Words to SPARK your Heart-Song from our co-founder Sherry Douglas.

#uplifting #positive #encouraging #motivational

Hi everyone. I’m Sherry Douglas with Heart-Song. Last week we talked about our attitudes and how they begin with our thoughts. Jennie Allen, author, speaker, and founder of IF: Gathering, said that each of us have 9,000 – 60,000 thoughts a day, and that of those over 80% of them are negative and over 90% are repetitive from the day before. Apparently, negativity is extremely common within your and my minds, and we re-think the same negative thoughts day-after-day. It makes me think of a cow that chews its cud; only for them it’s beneficial. For us, it’s deadly. If those statistics are true, then we are regurgitating 8,100 – 54,000 negative thoughts per day. And that’s why, as we heard last week, the apostle Paul urges us in Philippians 4:8, “Finally my friends, keep your minds on whatever is true, pure, right, holy, friendly, and proper. Don’t ever stop thinking about what is truly worthwhile and worthy of praise.” Paul may not have known the statistics Jennie Allen quoted, but he’s well aware of the human capacity to be negative. Paul addresses negativity of our minds in other Scriptures, also, such as in Colossians 3:2. He says, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.” 

Paul knew that our negative thoughts outweigh our positive ones. He also knew it wasn’t possible to change without a focus of setting our minds on things above. Colossians 3:1 tells us that Jesus is above so that’s where our minds are to be. If our minds are on him then our attitudes will reflect compassion, kindness, and other traits he possesses. Can we be this way all of the time? I know I can’t, but by seeking the Word of God and asking him to transform how we think, our thoughts and attitudes CAN change. Let’s live the way we want to be remembered! This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks for being here. See you next week.