The Awesome, Incredible Power of Negative Thinking

Good afternoon. Happy Sabbath, all of you. Special thanks to Zach and Emily for very beautiful, special music. Sorry to see that the guitar has a mold problem, but I'm sure you'll be able to get all that mold off in the future. Also, I want to give a special thanks to Mr. Pachinger, because thanks to him today, we will not require the need of a different song leader for 20-30 years. So, Mr. Pachinger, thank you so much.

Well, good afternoon once again. I don't usually give my messages a title, because it gives a person an early opportunity to tune out if they don't like the title or if it sounds like the topic doesn't interest them. However, this afternoon I'd like to give my title right up front. I'm going to step out on faith and tell you right up front what this sermon is about. The title of the sermon is, The Awesome, Incredible Power of Negative Thinking. Have you ever seriously considered the wonderful benefits of having a negative attitude? I'd like to give you some things to think about today, because a negative attitude can exalt an incredible force in your life and have a powerful impact in every area of your world, including your personality, your surroundings, your family, your business or career, your church. It is powerful. It's effective, like a dark cloud or an aura that seems to permeate virtually everything. So for that reason, I'd like to look at seven benefits of negative thinking and hopefully convince you today why you should become a negative thinker. Here's number one. It will keep you from recognizing missed opportunities. You will rarely complain that you failed to miss an opportunity because you will not recognize them, even if God himself provided one that could greatly benefit you. That's one reason. Here's another benefit. A negative attitude helps you to wait for the right timing to do anything that is uncomfortable in your life, like changing your life. It warns you to hesitate. Wait for more facts before you decide. Isn't it better to procrastinate and do nothing before the timing is exactly right? You'll be able to put off things that you could be doing right now because it isn't the best time to do it. You'll be able to stay in a rut, and this will encourage more negativity that will keep the cycle going over and over again. Doesn't that sound beneficial?

Number three, a negative attitude will help you to concentrate on all the obstacles in life. You will rarely be surprised by meeting an unexpected problem or roadblock because you've already experienced it a dozen times in your head before it actually happened. Think of the benefits of that. Here's another benefit. With a negative attitude, you won't waste your time doing things about growing within yourself or developing your strengths. After all, what are those against all the problems that exist in the world today? Instead of wasting your energies on that, you'll be able to focus on your weaknesses and the weaknesses that exist within other people.

Here's number five. A negative attitude will open your eyes to other people's ulterior motives. You'll be able to read their minds and just know about their craftiness, their deviousness, and judge their other problems. It will help you to develop a spirit of suspiciousness when you observe others. You'll be able to develop mental fences and to keep other people out. Few people will be able to come in from the outside and truly get to know you. Number six. With a negative attitude, you won't need to be burdened by attaining lasting happiness or fulfillment because your emotional resources are drained.

They're consumed by constant judging. It will allow you to become frustrated, stressed, and tired, leaving you little energy for anything else. It allows you to blame your personal problems on people or organizations. They will be the reason that you can't find contentment. It just makes it so easy. And then number seven. A negative attitude will help you to have trouble accepting and respecting others because you don't love or respect yourself. You won't have to waste your time by having many close friends. You won't need to invest time to develop positive, healthy relationships.

Those are the seven benefits of having a negative attitude. I didn't see a lot of people taking notes for some reason, but those are the benefits. So how do we develop a negative attitude? An attitude is simply a habit of thought. A lot of things resulted in the way that we think today, whether it's good or bad. First of all, it's DNA, a little bit of our personality we were born with. We kind of have that inclination. And any of you, like myself, who've had a number of children know that they are different from the day that they come out of the womb.

They have different personalities that are embedded in their DNA the moment they are born. But that's not all. Our attitudes were developed by how we were raised, by our family, our neighborhood, the media, our parents, the schools we attend to, our religious heritage. All of these create a pattern of conditioning. Again, an attitude is a habit of thought. We think away, we want to conform within our family, our school, our society, and we think that way a little time.

We think that way again, we think that way again, and then it becomes an established habit of the way that we naturally react to things in the world. How we react to changes in our environment, how we react to other people. What is the difference between the negative and a positive attitude? The difference is choice. It's just that simple. We can choose to be what we would desire by changing our attitude.

Again, an attitude is simply a habit of thought. We have been conditioned to think the way that we do. The encouraging news from God's Word is that we can be reconditioned. We can change the habit of thought just like we were originally conditioned. We can change who we are. We can choose to be different. We can think about things with spaced repetition, positive good things, and become reconditioned to automatically think and act in a certain way. Now, why is this so difficult? Certainly difficult for me, and I'm going to assume that maintaining a positive attitude is difficult for you.

What do psychologists say the average percentage or ratio of negative thinking is the positive thinking? The answer is they believe that up to 80% of what goes through our head is negative thinking. And that's why being positive is a constant, ongoing battle. You turn on the news and what do you hear? You usually hear the blues. You hear the local news, all the murders and muggings and the local Cleveland stations. Or you turn to one of the cable news and you hear about how rotten and vile our politics are. We just live in a very negative world in many, many ways.

