CHANGE YOUR MINDSET | Defeat Negative Thinking - Inspirational & Motivational Video

I'm absolutely convinced that far too many of us, far too many of us have learned to live with negative and limiting mindsets that are keeping us stuck and they're keeping us living small. That's why two different people start the week and they're in the same exact stage of life, same age, they make the same amount of money, but one starts the week thinking about all the ways they wish their life was different. And the other starts the week grateful for what they've been given and excited to bring their best to whatever that week holds. Two different mindsets. Two people can have the same opportunity in front of them and one sees all the potential ways it could fail. It's caution, don't risk, it could fail. The other sees all the potential and all the ways it could succeed. It's mindset. Our lives move in the direction of our strongest thoughts. The life that you have today is a direct reflection of the thoughts that you think most. This is how Solomon, King Solomon, one of the writers of the scripture, one of the wisest men to ever live, this is how he articulated it in one of the passages in the Bible that he wrote 3,000 years ago. This is what he said. He said, for as he thinks, as a person thinks in his heart, so is he. The things we think about, that's just a very ancient way of saying that the things we think about most end up shaping the way we live. Here's another way of saying it. The person that you, you know, the person that you will be two years from now is going to be shaped by the thoughts and mindsets that you allow to have free reign in your life today. If you wanna know who you're gonna be, if you wanna know the kind of person you're gonna be two years from now, just think about what do you think about. The father that you're gonna be two years from now, the manager, the leader that you're gonna be in your place of work, in your industry, the friend that you're gonna be two years from now, the spouse, the kind of spouse you're gonna be two years from now, it's gonna be largely shaped by the thoughts that you embrace today. What do you focus your thoughts on? Because that'll determine it. Because as you think, as Solomon said, so you are. Guys, it's time to get our minds right. It's time to get our minds right, to readjust our mindsets and align them to who God created us to be. Did you know that you were made with purpose? Every single one of you. You were created by God who stitched you, as it says in the Psalms, who stitched you together in your mother's womb. He created you with purpose and on purpose. He placed you at this unique moment in human history because he has a role for you to play in his work in this world. You have meaning beyond anything you can understand. You have a creator God who loves you and has great plans for you in this world, and he wants your freedom. He wants your freedom. He wants to make you new, and he wants you to be shaped in the image of Christ. And I just want you to see this. There is an old you that it is time to leave behind. There is an old you that it's time to leave behind, and there is a new you that God made you for. And the starting point, and here's what's crazy, the starting point for God's transformative work in our lives is our thinking. It's our thinking. Here's a real simple way to do this. You find a truth in God's word, and you write it down, and you repeat it, and you believe it. You write it down, and you repeat it till you believe it. You write it, repeat it till you believe it. You know, there's a researcher named Barbara Fredrickson who said a real good sort of rule of thumb related to this is to aim to repeat truth three times for every one time you hear a negative thought. Three times for every one time those mindsets make their way in. And here's what happens. Our pathways, those well-worn paths, slowly begin to change. Or as Paul said it, our minds get renewed. Our thoughts determine our lives. It's a truth we find all over God's word. Our thoughts determine our lives. It's the reason why the Apostle Paul, later on as he continued to write instructions to the followers of Jesus in the heart of the Roman Empire, in Rome itself, he gave them this very important piece of advice. He said, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Not the renewing of your body, not the renewing of your actions, the renewing of your mind. He says that's where it starts. I mean, very simply, what Paul is saying here is change your mind, change your life. Change your mind, change your life. Thoughts determine our lives. If you wanna live a different life, if you wanna be somebody else, change your mind. Jesus said, I came that they may have life and have it to the full. He wasn't talking about full of anxiety. He wasn't talking about full of anger. He wasn't talking about full of worry. He wasn't talking about full of fear and all those things that occupy our minds and lead us into a life so very different than the one that God intended for us. So if we look in the mirror and we go, I'm worthless, that's an obvious, unhealthy, unholy thought. We know it, it's obvious. Doesn't keep us from thinking it, but we know it's not a good, healthy thought. It's also not a holy thought because God says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. God says he loves you more than you can possibly imagine. God says you're worth more to him than you can imagine. You're worth so much to God that he sent his own son, his only son, to die to pay the price of your sins so that you could be united in a relationship with him forever. God wouldn't do that for something that is worthless. That shows you in some small way how deeply valuable you are to God. Here's the good news. With God's help, you can change your mind and your life. With God's help, you can change your mind and with it, your life. You know, how you see you is probably the most powerful thing in your life. So how you see you can actually stop your faith from working even if you see