If We Can Think It, We can Become it!

I've heard so many different versions of the power of positive thinking. It is a strong principal that many great leaders & successful people put into practice. C. W. Longenecker wrote a great poem on the subject:

You CAN if you THINK you can!

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will.
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But soon or late the man who wins,
Is the man who thinks he can.

I must confess, I have not really "arrived" regarding exercising the "power of positive thinking". I don't know if it's because I'm actually AFRAID to win, but I do know that something is stopping me from experiencing TRUE freedom. I DO believe that the mind controls a lot of who we are. We often think of the mind as our brain, but they are different. The brain can be explained scientifically, but the mind is so much harder to understand.
Look at the "mind over matter" theory. I can't even begin to touch on that, as it has so much to do with psychics & the like, but I will never be so closed minded to deny such things exist. The bottom line is that the mind is something that holds great mystery.

I cannot claim to be a specialist in the "mind field", but what I DO know is that the way you think affects your life deeply. My prior posts "Different Strokes For Different Folks & Ready To Face The Next Day" both discuss the power of "Taking Every Thought Captive". 2 Corinthians 10:5 says, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (emphasis mine) This does not just happen. We don't wake up one day & all of a sudden we are seasoned in taking our thoughts captive & making them "obedient". It took us years to get this way, and it's gonna take intensive training to get our thoughts under control again. Disheartening? Perhaps. But at the same time it's exciting, because if scripture tell us to do something, then that means it CAN be done!

Because we are sinful people, with a natural desire to sin, we have a challenge to train ourselves NOT to sin. Because our battlefield is in the mind, we can BECOME what we THINK we are. Proverbs 23:7 says about man, "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" That is such a great scripture verse, as it really solidifies the precept that "If we can think it, we can become it".

We can retrain our minds by simply replacing every bad thought with a good one. When we think, "Man, I'll never lose this weight" we can replace it with, "I WILL reach my goal weight".

We CAN change our lives by changing the way we think. Not one thing we do is done without thinking about it first. At some point, we had to put the thought into our minds. If we fed it, chances are it grew. So if we've spent a lot of time feeding our negative thoughts, it's no wonder why we cannot believe anything positive about ourselves!

Our minds need to be retrained, but that won't happen if we are not meditating on God's word. We need to know the truth of His word in order to put it into our minds to begin with. We can recondition our minds if we begin to spew out all of those bad thoughts & constantly reaffirm the good things. I can tell you firsthand that there are so many times that I can be doing something and a random thought will pop into my head. It seems like it comes out of nowhere! Suddenly, I'm entertaining that thought and I'll stop what I was doing & take off with the new thing I just thought about. A lot of times, unfortunately, those thoughts are sinful. I get sidetracked & then it takes me a few minutes to come to my senses. I am, after all, a sinner by nature and sinful things are appealing to that nature. However, I am also a new creation in Christ, therefore that sin cannot reign in my body. I am constantly convicted of it and at that point it is the choice I make whether or not to obey Christ. If I choose to obey, I learn & am blessed. If I choose NOT to obey, I still learn, however, I now have consequences to bear. Seeing it laid out, why would I choose to take the consequences? Is my sin really THAT fun? Is it THAT worth it??

I often wonder if I actually LIKE feeling lousy. If I didn't like it, why would I keep doing things that make me feel that way? What a battle, and it all takes place in the mind! Do you realize how strong we would be in the Lord if we could retrain our minds to the point that doing the right thing would become second nature to us? Perhaps that's why Satan works so hard at controlling our mind. Perhaps we are somehow afraid of success, and so we've taught ourselves to live with a defeated attitude. If we don't change our way of thinking, we will never rid ourselves of the control we have given to Satan over our lives. We must IMMEDIATELY take those negative & sinful thoughts captive. There is no way we can get away with entertaining those thoughts even for a second. We MUST rebuke those thoughts right away, or they will lead us into sinful or negative behavior. Likewise, if we immediately replace those thoughts with promises, or encouragement, or positive affirmations, we will NOT give in to sin, and we will, in fact, feel wonderful! We will quiet that little voice inside our minds that we have fed for so long & eventually we will no longer hear it. We CAN win! We CAN be free from this low self image & this self defeating behavior! We don't have to believe the lies, it is a choice we make.

Next time you hear, "I can't do this!" Replace it with, "I KNOW I can do this!" To doubt yourself is one thing, but you can never doubt Him. Philippians 4:13 teaches, "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."

God bless you as you repeat..."I know I can, I know I can, I know I can"!