Being positive is a constant, ongoing battle. If 80% of our thinking is negative, then we attract negatives to our life. There's a spiritual law called the law of attraction. And the law of attraction says that we draw towards us what we think about. If we think negatively, we draw towards us events that become negative. We draw towards us people that become negative. If we think about positive things, the law of attraction says we draw towards us. We attract in our lives events that become positive, people that are positive. Dr. Shad Helmstetter said in his book, What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, he said this, and I quote, Leading behavioral researchers have told us that as much as 75% of everything we think is negative, counterproductive, and works against us.

In other words, most of what goes through our heads makes us unhappy. It limits the joy that God wants us to have in our lives. Now, let's go and look at a classic Scripture that highlights what I've been talking about to this point in Numbers chapter 13. What are the most remarkable stories in the Old Testament about a group of individuals who were given a task?

And this task was to go and spy out the Promised Land. And we're going to see how influential a negative attitude has, and how it can oftentimes even overwhelm a positive attitude. We're going to see how individuals can see the exact same things. See it, smell it, taste it, hear it, and come to different conclusions depending on what their attitudes are. Let's go to Numbers chapter 13, and let's pick it up here in verse 1. It says, God says, I'm bringing you an opportunity, a gift. But it's your choice whether to take advantage of that opportunity and gift or to let it go by.

And one of the fallacies of many people think about Numbers 13 is that they were just merely spies. These weren't spies that were sent out. These were the leaders of each of the tribes. These were the people that were expected to be the leaders for the organization. People were looking up to them. Everyone a leader among them. So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Peran according to the commandment of the Lord. All of them men who were heads of the children of Israel. See, these are not mere scouts. These are the leaders of the tribes, the brightest and the best that Israel had to offer. Verse 16, we won't read all of the names individually. Verse 16, these are the names of the men whom Moses went to spy out in the land. And Moses called Koshiah, the son of Nun Joshua. Then Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them, Get up this way into the south and go up to the mountain and see what the land is like. Whether the people who dwell in it are strong or weak, few are many. Whether the land they dwell in is good or bad. Whether the cities they inhabit are like camps or strongholds. Whether the land is rich or poor. Whether there are forests or there are not. Be of good courage. That's the advice Moses gives them.

And bring back some of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the season of the first right grapes. So they went up and spied out the land from the wilderness of Zind as far as Rehob near the entrance of Hamath. And they went up through the south and came to Hebron, a highman, Shishai, Talmai, the descendants of Anak were there. Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan and Egypt. Picking it up in verse 23. Then they came to the valley of Ashgol and there they cut down a branch with one cluster of grapes and they carried it between two of them in a pole. Can you imagine how big that cluster of grapes must have been? Two individuals carrying these poles and sandwiched between these poles must have been a humongous cluster of grapes. Unbelievable. I've never personally seen grapes that large.

And let's pick it up here now. In verse 24, the place was called the Valley of Ashgol because of the cluster which the men of Israel cut down there. Thank you. Verse 25, and they returned from spying out the land after forty days. You know what forty days is? That's the biblical number of testing, the time of testing.

Think about Christ before He confronted Satan. Verse 26, now they departed and came back to Moses and Aaron and all the congregation at the children of Israel from the wilderness of Peran at Kadesh. And they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. Then they told him and said, We went to the land where you sent us. It truly flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. The opening statement to the very first words that come out of the mouth of the twelve, the only thing they're unanimous on, but something happens.

Out of the twelve, who saw the exact same thing, smelled, touched, felt, heard, the exact same circumstances, ten of them a switch goes on in their heads and they become negative. Two of them continue to maintain a can-do, positive attitude about what they saw.

Verse 28, Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land are strong. The cities are fortified and very large. Moreover, we saw the descendants of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south. The Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains and the Canaanites by the sea and along the banks of the Jordan.

Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses. Caleb sees that a herd mentality is beginning to form within the nation and he tries to intervene. He says, Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are able to do it.

But the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of Israel a bad report of the land, which they had spied out, saying, The land through which we have gone is spies, is of the land that devours its inhabitants.

Doesn't that sound so? What does that mean? I mean, was there a quicksand? Was Joe walking along? You swallowed up by the earth? What does that mean? Now we're coming to one of my favorite parts. And all the people whom we saw in the men were great stature. There we saw the giants, the descendants of Anak came from the giants. And we were like grasshoppers in our own sight. What does that tell you a little bit about their self-image, their feeling of personal worth? Now let's look at this logically. Have you ever picked up a grasshopper? I have, as a little boy. I used to collect them in jars all the time and forget about them. And I hear my mother go, AHHH! Because she discovered dead grasshoppers in a jar three months later, either in my pants' pockets or something.

But I'm going to say, conservatively, that a human being is probably a thousand times bigger than a grasshopper. Right? So here's their comparison. We were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so were we in their sight. Now, is that maybe a slight exaggeration because of a negative attitude? Had you ever seen a thousand-foot human being? They've never discovered the bones or skeleton of a thousand-foot human being. I mean, granted. Let's say that the average Israelite was male, was four foot ten, five foot tall. Let's say that the giants were seven and a half foot tall. That's certainly large in stature. But in no way does that make one a grasshopper in the other's sight. It's an exaggeration because that's what a negative attitude is forced to do. That's one of the negative qualities of it. So again, we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. Chapter 14. So the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept to that night, and the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron. And the whole congregation has said to them, and this may sound familiar because this is like the third time that they've sing-sung this poetry, If only we had died in the land of Egypt! If only we had died in the wilderness! Why has God brought us here in the land to fall by the sword? And our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt? So they said to one another, Let us select a leader and return to Egypt. And then Moses and Aaron fell in their faces before the assembly of the congregation of Israel. But Joshua the son of Nun and Caleb the son of Jephana, who were among those who had spied out the land, tore their clothes, and they spoke to all the congregation of Israel, saying, The land we pass through to spy out is an exceedingly good land.

