Attitude 1

CHANGE YOUR MIND

"The Magnitude of Attitude"

Phil. 2:3-5 "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus..."

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I want to talk to you today about the importance of your attitude--what I'm calling "the magnitude of attitude."

Most of us can remember our parents saying, "You better watch that attitude!" Because they knew your attitude was important.

First, let's define attitude:

ATTITUDE: is a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something.

Your attitude is the ultimate outcome of what you think about yourself, God, rules and authority, and life itself.

You can have a good attitude or a bad attitude, a positive attitude or a negative attitude, an attitude that opens doors for you, or an attitude that shuts down your potential and possibilities.

Your attitude is the one thing you take with you everywhere you go!

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When I interview someone for a job, I focus on their attitude as much as I do their credentials...

Do they have a chip on their shoulder about authority, can they accept an assignment they really don't want to do with an uncomplaining smile, do they harbor grudges?

Because I know that their attitude is what we will all work and deal with on a daily basis...

The fact is that Your attitude will:

Make or break you

Heal or hurt you

Make friends or enemies

Make you happy or miserable, a success or a failure

Your attitude can make or break a company...a church...or a home.

We're going to see in this series that Your ATTITUDE determines your ALTITUDE in life...how high you reach, or how low you go.

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QUESTION: Attitudes are contagious. Is yours worth catching?

The good news is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.

We can't change our past...we can't change the fact that people will act in a certain way.

We can't change the inevitable.

The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...

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I believe that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

LISTEN: The only person who can choose your attitude is you.

If you've lived long on this planet you know that some people think the whole world stinks, and others see only sunshiny days.

Which one would you rather go on vacation with?

95 times out of 100 when we feel that life stinks, it's not the fault of others---it's our attitude that has become negative.

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FACT: Once your attitude becomes negative, you cannot win.

Once you allow your attitude to go south, you've just painted your future in dark colors, wrapped chains around your ankles, and assured a bad ending.

ILLUS: Imagine meeting someone that takes a skunk on a leash with them everywhere they go and you have a picture of the person with a bad attitude!

No one wants to be around them, and all their potential and possibilities are hindered because of the skunk they won't let go of!

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We've all known people who were mad at the world, mad at life, who never had much good to say about anything, who felt the world was against them, they were born under a bad sign, no one ever gave them a decent break, and life was unfair--this was their ATTITUDE.

ILLUS: I was once counseling a young man whose attitude was totally sour--He was filled with anger, rebellion, negativity, and self-pity.

I told him, "Your attitude is going to land you in jail."

That night he was arrested and thrown in jail for his attitude toward the arresting officer!

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Notice that our Scripture verse informs us that Jesus had an attitude so beautiful and noble, so good and advantageous that we should all strive to have the same attitude!

So today I want to lay the foundation for this series by talking about what an attitude is, how it's formed, and how changing your attitude can change your life.

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As the series title says, "Change your mind, change your life!"

Let me say up front that I'm not here to preach down to anybody, or to make you feel bad about yourself.

My intent is to help pinpoint an attitude that might be hurting you, robbing you, or eclipsing your potential....or to encourage those with good attitudes to keep it up!

In all transparency and honesty, in my past I've battled a bad attitude and had to overcome it through God's word...so believe me, I'm not pointing a long preacher's finger at you.

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Now first, where does our attitude come from?

The Bible says...

I. Attitudes are formed by our thoughts...

The Bible says in Prov. 23:7, "For as a man thinks in his heart, so he is."

In other words, a person's thoughts provide an x-ray of who the person really is...

Are our thoughts negative or positive/ faith-filled or doubt-filled/ sad or happy/ resentful or forgiving?

Do our thoughts spring from the Bible, or do they reflect the world's thinking?

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Your thoughts are very important because they are what ultimately creates your attitude.

The most important battles you will ever face are won or lost in between your two ears--in your thought life!

When you and I experience trouble, adversity, loss, or mistreatment from others...

Our ATTITUDE toward these things will be shaped by our THOUGHTS, which in turn come from either the Bible, or the world's way of viewing things...

This is why the Bible says, "Be made new in the attitude of your minds..." (Eph. 4:23)

Another version puts it, "...be renewed in your mental attitude."

One more version says, "...you were taught to have a new attitude."

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We are told repeatedly as Christians to be renewed in our minds, to change the way we think...

Which is what the Bible does--it changes the way we think.

And when your thinking changes, your attitude will follow!

The Bible says:

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind..." (Ro. 12:2)

We all have a daily choice to either be CONFORMED to this fallen world's way of thinking, or be TRANSFORMED by God's way of thinking!

We are transformed into Jesus's likeness as our thinking changes, which always in turn changes our attitude.

NLT "Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think."

So our attitude changes when our thinking changes...

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Secondly, A bad attitude is...

II. A stronghold that must be defeated...

Listen to this powerful verse:

4 "For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds..."

Now, what is a stronghold?

A stronghold is a Bible word used to describe a fortified, military stronghold---a strong-walled fortress; it is used by Paul to describe a false argument, faulty thinking.

Remember, our attitude comes from the way we think--what we think about God, ourselves, about others, the world, and life itself.

Thus a STRONGHOLD is a thinking problem, it is a battle in our thought life.

It is renegade, rebellious, faulty thinking the devil uses to hinder your walk with God and your success in life!

This is why Paul goes on to say:

5 "...casting down arguments (arguments are thoughts) and every high thing (faulty thinking) that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."

A bad attitude is rooted in reasoning and thoughts that are contrary to God's will and God's way of thinking.

And the only way this kind of "stinkin' thinkin' is defeated is by the unvarnished truth of God's Word!

I like to say that the Word of God "erases and replaces."

It ERASES faulty thinking and REPLACES it with godly thinking.

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Another version says, "We use God’s mighty weapons (His Word), not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments."

ILLUS: For instance, when I was in all my trouble as a teenager I had a bad attitude that life was unfair, authority figures were against me, rules were stupid, so why even try...

I didn't just have a chip on my shoulder, it was a 2 x 4!

When I got saved, the Lord immediately targeted my sour attitude by transforming the way I thought through reading His word.

Verses like, "If God be for us, who can be against us" showed me God was on my side, not against me.

And this one: "We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation" (Ro. 5:3-4).

Verses like this showed me that life wasn't against me, but God was using problems and trials to make me more like Jesus.

Over time, my attitude was transformed from negative, angry, pouting, and defeated to positive, excited, and peaceful!

I went from being life's victim to a victor, from conquered to conquering.

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So in closing I want to leave you with this thought:

Change your mind, change your life...

Remember my illustration of carrying a skunk on a leash with you wherever you go in the form of a negative attitude?

What if instead you were walking with a beautiful, graceful angel everywhere you went?

When people saw you coming, they knew the angel was with you as well.

Would doors open? Would you be welcome? Would your life change?

Ok, you are doing just that when you have "the attitude of Christ Jesus" in you! You're carrying HIM everywhere you go!

When we change our THOUGHTS we change our ATTITUDE, and when we change our attitude we change our LIFE.

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I close with a question:

What are you thinking about?

Do you ever think about what you're thinking about?

Do you know that you can choose your thoughts?

Let's resolve today to choose our thoughts by reading and receiving the Word of God, because our thoughts will decide our victory or defeat, misery or happiness, failure or success.

LET'S PRAY