years ago on how to handle negative thoughts.

I still remember my outline. Here's what you do with negative thoughts. Don't curse them, don't nurse them, don't rehearse them, but disperse them.

That's still a pretty good formula. Push out your negative thoughts, worry and anxiety, fear and pessimism, by filling up your mind with God's scripture, especially his promises, and then preach those promises to yourself. Psalm 42, the psalmist said to himself, why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him, the help of my countenance and my God. What was David doing? He was preaching to himself. He was saying to himself, what's wrong with you, David? Why are you cast down? And why are you disquieted?

What's wrong with you? And then he said, I'm going to hope in God, and he gave himself a little sermon. We don't know the author of Psalm 42, but we're pretty sure it was King David, because he knew how to preach to himself whenever he needed to do it. As a younger man, he went through a lot of debilitating experiences while he was waiting to be the king, and he had a lot of things happen to him. One time, he ran into a disastrous problem in a little village called Ziklag. His family and the families of his men, his soldiers, had been kidnapped, and even his own men were turning on him. He was their leader, and they were talking about stoning him to death. So what did David do? He preached to himself. The Bible says in 1 Samuel 30, verse 6, that David, watch this, strengthened himself in the Lord. Why did he have to strengthen himself? Because there was nobody around to help strengthen him. He didn't have any men strengthen him.

His buddies had all turned against him. The enemies were out to kill him, but David knew something that we all need to know. When everyone else forsakes you, God never will, and you can strengthen yourself in the Lord.

And in that strength, David rose up to tackle his problems, and he had a positive spirit that came from his belief in God and God's care for his life. So speak positively to yourself. That's a strange thing to say to many modern Christians, because it sounds like heresy or something that shouldn't even be included in a Biblical sermon.

But I only give it to you because it's in the Scripture. Not only speak positively to yourself, speak positively to others. Learn to talk to yourself instead of listening to yourself. Learn to preach to yourself. Learn to encourage yourself in the Lord. It will change the way you speak to others. That's one of the keys. If once you start to talk to yourself right, then you can start to talk to others right.

Your mood and message will be different, even when things are going badly. This was another of Paul's secrets. Once he was caught in a vicious storm with a terrified crew on a sinking ship. The typhoon threatened to rip the ship into matchsticks, and even the captain gave up hope of survival. But Paul rallied their spirits.

In the midst of that tragedy, he stood up and he said, Keep up your courage, men, for I have faith in God. The storm grew worse. It was the deadliest storm these sailors had ever seen, and there were 276 people on board. Two weeks of unbearable strain had drained this crew to their last drops of hope, and none of them could eat or rest because the knights would just captivate them. They couldn't sleep.

In Acts chapter 27, here's what we read. Just before dawn, Paul urged them all to eat. For the last 14 days, he said, you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food. You haven't eaten anything. Now I urge you to take up some food. You need it to survive.

Not one of you will lose a single hair from your head. After this, he said, he took some bread and he gave thanks to God in front of them all, and he broke it, and they began to eat, and they were all encouraged. Do you know anybody in your life who, in the midst of what you're going through, can impart positive things like that to you?

You know what we mostly do? I remember when I was going through cancer years ago, the things people would say to me would just be unbelievable. They knew what kind of cancer I had. They would tell me their uncle had that cancer, and he died. That was supposed to encourage me?

I finally got to the place where I would say, if I saw them starting down that road, look, hey, wait a minute. If this story doesn't have a happy ending, I don't want to hear it. I don't need that.

I need people to encourage me and help me and take care of me, the power of an attitude that is absolutely biblical and biblically positive. Do we need that now? I mean, we're in the midst of a terrible pandemic, and if we're not careful, that's all we watch on television. That's all we talk about to our friends.

That's all we discuss in our small groups. That's all we read about, and before we know it, we're just overwhelmed, like there's no positive news out there, but I tell you there is. Sometimes I think we need to just shut it all off, put it all away, and just say, I'm going to just walk with God today and get rid of all of this negativity that's everywhere. You see, the more we talk about our troubles, the more we rehearse and reinforce them, the more we spread the pessimism that's endemic to our culture. So instead, focus on others, spread optimism, help those around you take courage, help them believe.