Are we sure that all twelve people saw the same thing here? If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into the land and give up to us a land that flows with milk and honey. Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread.

Ten say, Oh, we're just like little grasshoppers compared to these big broods. Two of them say, Look, we can tear them apart. It's like taking a piece of bread and going, And then you eat it, one chunk at a time. That's what they are compared to us. All saw the same events, smelled, tasted, heard, the same situations. They come to two diametrically opposite conclusions. Why? Because very much like the psychologists and the percentage that they said in our population today, Out of twelve, ten had negative attitudes and orientations, and only two had positive attitudes and orientations.

Continuing, He says, For they are our bread, their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them. And that's one of the traits of having a negative attitude, is fearfulness. Being afraid of things that are different, things that are new, things that are challenging. Being afraid to crawl out of the rut. So what are some of the lessons of this biblical attitude?

Well, some of the lessons of what we read here is that God gives an opportunity to Israel to enter the Promised Land. This is a gift for them to accept or refuse. How many opportunities has God put in our lives, and we didn't even recognize or acknowledge it as an opportunity, because we had a negative attitude?

How many gifts has God tried to give us throughout our lives, and we pushed the gift away because it would have required us to think a new thought? Do something a little differently than the daily routine. Step out on faith. How many times has this happened to us as individuals? Another lesson is that Moses chose 12 recognized leaders to spy out the land.

They weren't mere scouts, but heads of each tribe. And for 40 days, which is the biblical number of testing, as mentioned in Numbers 13.25, they all went through the exact same test. But some passed the test with marvelous flying colors, and unfortunately, some failed the test miserably. Only two chose to have positive attitudes, Joshua and Caleb.

Another lesson is even the 10 who are negative about taking the land admit the first thing that comes out of their mouth is that it is bountiful. The land has fruit and milk and honey, and then a switch flips in their minds. The difference is that they quickly disregard the positive, and they choose to focus on the negatives of what they saw.

And sadly, like a virus, the negative attitudes of just 12 individuals influence a nation of millions. Very powerful, as I said earlier, about the powerful influence of having a negative attitude. Now, I started this sermon with a tongue-in-cheek attempt to promote negative thinking. Obviously, I was trying a different approach to reach some of us and to bring home a clear biblical concept. There aren't any pluses to having a negative attitude.

There are no benefits, none, zero, nada, to having a negative attitude. It is imperative that we begin to make the choice to be positive. Here, I want to just quickly, and we'll look at these in more detail as we go through some scriptures, some contrast between possessing a negative attitude between a positive and a positive attitude. For example, a person with a negative attitude is helpless. They are always a victim. There's always an obstacle, either up here and sometimes even a real one, where a person with a positive attitude believes that they're becoming competent, that God gave them the most powerful gift that any human being could possess.

We call it the Holy Spirit, the very same power that, at God's command, fashioned. All of the atoms and everything that we see in this physical world now resides in us and makes us competent and able to do anything. A negative attitude always engenders fear. Something's always not good enough. It's not enough. Where a positive attitude is one of courage. I can face anything. I can do any challenge. With God behind me, I can achieve anything that I need or that God's will says that I should achieve. There are no obstacles. A negative attitude says the most important thing is security.

Stay in the rut. Stay comfortable. Don't rock the boat. Where a positive attitude says it's worth taking prudent risks to become better, to develop myself in the way that God wants me to. It takes prudent risks to see a gift out there and make the effort to reach out and take that gift or take that opportunity to make our lives better. With a negative attitude, there's always a herd mentality. I'll sit back and wait for others to decide, and then I'll form an opinion.

That's what a lot of our politicians do. Someone comes in every morning and says, here's the latest opinion polls. Well, I need to quit saying this because this isn't popular anymore. Well, I'll have to lie in reverse and say that I now believe that this is important and popular. So with a negative attitude, it's always a herd mentality compared to a positive attitude that demonstrates personal leadership. If I'm only two of twelve and I know that something is right, then I'm not going to let the herd sway my thinking. I'm not going to let the herd change my values. I want to ask a question, and this relates to either having a positive attitude or a negative attitude.

Do we live in a mental prison or do we live in a palace? How do you live? Do you live in one or the other? You're either living in a mental prison or you're living in a palace. It's by our choice that we live in one or the other. Being a prisoner means that we view life with scarcity. There's never enough. Therefore, we have to be competitive because blessings somehow are measured and they're limited. Good things are limited. Therefore, the world is scarce and we have to compete for them. It's like being in a dungeon. Our thoughts are chained by fear and doubt and restriction. Can't do this. Can't do that. Nope, I've never tried that before.

