“Think JESUS ….not Think Positive”
I’m grieved when believers use the worn-out phrase “I’ve got to think positive.” There is nothing Biblical about thinking positive. Thinking positive is thinking what we think is positive, i.e. - favorable outcome in our eyes-our eyes of flesh not the Spirit. Because” God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts, as high as the heavens are from the earth are His thoughts from our thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9), this thinking positive thing just doesn’t hold scriptural H20 to me. When we find ourselves in a tough spot there is only one way to think and that is with His Spirit, which says “Lord JESUS, I don’t understand how you are going to make this for my good but I trust you and I will keep my mind on you and your promises.” I must at this point choose to “set my mind on the Spirit’ (Col 3:2) and then moment by moment “take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5). You can bet that Jesus has a plan to prosper you and not harm you and a plan to work this for your good if you are called to His purpose in your life. He can’t break His promises. He is faithful. That’s His nature. The positive sign (+) simply needs to have the vertical line extended downward to form a perfect cross. Our job is to lay the situation, circumstance, person, relationship, crisis, trouble, hardship, etc. at the foot of that cross and leave it there. The worst place to pick it back up is IN THE MIND. The demonic “what ifs” begin to dance around and the thoughts are then negative, down, straight from the pit where they originated. At this point you may be giving yourself a spiritual pat on the back because you have overcome this destructive negative thought pattern but are you guilty of “positive thinking”? Yes, I said guilty of positive thinking. In situations where there is only one correct position I’m all about being positive. For example, if in golf your ball in on the green and you are lining up the putt, I’m all about thinking that I can make that putt no matter how difficult or long it may be. There is but one correct position the ball must land in-the cup. There is no other correction position. I played in a golf scramble years ago with a former Women’s Amateur Champion, Virginia Derby Grimes. No matter where our ball was on that green she never failed to speak out loud, “We can make this putt.” She said that we had to think it before we could do it. Out attitudes were those of champions although the other three of us were certainly not champions but she spurred us on to thinking like champions. The results were amazing. Did we make every putt? Certainly not, but we thought that we could before the putter ever struck the ball and that was the bulk of the battle. In life’s battles I must know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God has a plan and that it will be for my ultimate good and although I can’t see how this trial could possibly be working for my good right now I know that it is BECAUSE I TRUST HIM. My thinking is all focused on “thinking JESUS” not “thinking positive” which of course would be what I would muster up in my mind to be the positive outcome. Riding out a storm like this is so exciting because you haven’t a clue when it will end and what life will look like when the winds do die down. How you ride out the storms of life depend upon how much you trust your shelter. Now that’s something I can think positive about. My shelter is the best fortress around and His name is JESUS. The next time you have the tendency to “think positive” stop and “think JESUS”. His possibilities and plans are so amazing. Get in on the ride of your life. Trade your “positive thinking” in for lifetime adventure with the King of Kings.
Ann Allen Salter
May 3, 2008
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