Ephesians 4 29 says, let everything you say be good and helpful so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them. It was a cold day back in 1990, a Boeing 707 with 159 passengers crashed on a remote wooded hillside in Long Island. The plane actually broke into two sections, and the nose of the aircraft rested on the deck of a terrified elderly couple's home.

The scene was indescribable. Debris was everywhere, oxygen masks hanging on trees, people screaming, babies crying, and fear that the aircraft could burst into flames at any time. Emergency workers, nearby neighbors, local volunteers rushed to the scene, and they began trying to rescue survivors. Ordinary citizens worked alongside the police officers, and physicians came to pull people from the aircraft, separate the living from the dead, and save the lives of the injured.

One of the rescuers was Joan Imhoff, who later described the strain of the scene that unfolded hour after hour. Joan remembered a strange, strengthening camaraderie that instantly united the workers. People would pass each other, she said, and reach out and take a hand for a moment, or they would look at each other, make a brief comment, and then move on.

Sometimes they would embrace or nod, then continue applying bandages or moving bodies to a makeshift morgue. People needed that brief but meaningful contact to continue working with determination, just to touch others and see others, and know they cared what was going on was rejuvenating. I want to say to you, men and women, our world is wrecked, and as we work together to accomplish what God wants us to do, the last thing we need are endless critics. Instead, we need the camaraderie of Christ-centered people who say what is good and helpful so our words will be an encouragement to so many.

We need people who believe and who inspire belief. So be positive in your convictions. Be positive in your conversations. Be positive in your crises. Only after you've learned to be positive in your conviction and your conversation can you learn to be positive even during things that are hard. During times of conflict and crisis, optimism shines like the sun piercing the clouds. That was true for our hero, the apostle Paul.

Listen again to what he said. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, shall distress, persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are counted as sheep for the slaughter, yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Let me take just a moment and unpack that passage. The apostle Paul lists seven persecutions he had constantly experienced.

It felt like being killed all day long. And then he said this. But in all of this he said, I am more than a conqueror. The phrase more than a conqueror is the translation of a Greek word that reads like this, hypernickelman. The word N-I-K is in the middle of the word. It's the word Nike, believe it or not. Nike is the Greek word for victory, which is why that shoe company uses it.

It means overcomer. And look at the first part of the word, hyper. You know the term hyper. When you talk about your kid being hyper, he's over the top. If you see somebody that you work with, they're hyper.

They're out of control. So Paul said, in the midst of all these problems, these seven things that come to me, I am hyper victorious. I am not just a conqueror. I am more than a conqueror. He didn't just overcome his difficulties.

No, he was more than a conqueror. Back in the early 90s, when I was just getting started in the ministry, someone gave me a book by a guy named Martin Seligman. And the title of the book was Learned Optimism. Over the years, I've read that book more than a few times because believe it or not, sometimes the things that happen in churches and ministries can really get you headed in a negative direction, and you need help to get back. So often I've pulled that book down off the shelf and just read portions of it. It's underlined with notes in almost every margin. I love that book.

It's not a Christian book, but it's a good book. And Dr. Seligman said this about being positive. He said, the optimists and the pessimists, I've been studying them for 25 years. The defining characteristic of pessimists is that they tend to believe bad events will last for a long time, will undermine everything they do and are their own fault. The optimists who are confronted with the same hard knocks of this world think about misfortune in the opposite way. They tend to believe defeat is just a temporary setback and its causes are confined to this one case and such people are unfazed by defeat, confronted by a bad situation.

They look at it as a challenge and they try harder. In other words, he said, if you want to know if you're an optimist or a pessimist, trouble and difficulty will help you sort it out. And so I want you to know on the authority of the scripture and because of the love of Jesus Christ that you can be an overcomer.

You can believe in him, you can trust him, and you can be positive in your convictions. You can be positive in your conversations you can be positive in your crisis. And finally, here's the best one of all, you can be positive in your countenance, in your face. Your mood is always reflected in your countenance.