Nope, I'm afraid of that. Now, living in a palace is like having an open space, lots of room, with abundance and being in a world of creativity and brightness and joy. And every one of us either lives in a mental prison or we live in a palace. If our thinking is negative, it's because we've been conditioned to think negatively. And besides that, we choose to continue to think the way that we are. We can be reconditioned. It takes work. It takes a lot of effort. But we can be reconditioned. Our choice today is to hold on tightly to the status quo or allow God's Holy Spirit to help us to leap forward. Positive thinking affects what you hear when you're listening or watching events.

And as we saw here in the book of Numbers, it's unbelievable how a person with a positive attitude or a negative attitude interprets the same event. Did you know that psychologists have established a disease that they diagnose as excessive happiness? Now, this is true. I even went to Google. I didn't believe it when I first read it. I went to Google and I checked it out. And there actually is a disease that's diagnosed as excessive happiness. Now, what is excessive happiness as a diagnosis? Well, it's diagnosed as someone who just won't, doesn't seem to face the reality of just how miserable they should be. In other words, if something terrible happens to you, it is natural to feel miserable.

It's natural to be negative most of the time. Eighty-five or eighty percent of the time. And if you're not, then there must be something wrong with you. You laugh too much. You smile too much. You obviously are living in denial because everyone else around you is crying and whining and complaining and are a victim. And you are not doing that. I'd like to read to you, and this is just a short article, the story of a remarkable man named Art Berg.

And this came from a newsletter I get called The Unlimited Times. And I'll read this, and I want you to think of the kind of attitude that Art Berg had that helped him to achieve the things that he did. I think it's rather remarkable. It says, Art Berg was actually diagnosed by his doctor with a successive happiness disorder. Here's how it happened. In 1983, Art's neck was broken in a serious automobile accident. It left him a quadriplegic at the age of twenty-one.

Prior to the accident, Art had been an amazing athlete and too many sports to even mention. He was engaged to be married to his beautiful high school sweetheart, but at the blink of an eye in December 26th to 1983, everything in Art's life changed forever. Art Berg moved on with his new life in a wheelchair as a quadriplegic with very limited use of his arms and no use of his legs, feet, or fingers.

He got a job as a computer salesman, earned national sales awards, married his childhood sweetheart, and had three beautiful healthy children.

Then he became an award-winning professional speaker. In fact, he spoke two hundred times a year, traveled all over the world alone, wrote three books, and was inducted into the speaker's Hall of Fame.

He was a competitive wheelchair rugby player and set a world record by becoming the very first quadriplegic to race in an ultra-marathon of three hundred and twenty-five miles. Think of that, three hundred and twenty-five miles in a wheelchair.

It was not until ten years later that Art's excessive happiness diagnosis was revealed. This is Art's account of his own words and how he discovered it.

A few years ago, the hospital where I did my rehab contacted me to let me know that they were going to purge their records of any data that was more than ten years old.

They gave me the option of paying the postage to have the medical data from my four-month stay in the hospital mailed to me, and I jumped at the chance.

A few weeks later, a package arrived that was thick and bulging from the reams of paperwork. For several hours, I read through the reports. It was fascinating. First, it refreshed some old memories.

Second, it gave me the perspective of the hospital staff, the doctors, the nurses, the complications, medications, doctor's notes, and my case manager's recommendations. For years, I had been curious about something.

During much of my hospital stay, my doctor kept sending psychiatrists to see me. At one time, my doctor had separated me from a room I shared with several other spinal cord injury patients, and I was given my own room.

I certainly wasn't complaining, but it did seem odd to me at the time. And right there in the middle of this massive medical journal, I found the reason. Diagnosis, excessive happiness.

Yes, my medical condition was actually diagnosed as excessive happiness. The doctor noted that I laughed too much. I was in too good of a mood too much of the time.

I never knew there was such a disorder, Art said. The doctor noted in my record that my excessive happiness was keeping me in a state of denial about my condition.

In addition, he felt the problem was exasperated by, in his words, a loving family. His solution was to do several things. His solutions were actually written in the medical records. Here they are.

Number one, keep me in psychiatric counseling.

Number two, isolate me from other patients. Can you imagine that? You certainly wouldn't want this disease inflicting other spinal cord injury patients, would you?

You wouldn't want them to be more positive, more happy, more fulfilled, more of a can-do approach to achieve one-tenth of the things that Art did in his lifetime.

And number three, and personally this hurts me the most. And number three, limit my exposure to my family and friends.

See, the doctors looked at them as co-enablers that were trying to push this disease on him.

Continuing Art said, excessive happiness? Yes. I'm still gratefully suffering from it today, and that's why I think I'm qualified to share my perspective on what causes such a grave disease.

And here are five points that he came to the conclusion of after reading this.

One, happiness is a choice we make every day.

Two, happiness is not a condition of our circumstances or external influences. It is a state of heart and mind.

Three, happiness comes most often when we focus on solving other people's problems as opposed to thinking only of our own.

We, of course, know that New Testament has a lot to say about that.

Four, happiness isn't what we have or who we are. It's feeling valuable and worthy, regardless of our station in life.

And five, he said, happiness is within everyone's reach.

And here's the final sentence in this article by the man who wrote it.

Art really was always happy whenever I saw him. His medical condition was never healed.

