...you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you” (Phil 4: 13)
THEME: YOUR ATTITUDE WILL DETERMINE YOUR ALTITUDE
By Br. Alain Mbemba (President Y4Christ)
TEXT: Numbers 13:26-33; 14:5-9
Introduction:
“Centuries ago; there was a war declared among 2 nations. The 2 nations made a deal; each nation was to choose the best warrior and the winner would rule over the other. We probably all know the story, that of David and Goliath. When Goliath the Philistine stood up, all of Israel was saying “he’s so big we can never kill him” but it took one man to look at the same giant and say: “he’s so big that I cannot miss”
The difference between David and the rest of Israel was his attitude; your attitude can give you a positive perceptive about the same situation when everyone else is screaming IMPOSSIBLE.
Give me a team with great talent but bad attitude the result will be an average team. But give me a team with great talent and good attitude like Joshua and Caleb who said “if the Lord is with us, we shall surely possess the land”.
What is you attitude in the midst of adversity?
They tell a story of a so called Marya SKLODOWSKA from Poland who after her parents lost their job, had to work and go to school simultaneously. Nevertheless that didn’t stop her from finishing 1st in her high school class. Since higher education wasn’t available to her, she became a tutor. She somehow managed to save enough money and send her older sister through med school in Paris. Later on, she also moved to France to study at the Sorbonne University and became one of the most renowned physicists that we know as Marie Curie. She once said this, I quote: “Life is not easy for any of us, but what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained”
Thomas Edison, it took him about 10,000 tries to find out what were the right materials for the incandescent light bulb. He said this: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Your attitude will determine your altitude; it will determine how far you can go!
Your attitude will help you to see opportunities where others see problems
Shall we read from the bible in Numbers 13: from verse 26 to 33; then we will jump to chapter 14 from verse 5 to verse 9.
Let me make this statement: God’s promises do not remove man’s work,
After God had taken out Israel out of Egypt, the next step was Canaan.
To get to Canaan, they needed to fight against the people living there, the promise from God was there but they needed to do their work too.
With God we go from one glory to an other, being saved is good but that’s not everything; salvation is not the end but the beginning, amen!
Now before they could go to Canaan Moses sent out spies (12 of them; each one representing each tribe of Israel) to explore the land. Now after they had explored the land, they came back with the report of their exploration.
One group of people (10 of them) said that the land was good, flowing with milk and honey but the people there were giants and could not be defeated. They felt they looked like grasshopper before them.
The other group (only 2 of them) said the land was exceedingly good and that if the Lord was pleased with them, they shall possess the land and they will swallow their enemies; that their protection is gone but the Lord was with them.
They went to explore the same land but they came out with 2 different reports, 2 separate attitudes towards it.
In our lives we will always have two kinds of reports given to us about any given situation, one will tell you:
But the other report that we call the bible, the word of our Living God will tell you this:
The world report will tell you that you are a failure, that you will never change, and there is no more hope for you
But the good news of the Kingdom of God is that only Jesus can save you, He can restore your self esteem, he is able to transform your life, and YES there is hope in Christ Jesus.
No matter what you are pursuing out there, no matter what giants you are facing out there, the one thing that will make a difference is your attitude towards it.
Best selling author John Maxwell says I quote: “there is a little difference in people but that little difference makes a big difference. The little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative”.
Now I would like to share with you what Joshua and Caleb wanted you and I to know if they were here today.
1. Your attitude is affected by your environment:
Tell me who is your friend and I will tell you without being a prophet what type of person you are; we are the product today of what we read or listened to couple years ago.
Your environment is made up of things or people you are spending your time with on a daily basis; it didn’t take the other spy very long to convince the entire assembly that the land wasn’t good for them and that Egypt was better.
Have you ever been in a situation where you are trying to move forward and but somehow there are people, friends or even yourself who start to convince you that going forward is not the best choice, that it would be better for you to stay where you are or even to go back to your lowest position?
It takes courage to move forward, and this can be done one step at the time, you will never become Bill Gates overnight, but one step at the time. Joseph didn’t become Prime Minister overnight even if we have the tendency to believe so. From the time he received the promise to the realization, it took him years to become what God told him he would become.
If you want to have a positive attitude meditate upon this word, let me ask you this question: how many people believe that God never lies in here? Ok fine, how many people believe that God knows everything? We are good to go, give yourself a round of applause. Now that we are convinced that God never lies and He knows everything, listen to what God who knows everything and who never lies told Joshua: he said Joshua you see my son, if you want to be very prosperous, and successful in whatever you do, read what is in written in this book, know it and apply it in your live (Joshua 1:8-9); so if you want your attitude to determine your altitude check your environment, and start working on it. It may require you to remove some stuff that you are listening to, or watching, or even to end some friendships. Amen
The bible says this is the day, that the Lord has made and I will rejoice in it, I choose to rejoice in it, one group chose to believe that they were grasshoppers and the other group chose to believe they would be able to swallow them because the Lord was with them.
If you believe you can do it, you will surely do it;
If God is with us we shall conquer the land, is God with you?
How do you improve your attitude?
Conclusion
If you want to go higher; work on your attitude; the higher you want to go, the harder you have to work on your attitude…the reason is, you will only go as far as your self image permits it.
Prayer
· Among the things we talked about, where are you putting yourself on the scale, is your environment what is supposed to be?
· Is God with you in your daily business?
· Do you have the right mental attitude about the goals you are pursuing or the giant you are facing?
I want you to start praying from the bottom of your heart and surrender yourself to him, tell him how your attitude was toward the giant you are facing, if it was not the right attitude start repenting from it.
Is your environment what is supposed to be? Start taking decision to remove anything in your environment that is stopping to have the right attitude God wants you to have.
2nd part of Prayer
The promise of God is there, but our work is not cancelled, I want you to start taking decision of plans you need to take toward your goals, however there are some giants who can hinder you from your blessing, we are not fighting against blood and flesh but against power in the dark world and in Jesus you have that power to bring down any strong man, and strong hold stopping you to have access to your promise land. I want you to pray with authority against those powers and to bring them down in Jesus’ name.
God bless you!