Attitude Determines Altitude

Intro

What is the definition of attitude? It is simply the thoughts and feelings you have towards life.

Your attitude is the lens or filter of your life.

It is how you see life.

Let me show you a powerful illatrative picture

PICTURE

This cute picture is also very profound.

3rd place is happier and more exited and joyful than 1st place. Which does not make sense because 1st place is better than 3rd place, and better is happier.

But what we see illistrated is the attitude difference between these 2 children, and the powerful role attitude plays in your lives.

The bible speaks a great deal about about our attitude but it goes by different names. Most commnly attitude is refered to as wisdom.

When the Word speaks about wisdom is it often refering to attitude.

“The fear of the Lord is the beginijng of wisdom” for example tells us that when we fear God, our attitude towards God will be correct.

Biblically there are actually only 2 different kinds of wisdom or attitudes we have have.

There is an attitude that is demonic and wordly - which leave you a bitter, misrible kind of person. Or there is the attitude that is from above and godly, which result is joy, peace and strength in the Holy ghost.

Which attitude you choose to have will have a dramatic imact on your life, your family, your marriage, your ministry and your faith.

In James 3 God shows us there 2 different kinds of wisdom or attitude’s and shows us what kind of life they produce.

And this matter my friends because life is unpredictible, often unfair, mostly dangerous, very difficult and at times down right misrible.

But our attitude is going to destermine how life impacts and affects us.

The Bad Attitude.

James 3:14–16 AV

14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

Immediatly we can see the fruit of a bad attitude:

Bitterness, envying, strife, confusion and evil works.

Bad attitudes are often the result of getting upset over the seeming unfairness of life.

Or because you think you deserve better than what you have.

This results in

Bitterness.

Bitterness is a poison that slowly eats away at the heart and soul of a person.

Hebrews 12:15 AV

15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled;

And bitterness is also often accompanied by envy. Simon the sourcer was envious of the Apostles power in the Holy Spirit and Peter said to him:

Acts 8:23 AV

23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.

Envy

An envious, bitter person is bound up in the bonds of misery. They are misrible, moody, irritable and the result is more often than not:

Strife.

Strife just means always aurguing. They are always aurguing, nothing is ever calm and peaceful, there is always something to moan about, something to find fault about, something and someone to complain about.

There is no unhappier marriage than when one of the 2 is full of strife from their bad attitude.

They are so upset, so bitter, so envious, so full of irritbibly that after a while, they themseves dont even know what they are so upset about, and my frineds that resulkts in:

Confusion.

The greek word used here also means “unquietness”. It means that there is no innerpeace, the mind and soul is just one big mess of confusion and restlesness. No longer do they have the ability to enjoy the moment, they cannot sit in the shade under a tree and spend a few moments of quyite admirering God’s creation, the sound of the birds and the smells of the flowers.

Quietness no longer exists, they seek distraction on cell phones, tv - something to try and drown out the constant confusion.

My friends when a person reaches this point, their desire for an end of the misery, strife, confusion inevitbly ends in:

Evil Works

Alchohol, drugs, pornography, gambeling - these are the ultimate end of a bad attitude.

Final scape goats in a desperate attempt to cure a broken mind.

All of which have a 100% failure rate.

But there is another option:

A good attitude:

James 3:17–18 AV

17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. 18 And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

Notice the difference:

Pure, peaceible, gentle, merciful, good fruit, without partiality, without hypocrasy.

Lets look at this list starting with:

Pure.

Jesus said:

Matthew 5:8 AV

8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Did you know that with the right attitude you can have daily encounters with God?

He is never far from us my frineds and with a mind set on the thongs of God, you will see God. You will see him in an act of kindness, is daily provision, in the birds of the air, in his grace and his love. In his word and in prayer.

When you see God at work every day in your life, do you know what you experience?

Peace

And no im not talking about wordly peace but true peace.

John 14:27 AV

27 Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

It is the peace of Daniel in the lions den, of David as he fced Giolath, the peace like Moses experiences as he stood before the Red Sea.

It is a peace with God, that like Adam before sin entered the world, allowed him to walk with God in the cool of day.

It is a peace born out of the mercies of God. And you know what, when you understand how merciful God has been to you, do you know what you will have towards each other?

Mercy.

Luke 6:36 AV

36 Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.

A person with a bad attitude takes everything personally and always exasberates a situation.

A person with a good attitudes, knows how to show mercy, turn the other cheek and desfuse a situation.

Charles Spurgion Quote:

With this attitude the Holy Spirit will greatly manifest in the life of that person:

Good fruit.

A person with a merciful heart will soon find their life filled with things such as:

Galatians 5:22–23 AV

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

As their life becomes more and more filled with God’s good fruit, do you know what begins to leave?

Partiality and hypocrasy.

Parciality is simply predudice of any sort, racism, sexism judging people based of theire social status - it all goes out the window. They becomes humble and gentle with all people.

And of courase, hypocrasy, hypocrasy is nothing more than a smoke screen to pretend you are better, holier than you actually are.

In fact the word hypocrite means “one who wears a mask”

But a person with a good attitude does not need to pretend or weak a mask.

Conclusion

Do you what the most powerful thing about our attitude is? We are in control of it.

The bible tells us that we have been given the authority to monitor and control our thoughts.

2 Corinthians 10:5 AV

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

My frineds, chances are very high that mits not life causeing you to suffer, its yoour attitude towards life.

Mabel’s Story

“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside and it smell of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to. 

On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless. 

As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisor would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf, and alone, for twenty-five years. This was Mabel. 

I don’t know why I spoke to her-she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’

I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’

That was when it began to dawn on me that his was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomachaches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering. 

Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns. 

It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say …

During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to think about. The question occurred to me “What does Mabel have to think about – hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night? So I went to her and asked, ‘Mabel, what do you think about when you lay here?’

And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’

I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, ‘What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote …:

‘I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know.… I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied. … Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old-fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.’

And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:

Jesus is all the world to me, My life, my joy, my all. He is my strength from day to day, Without him I would fall. When I am sad, to him I go, No other one can cheer me so. When I am sad He makes me glad. He’s my friend.