On February 19, 2002, the day Art Berg left this world at 40 years of age, he was, as always, excessively happy. Now, only in our world could people who demonstrate through choice to look even to the most excruciating difficulties in life with a positive and happy attitude, could they be diagnosed with a disease. And why? Because it's not normal to be that way. It's normal to whine and pine. It's normal to make ourselves a martyr.

It's normal to make ourselves victims, no matter what our station or situation is in life.

No other habit we develop can have a greater impact on how our life will end up than that of having an attitude that's positive, that's encouraging.

So I'd like to look at some scriptures and see how possessing a positive attitude really is.

Now, I know, having been in the ministry for many, many years and serving in the Church of God for many years, that it is possible for two individuals to read the same scriptures.

One may have a positive bent, one may have a negative bent, though it's the exact same scriptures, it's the exact same words, usually from the exact same translation.

But I'm going to read some scriptures today that I find very positive. Romans 8 and verse 14, if you'll turn there with me, Romans 8 and verse 14 will start there.

I believe that the apostles followed the example of Jesus Christ and were extremely positive people.

Now, does that mean that there weren't times when they needed to chew out the congregation in writing? Of course they did.

When they verbally needed to correct, sometimes with very harsh language, people who had committed grave sins and errors or heresies or sexual immorality, as in the case of 1 Corinthians 5, they did. But over and above all, I believe that you could not be an individual who would constantly be traveling and march into a strange city, not knowing if you were going to be welcomed or stoned every day, unless you maintained a positive can-do attitude about your life.

It would have been impossible to continue day after day if you thought, oh, this city, this is going to do it this time. This time I know I'm going to get stoned. This time I know I'm going to be murdered.

Why? I can just see that group of people now condemning me in the city center. They didn't think like that.

They got up every day with energy and enthusiasm and faced the risks.

They looked at it as a challenge, as a gift of God to preach the gospel to these people who had never heard it.

Let's take a look at what Paul says here in Romans chapter 8 and verse 14.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Do you know how powerful that statement is?

It doesn't say, these might be the sons of God someday. These will be the sons of God. These can be the sons of God.

It says, these are positive. Now, these are the sons of God.

For you did not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear. Fear is a prison. It's a shackle. It holds us back.

It's a form of bondage. And he said, you didn't receive God's Spirit, so you could go back to the negativity that you had before you were called.

Continuing, but you received the Spirit of adoption, not bondage, not fear, to whom we cry out, Abba, an affectionate term for Daddy, our spiritual father, Papa.

Verse 16, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that, again, just so there's no mistake, we are present tense now, the children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time... Anybody going through sufferings this present time? I know I am.

I have a couple of crosses that I'm dragging around, spiritually speaking, not physically speaking. They'd have to be like toothpicks. So, very speaking, I have some burdens that I'm dealing with and struggling with.

But He says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to compare with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. They're here. He said, we are now the sons of God, but the rest of the world eagerly anticipates who will be those firstfruits.

Oh, not the guy that lived three doors down from me. Oh, my! I would have treated him a lot nicer if I'd have known that.

I would have asked him to pray for me. So the whole world creation eagerly waits that these sons of God could be revealed to the world. And that will happen, of course, with the return of Jesus Christ.

Brethren, when we're converted, we can choose to draw upon God's Holy Spirit within us to stop living with the limitations that fear brings to people.

We can choose to replace fear with an intimate, trusting relationship with our spiritual papa, our Father.

When we're confronted with a personal crisis or trial, we know it is to make us more like Christ, and the purpose is to lead us to eternal glory in the spiritual family of God.

Fear has been replaced with courage to face anything in life, no matter how challenging and how difficult.

Let's go to Mark 12 and verse 28. Mark 12, 28.

One of the major issues of having a negative attitude begins with an unhealthy attitude we have about ourselves.

It all begins with having an unhealthy attitude about ourselves. Do you remember Numbers?

Did the book of Numbers have an unhealthy attitude about themselves?

Comparing themselves that we were like grasshoppers to these people, that this land just devours people, whatever that means.

Well, I'd like to read something from Mark here. Actually, if you look up the phrase, Love your neighbor as yourself. You might be shocked to find how many times it's in the New Testament.

But here's Mark's account. One of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that he had all answered them well, asked them, What is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered him. The first of all the commandments is, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. So that's number one of the two. Here's number two.

And the second is like this, You shall love your neighbor. There is no other commandment greater than these.

Oh, did I say something out? I'm sorry. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

You see, if you don't respect yourself, you'll find it impossible to respect other people.

If you don't realize that you are now a child of God, didn't we read that twice in Romans 8? That's why that Scripture preceded this one. If we don't realize that Jesus is saying you need to love yourself, you just need to love your neighbor as much as you love yourself.

If we don't understand that, if we're putting ourselves down, if we're constantly beating ourselves up, if we're constantly focusing on all of our weaknesses, if the glass is always half empty, then it's impossible for us to look positively upon other people.

After all, it's a virus, and it doesn't know when to stop. The virus begins when we harshly judge ourselves.

Then we start to harshly judge our neighbors, our community members, and everyone else who doesn't believe like we believe.

