I am friends on Facebook and have subscribed to receive the emails of Reverend Trevor Lund he calls himself RevTrev. At any rate he recently started a series called “Living Above the Negativity”. While I am behind on my readings I try to read them in a timely fashion and they have been good. So I thought I would share the first lesson with you today. Be Blessed and have a safe weekend. Also thanks RevTrev for sharing your wisdom.
Let’s get on with the course…
I’ve found a Psalm that has a lot of the elements of a negativity fast. I’ll use it in this course to outline what you can expect to experience when you do a negativity fast.
Psalms are great because they give us a language to pour out our emotions to God. Check out what I mean by starting
Psalm 73 (New International Version, ©2011)
1 Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.
3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Where is your focus? Are you looking to what God has done and is doing or do you only see what He hasn’t yet done? Do you choose to be thankful? Do you choose to agree with the promises of God despite what you experience? Do you choose to live unoffended at God?
I’ve found over the years that the biggest struggle for overcoming negativity is believing that you have a choice to be positive. I’m not talking about slapping a smile on your face. I’m talking about controlling what you think about. Jesus said “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.” (Matthew 12:34 NIV)
We’ve already agree that we reap what we sow, right? The same principle is with our thought life. For you programmers out there maybe you understand “garbage in – garbage out”. It’s a universal principle. That’s why Paul said:
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me–put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:8-9 (New International Version, ©2011)
My question for you is: Will you choose to think on these things? Will you stop thinking negative thoughts?
God will help you, but you may need to make the choice to think about what you think about. It’s step one when you fast from negativity.
Let’s talk soon.
Trevor, Pastor of Harvest Community Church
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