God in the right way. So how you see, is the glass half empty or is it half full? Is life full of opportunity or just full of problems? Is there potential or is there just, I can't find a job? I can't find a boyfriend. I mean, you have a choice of how you look at life and what you see really is what you get. Do you see life as an opportunity to win, to prosper, have good relationships, to live strong, excited life or do you just see the troubles and the problems and why it won't work and what you can't do, what you can't have? And you have to believe how God made you is good. I don't need to be something else because I am fearfully and wonderfully made and what God says about me in the word is good. I'm gonna go with that. So God says, see what I see in you. See the potential, see the promise. I made you fearfully, wonderfully. See yourself and when your eye is good, your whole life is full of light. God said to Gideon, hey Gideon, you're a mighty man of valor. You remember where Gideon was when God said it? Gideon was hiding from his enemies, struggling in a bad economy, poor, broken, afraid to lose his family, fear, anxiety, everything negative in Gideon's life and God said, hey Gideon, you are a mighty man of valor. I am what God says I am. I can do what God says I can do. I'm gonna have what God says I have. Gideon started to believe it. He chased the Midianites clean out of the country. Those Midianites will take over. All the ites will run your life unless you believe I am who God says I am. See the life that we have is often a reflection of the thoughts that we think. Thinking is so very powerful and what comes into your mind many times comes out of your life and it really is impossible to have a positive life of faith with a negative mindset. These negative thoughts are coming at us and when we think about the mind, the mind really is a battlefield so we could say that life is either won or lost in our mind and sometimes I can be my worst critic and I can beat myself up pretty good. So I've gotta learn how to feed the positive. How many of you would be honest enough to say you've made a mistake? You've had some failures? Yeah, me too. I've had failures as an individual. I've made mistakes as a husband. I've made mistakes as a father. I've made mistakes as a pastor. But see I can't allow those mistakes to get into the negative side of life because then I'll begin to define myself based off my performance and when I perform well then I'm good but if I make a mistake then I'm not good. That's why I've gotta be careful that when I have success that I give the glory to God. See every blessing's gotta turn into praise or it'll turn into pride. And so I've gotta make sure that I'm not defining myself based off of my mistakes because here's why. Failure is not a person. It's an event. You're not a failure until you quit trying. In fact a winner is somebody that failed and just got up one more time. Come on, if you failed and you're down today would you just get up because God's not done with you yet and you're gonna win this thing? I believe it in Jesus' name. So we've gotta feed the positive. You see it's not about what other people say because people might throw your failures up in your face and that's okay. See who I know I am is more important than who they think I am. It doesn't matter what they think. It matters what I know and believe and what God says about me. Here's what I know. God says I'm chosen. God says I'm blessed. God says that I'm loved. God says I'm redeemed. God says that I am gifted, that I am anointed and appointed. God says you are anointed, you are appointed, you are chosen, you are blessed, you are loved, you are gifted. And you've gotta believe that God is for you who in the world can be against you. So what are you gonna do? You're gonna feed the positive. But it's not gonna be easy. Jesus didn't say the path to life is easy. He said it's hard. So we're gonna do hard things because it prepares me to do great things. I mean think about this. When you start a new habit. I found this, I thought it was interesting. It might take 30 days to create a new habit that could change the next 30 years of your life. And then when I'm doing that new thing, I've gotta tune in to trust. Why? Because the Harvard School of Business said that the law of success is this. In the middle of success, it feels like failure. I'm gonna do hard things. Why? Because success doesn't happen in a day. It happens daily. If someone had a megaphone attached to your head, what would it sound like? What do you say to yourself that if someone heard in a megaphone, you'd be embarrassed? I'm begging you as sister of brother in Christ, don't accept the negative thought pattern. Do like the psalmist says, I will wake up the dawn. I will make the sun rise with my singing. I choose to concentrate on God's love and kindness. I'm gonna stop that negative nonsense thought in my head. I'm gonna choose, as I've told my kids many times when they've worried about stuff, I say, what do you do when you don't wanna watch a TV show? What happens to the next show? What do you do there? So I change the channel. That's what you do. I can choose to think about how horrible my problems are and how horrible I've been hurt and horrible and all the negative, negative, or I could say, stop it. I wake up and I wake up to brand new faithfulness, brand new mercies. I'm not gonna forget that he's faithful. I'm not gonna forget that. The Lord is my portion, says my soul. Portion means my food. He's my food. That's the diet of my mind. Therefore, I will hope in him. I'm gonna wake up and say, God, thank you for today. Thank you for waking me up. Thank you that today you're still good and you're awesome and you're not gonna give up. No matter what they've done to me, no matter what their snares are for me, you don't have snares for me. You can't do that, God, because you're too good. Choose to concentrate on God's love and kindness. You and I get to choose that. No one's choosing it for us. It's in your mind, it's in my mind.