But the virus doesn't stop there. The next step is then we begin to judge our brothers and sisters who don't hold the same exact views and opinions that we hold.

You see, it's a virus, and it's always consuming. It's always doing damage. But it begins with an unhealthy view of ourselves.

Genesis 1 and verse 31, you don't need to turn there, but it said that God created everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.

So evening and morning were the six today. When He created mankind, He didn't create something that was a mistake, vile, disgusting. Granted, people do some vile and disgusting things, but we weren't created to be that way. We were created in the image of none other than God.

We were created to be ultimately part of the spiritual family of God.

Yet possessing a negative attitude makes us critical and judgmental. It starts with a negative feeling toward self, because some of us were incorrectly taught in the churches that we grew up in was that humility means you always beat yourself up.

Humility means that you think little of yourself, that you're self-condemny, self-judgmental. And brethren, that is not a biblical principle. James chapter 2 and verse 8. Now we know that James was the half-brother of Jesus, so we shouldn't be surprised that he says very much the same thing.

James chapter 2 and verse 8. If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. It means the minimum requirement is that you should love your neighbor as much as, at the minimum, you love yourself.

Now the maximum is what Paul said. Paul said, and we won't turn to Philippians chapter 2 and verse 3, that it's okay to love your neighbor more than yourself.

So the minimum is you love your neighbor as yourself. The peak of spirituality is you love others more than you love yourself.

Paul said in Philippians, let us esteem others better than himself. He said, look also out for the interest of others.

Verse 4, he said, let us not look only on our own interest, but also for the interest of others.

Again, if we don't have a healthy image within ourselves of God's creation, and especially since we possess God's Holy Spirit, then we are hurting ourselves and we are hurting people that are around us because it is coloring, it's staining our image of God.

It's making our image of other people and of all situations. It's making things negative.

Selfish ambition and conceit occur when we think we're supreme to others or deserve special status above others.

Now, if it's okay to love yourself, when do we begin to exceed the boundaries? And when does that become vanity or narcissism? It's an excellent question.

This occurs when you love yourself more than you love others, when you think you're superior, better, smarter, more important.

This leads to boasting and putting others down who are not exactly like you. So if it gets out of kilter, it gets distorted when we begin thinking of ourselves more than other people.

We need to understand that God desires for us to have a healthy respect for ourselves, and particularly for ourselves because of what God has done in us and through us.

Let's go to Matthew 6, verse 25.

Another very damaging quality of a negative attitude is worrying. And the reason it's so negative is usually the things we worry about. Probably three-quarters of them never come to pass.

So we waste a lot of our resources worrying about things that never even happen. But Jesus addresses this.

Matthew 6, verse 25.

Which of you by worrying, that's the second time that word is used, can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry, that's three, about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin.

And yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not a rave like one of these. Now if God so clothed the grass of the field, which is today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will not he much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Therefore do not worry, that's the fourth time, saying, What shall we eat? What shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For all these things the Gentiles seek. Most of this is materialism.

He said, Don't be obsessed, don't be concerned about materialism, keeping up with the Joneses, or the Rockefellers, or whoever.

For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek you first the kingdom of God in his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry, that's five, fifth time it's used, about tomorrow. For tomorrow will worry, that's the sixth time it's used, about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

What Jesus is saying is, don't look down the road and say, What am I going to do next week, next month, next year? Because today, there are enough problems today that are sufficient to struggle with and overcome and deal with.

Don't worry about those things, but when we have a negative attitude, we're always on edge. We're always worried because it's a mind of scarcity. There's never enough. Something is always lacking.

Something is always missing in the world, in our lives, in the lives of others, and that creates worry. What I find it interesting is the very next verse, which in the Bible is usually called Matthew 7 and verse 1.

Notice what Jesus follows those comments with this phrase. It doesn't come out of the blue. The phrase ties into what he has just been talking about.

Matthew 7, chapter 1, judge not that you be not judged. Why do you think Jesus connects judging others with his previous comments about excessive worry? It's because both have the same root cause, a negative attitude.

A negative attitude makes mountains out of molehills. It creates suspicion. It looks into the ulterior motives of people, most of which they don't even have, but we judge that they have them.

It consumes one with stress and frustration, and that makes us tired and wiped out, and it discourages us, and it just continues to be fuel to that cycle of negativity.

Let's now go to Philippians chapter 4 and verse 4.

Philippians chapter 4 and verse 4, Paul says, Rejoice in the Lord always. You know what he has? The diagnosis for Paul, excessive happiness. He obviously has a problem here.

Again, he says, I say, Rejoice! This comes from a man who was beaten, shipwrecked, humiliated, mocked, sometimes criticized by members of the church because he wasn't a real apostle like the original twelve.

I mean, this man went through a lot. He had every reason to be negative and suspicious.

But he says, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say, Rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Finally, brethren, let's see if this is negative. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are noble, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are a good report.

If there be any virtue and if there be any praiseworthy, meditate on these things.

Verse 6, in the translation, God's Word for today says, Never worry about anything, but in every situation let God know what you need in prayers and requests while giving thanks.

Are our prayers primarily filled with thanks, or are they primarily filled with us moaning about a trial or a problem we have?

Are our prayers to God primarily positive with thank you, how much we appreciate being called, how much we appreciate knowing that we are now the sons of God, or they are filled with the guineas?