Did you know that? When optimism is in your heart, a joyful countenance is on your face. Someone said, what's down in the well comes up in the pale. Unfortunately, I don't have a photograph of the apostle Paul. So I can't prove his face was radiant.

But who can doubt it? His smile and positive attitude infiltrated his writings. For example, he told the Corinthians one time this. He said, and we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory which comes from the Lord who is the spirit.

I want to tell you something that is really interesting to me, something you may or may not know. But according to the Association for Psychological Science, a University of Kansas study found an incredible link between smiling and the ability to recover from difficult things in your life. Did you know there are two kinds of smiles? There are standard smiles which use the muscles of your mouth. And there are genuine or Duchenne smiles which engage the muscles around both your mouth and your eyes. And the real key is your eyes.

Now, I have to tell you how special this is at this particular time. Everybody's wearing a mask, so you can't see their mouth. But if you know what I'm just telling you, you can tell whether people are smiling or not. I was in the store the other day checking out with my wife some groceries. And that girl was in there.

She was packing everything. She had on a mask. And I just stopped her and I said, you have the most incredible smile. She says, how do you know that? You have a Duchenne smile. She had no clue what that was, but she felt so much better.

And you know what? When you smile because of what God is doing in your life, it takes over all of the features of your face. You smile with your mouth and you smile with your eyes. In the study, participants who learned how to smile were subjected to stressful tasks like they would submerge their hands in frigid water.

Some were told to smile and others were given chopsticks to hold in their teeth so they couldn't smile. The results showed that those who were told to smile, and especially those who smiled with their eyes, had a lower physical response to the stress, a higher degree of happiness, and a quicker rate of recovery. Well, long before psychologists studied Duchenne smiles, here's what the psalmist said.

He said they looked at him and were radiant and their faces were not ashamed. Ecclesiastes 8.1 says, a person's wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance. That inner wisdom comes from believing. It's not believing in positive thinking or the power of a positive attitude.

It isn't even believing in ourselves. True optimism, men and women, comes from biblical convictions about the nature of God. It comes from knowing that he loves you, that he has an exciting plan that is uniquely yours. It comes from quoting Scripture to yourself, reminding yourself and others of his goodness and of the incredible future he has for those who trust him. A firm belief in the God of Scripture will bear you through the crisis of life, put joy on your face.

Your faith makes you radiant. You know, one of the things I've always loved about my friend who's my trainer, he asked me one day how I would describe him, and I said, Todd, here's what you do. You train us from the inside out. In other words, we start out inwardly getting our minds right, getting our heart right, getting positive, and then that takes everything that we do under control. So I just want to tell you, men and women, that you can be positive. It's right to be positive. Good Christians are positive. We need positive Christian optimists.

We need people who walk around looking like Jesus really is everything that they say he is and that he's making a difference in their lives. Believing and getting your mind right requires you to stay positive in your convictions, even amid your crisis. The same is true if you want to move forward, so anchor yourself in the hope of Jesus Christ. Cling to the promises of the Bible, determined by God's grace that you're going to keep your mind buoyant and your soul unsinkable, even in the storms. I don't know where we're going in all of the things we've been experiencing, men and women. I don't know how long this is going to last.

I don't know if it's going to come back, but what I know is I can't control that. I can't control what's happening out there, but there is a little space I do have some control of, and it's the space of my heart and mind, and the Bible tells me that if I fill my heart and my mind with God's truth, that gives me the greatest advantage to come through whatever stress I'm going through and stay positive with my hands up high. That's my prayer for all of us, that we won't let the storm we're in right now bury us under its debris, but we will stand up in the power of Jesus Christ and say with Paul, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We hope you enjoyed today's Turning Point Weekend edition with Dr David Jeremiah. To hear this and other Turning Point programs, or to get more information about this ministry, simply download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smart device, or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio. You can also view Turning Point television on free to air channel seven two, Sunday mornings at eight, and on ACC TV, Sundays at 6.30 a.m. and Friday afternoons at one. We invite you to join us again next weekend as Dr David Jeremiah shares another powerful message from God's word here on Turning Point Weekend edition. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au