What outcome are you expecting?

Posted byoakhillcrossvillePosted inUncategorized
Good morning everyone,
 
Our theme for this month: “A fresh start in a new year”
 
Our Bible verse for today: “For I know the plans I have for you” – this is the Lord’s declaration – “plans for your well-being, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 (CSB)
 
Our thought for today: “What outcome are you expecting?”
 
A basic law of human nature is that we tend to get what we expect. Another way of putting it is that we attract to ourselves the outcomes we expect. That doesn’t hold true 100% of the time of course, but generally, it is true. The subconscious mind works to try to achieve for us the things our conscious mind focuses on. So, when you brood over an expected outcome your subconscious mind is at work trying to create that outcome for you.
 
Maybe you can see how that could be to our advantage or disadvantage depending on what outcome the conscious mind is anticipating and therefore thinking about. Back in the 1950s Dr. Norman Vincent Peale wrote a best-selling book which has since become a classic. The title is “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Norman Vincent Peale was a pastor and his book is Biblically based, filled with lots of Scriptural support for his points. The basic premise of the book is what we are thinking about this morning – we attract to ourselves the outcomes we expect. Therefore, it is vitally important what outcome we are expecting and thinking about.
 
That book had a powerful influence on me and I have reread it numerous times over the decades since I first discovered it. One practice I adopted after reading that book is writing out positive affirmations. I have lots of encouraging passages of Scripture and other positive affirmations written down on index cards and kept in my Bibles, on my desk, in my truck, in my gym at home, in my office at the church, and in multiple other locations. I review them frequently and I keep them in my mind.
 
Why do I do that? Because those positive affirmations represent the outcomes I want to experience. So, I keep them in my conscious mind; I pray about them; I mediate on them; I form a mental picture in my mind of what it will be like once that positive outcome is a reality in my life.
 
I think you can see how this strategy can and should be applied to our New Years resolutions. Write them down. Review them often. Form a picture in your mind of what your life will be like once that outcome becomes reality for you.
 
Let me end this morning where we started by asking you to prayerfully consider, “What outcomes are you expecting?”
 
God bless,
Pastor Jim  
 
(If you like what you are reading in these daily devotionals, and if you would like more content from Oak Hill Baptist Church, join us on Sundays at 10:00, in-person if you are nearby or, if you are geographically distant or if you just can’t make it, online at www.YouTube.com/@oakhillbaptistcrossville
 
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