Give me this, give me this, I need this, I need this. Take care of this person's problem. Take care of this and this and this and this.

I mean, if someone were coming to you every day and were primarily negative and complaining, would you want to meet them? Would you want to talk to them often?

Now, I realize he's God and he has infinite patience, that he deals with us all on our own level, but I have to ask the question, would we want to have a conversation every day with a person who does nothing but complains to us about how everything is lacking in the world?

How things aren't ever right? How there are always problems? What would our reaction be to that?

When we have a negative attitude, it's nearly impossible to be thankful to God because we're always looking for what is lacking.

When you're always looking for what's missing, when the glass is always half full, it's very difficult to be thankful for what you have.

Notice, he said, Paul here in Philippians chapter 4, at the last verse we read, I guess that would be verse 8, he said, If there is any virtue and there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. That means to look even for the silver lining in something that is bad in our lives.

Even if something is bad, if it's a negative experience, if you hate going through that trial, look for the silver lining. Don't focus on what's lacking. Don't focus on what's missing, on what's scarce. He says, draw out of even horrible situations a few things that have virtue, something that you can praise God about even in a trial, even in a difficulty.

Let's now go back to James chapter 1 and verse 5.

James, again, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, tells us the kind of faith that is a biblical faith and has our prayers ultimately answered.

James chapter 1 through 5. He says, Does God have a scarcity mentality? No. It says He gives to all liberally everything He has. Eternal life. A member of His family.

What more could you ask for? He gives to all liberally, without reproach. It will be given to Him. But there is a catch. He says, But let Him ask in faith, with no doubting. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. So first of all, we see that God is not stingy. He's not a God of scarcity. He doesn't believe in scarcity, but He wants to give liberally to all His children. But there is a catch. James reminds us of the importance of faith. What is faith? Faith is when we believe in something, even though none of our senses tell us that it's ever going to happen. It sounds like maybe a diagnosis could be created for that. But faith is when we believe in something and there is no evidence that it's ever going to happen. If there's evidence, then it's manifested itself partly as no longer faith. It doesn't require faith. When we have a negative attitude, we pray for what we need or want, but then we act like it won't happen. Deep down in our heart, we don't really believe it will happen. We may pray for it. But then we get up off our knees and we act like it's never going to happen. Sometimes, deep in our hearts, we lose faith and we don't believe it will happen. James refers to this as being double-minded. A negative attitude is a mindset that doubts things by its very carnal nature. Doubt is one of the roots of having a negative attitude. It doubts. It is suspicious about everything. Biblical faith means that we believe what we pray for, we act like it will happen, we expect it to happen, and we know that in God's time it will absolutely happen. That's what Biblical faith is. If we believe it will, ultimately it will. And you know what? If we believe it won't, it won't. You may have heard the phrase, I hear the phrase that something is a self-fulfilled prophecy. Something was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I hear that phrase. What it usually means is that someone believed, expected, and acted in a way that their greatest fears came to pass. And that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's like faith in reverse. It's like using the positive spiritual attributes of faith, but only in a negative way, and we get negative results. Remember the law of attraction that I mentioned earlier? We attract towards us what we believe and feel about ourselves, whether it's good or bad, positive or negative.

Let's go to 1 John 4, verse 13. We've read Scripture today in the New Testament from Christ, from Paul, from his half-brother James.

Now let's see what John can tell us, shed a little light about having a positive attitude, and particularly towards other people. 1 John 4, verse 13. He says, What a marvelous gift, brethren. 1 John 4, verse 14.

He abides in love and abides in God and God in him. Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. Now, you know, there are negative spiritual forces that want you to believe that the day of judgment for people that God has given his spirit to is a time of torture. We should fear the day of judgment. We should make people fearful. That's not what John is telling us here.

John is saying that we can have boldness in the day of judgment. Why? Because Christ lives in us. The boldness comes from the fact that we are forgiven. He is our righteousness. All the areas that we fall short, all the areas in which we miss the mark, are filled to the full by the righteousness of Jesus Christ. This is a positive statement. This is not an attitude that wants to make people fearful, that wants to manipulate people by fear, because it doesn't work. Fear is only a short-term motivator.

It does not work long-term. Let me read the Scripture again. Verse 17, Love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world. And what is that? Paul said that we now are the sons of God. Jesus is the Son of God, the firstborn of many brethren. We are the Son of God. Because we have been called and we have the Spirit of God in us, because we are the Son of God, we can have boldness in the day of judgment and not be manipulated by fear.

Verse 18, There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. If you want to encourage a family member, encourage them. Tell them something they're doing right. Don't try to make them fearful. Don't put them down. Don't try to shame them. Don't try to make them afraid. Encourage them. Give them some wisdom. Coach them. Point out something they're doing right. Then tell them something they can work on. And finally, again, tell them another thing that they're doing right, so they don't walk away defeated and discouraged and fearful.

Let's continue here in verse 19. We love him because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from him, that he who loves God must love his brother also.

Do you realize that a negative attitude is one of the greatest enemies that the church of God has had throughout the last two thousand years? And here's how it normally grows. It starts out when people inwardly despise themselves under the false guise of humility. They go, oh, humility, okay, to be humble, I must think little of myself.

