The most contagious thing you can bring home to your atmosphere is your attitude. Make sure you’re spreading something in your sphere of influence that Jesus does not have to heal.
Jesus said in John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” We shouldn’t be murmuring and we shouldn’t be complaining in the midst of this hour. The only attitude we should have, Jesus says, is one of good cheer.
Repentance is not subsequent to belief; it is part of belief. It is belief in action-choice that flow out of conviction. Repentance literally means “a change of mind” (in Greek, metanoia; meta-“new”, noia=”mind”) about Jesus. Repentance is not merely changing your action; it is changing your actions because you have changed your attitude about Jesus’ authority and glory.
Orthodoxy, or right opinion, is, at best, a very slender part of religion. Though right tempers cannot subsist without right opinions, yet right opinions may subsist without right tempers. There may be a right opinion of God without either love or one right temper toward Him. Satan is a proof of this.
Thankfulness is not an emotion, it’s a lifestyle.
I saw that the kingdom must be interior before it can be exterior, that it is a kingdom of ideas, and not one of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over places; that His victories must be inward before they can be outward; that He seeks to control spirits rather than bodies; that no triumph could satisfy Him but a triumph that gains the heart; that in short, where God really reigns, the surrender must be the interior surrender of the convicted free men, and not merely the outward surrender of the conquered slave.
How do we overcome? First, we focus on the character of God—He is good, His love never fails, nothing can separate us from His love, He is full of compassion, He will never leave us or abandon us and He is our refuge. Second, we recognize that we cannot see the good or the glory that comes out of heartache while we are in the middle of it. Hindsight is our greatest ally. Third, we choose to practice the presence of joy! We can prepare for the heartaches and troubles to come by anticipating our response and preparing a response of faith—a response that offers a sacrifice of praise and determines not to let the enemy of our souls steal our joy. We refuse to take offense at God and cut ourselves off from His love and compassion.
A sacrifice without a heart, without salt, without fire, of what value is it? No more are duties without spiritual affections. And we find, also, that God requireth especial affections to accompany special duties: “He that giveth, with cheerfulness;” which, if they are not attended unto, the whole is lost.
God often comforts us, not by changing the circumstances of our lives, but by changing our attitude towards them.