I'm nothing better than a garbage can. I'm a worm. I'm slime. I'm terrible. And that results in one of two things. Either they overcompensate for that feeling and they become vain and pompous and give themselves self-appointed titles and do crazy things that affect many people's lives. Or if they don't deal with it that way and they don't have a healthy view of themselves, they channel that because, again, negativity is a virus and channel that to their neighbors. If I'm not good enough, he's not good.

Look at all his problems. Look at the way he dresses. Look at the way he acts. But the virus doesn't stop there. Then you come into the very church of God itself and we start judging each other because someone doesn't believe exactly like I do or hold all the opinions that I do.

We become negative. And that's what causes church splits. One of the greatest enemies in the history of the church of God is a vile negative attitude that begins with how we view ourselves, God's calling, and our role in the world today.

Let's go to a final scripture, 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 13. Since Mr. Henderson was compassionate and ended early, I'll also end early today. I know that sounds very kind, but actually I'm melting up here. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 13. We're going to see that Paul also needed a psychiatric diagnosis. 2 Corinthians 5 and verse 13. He says, For if we are besides ourselves, it is for God. He's talking about how much he loves the church. If I'm a nutcase, he says, it's for God. There he goes again. Some other guy with excessive happiness disorder. Or if we are of a sound mind, it is for you. For the love of Christ compels us because we judge this, that if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all. That those who live should no longer for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. Now, he's reminding us that he's reminding me that Christ died for all. He didn't just die for me and you. He died for the people that are walking on the street out there. He died for the people attending the wedding upstairs. He died for every human being who has ever lived or ever will live. And that's a perspective that we need to always keep in mind and understand. We don't want to have the attitudes of exclusivity because that's another trait of a negative attitude. A feeling that you're special, different, superior to everyone else exclusive. Any gift, any uniqueness that we have is solely as a gift from God. It's nothing that we possess of our own. Our value and our worth is nothing that we establish on our own. But it's given to us by the grace of God through his calling and through the gift of his Holy Spirit. Verse 16, back in 2 Corinthians 5, Therefore from now on we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him, thus no longer. When you're called, you look at Christ differently than when you're not called. We look upon him as a Savior, as a friend, as the firstborn of many brethren, a brother, a spiritual guide, our God, someone in the world who hasn't been called yet, may not view God that way.

Verse 17, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. What kind of old things? You mean like maybe having negative thoughts, 75% of the time rolling in our heads? Bingo! He is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Or maybe I should say they should have passed away. And thus all things have become new. Verse 18, Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

I think other translations have it better. They've given us the personal ministry of being a peacemaker, of being peaceful. That is that God was in Christ reconciling the world or making peace between the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them. God looks in the future. Even the people in the world, he looks upon from a prism of the future. Jesus died for them all. Because of that, he is not imputing their trespasses to them. Then why do we judge others who are not like us so harshly?

If Christ is not imputing, trespasses to them. Have they sinned? Absolutely. Will they need the shed blood of Jesus Christ to forgive them? Absolutely. But being a positive God who always looks to the future and always sees things as they can be, as they will be, rather than lack scarcity, something's always missing. Because he's that kind of a God and looks through the prism of the completion of his plan, he says, I am not imputing their trespasses to them and has committed to us the word of reconciliation or peacefulness. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us. We implore you in Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God, for he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

So the message that we are receiving here from Paul in 2 Corinthians is be careful how harshly we judge others. Can we say that their actions are evil? Absolutely. Can we say that their conduct misses the mark? Absolutely. But should we say that they are somehow evil or bad? Or should we judge them harshly? He says again, not imputing their trespasses to them. Brother Paul reminds us to have a new attitude. And you know what? When you acquire that attitude, some people may call you nuts. Some people are going to think that your elevator doesn't go all the way to the top.

After all, we live in a carnal world where 75% of all thinking is negative. If you're not like the carnal world, where 10 out of 12 spies were negative, some are going to resent you. Some are not going to accept your happiness or your level or peace of contentment. They're going to want to make you fearful.

They're going to want to destroy that positive attitude like the doctors did to Mr. Berg. And they're going to try to inject in you fear and doubt and suspicion of everything and everybody.

Paul tells us here that we're called to be a new creation with a new attitude and a fresh approach to life, to our problems and to other people.

As ambassadors, Jesus is pleading to the world through us. So what do they see?

If we are the ambassadors and he's pleading to the world through us, what do they see?

Do they see an attitude of abundance, of hopefulness, of can-do, a god of grace, of forgiveness, a god of opportunity?

Or do they see people who are judgmental, fearful, scarcity mentality, constantly judging people because their skin color is different because they wear this clothes because the sky has an earring and is here, on and on, judge hair length, on and on and on.

What kind of ambassador do they see when they look at us?

I think it's a pretty powerful question. Hopefully they see a positive people with a can-do approach to life and its many challenges.

Hopefully they see a people who look for the best in others and not look just at their faults.

The good news is that if we've not been setting this kind of example, we can choose beginning today, beginning right now from this point on, we can choose to become different, to become that new creature that we were intended to be from the beginning of our calling.

The choice to do that is your choice and mine. Have a wonderful Sabbath. Keep cool!