MARCH 2015

“What Is Your Outlook On Life”

  Maybe the place to begin determining what our outlook on life is asking, “How do I think?”   “What are my attitudes?”   What got me to thinking about this was a statement an extended family member posted on “Facebook”.  He has had a special awakening in his life to the Lord and is sharing it with family and friends.   He wrote, “If you will make God bigger in your life, you will begin to see great things happen.”  That brought my mind back to the favorite passage of Scripture that I periodically share with you, Colossians 3”12-17.  That passage reminds us that life is at its best when we think and act like Jesus.  The more we let the personality of Jesus change and fill our lives, the more uplifted our outlook on life will be.

In looking through my scattered notes in the notebook I usually have in my shirt pocket, where I wrote Matt’s comment I discovered a few other things that I had written down in it but let slip by me once they were in my “clutter” of notes to give thought to at a later time.  Now is the time and I’m going to share those with you as well.

“Self pity is the Super Glue of Hell that ties you to the past.”

Our pity parties don’t pull us out of the doldrums.  They just pull us deeper down and often make us hard to live with.  Jesus lifts us up.  I like the old hymn “Love Lifted Me”.  “I was sinking deep in sin, Far from the peaceful shore, Very deeply stained within, Sinking to rise no more; But the Master of the sea Heard my despairing cry, From the waters lifted me, Now safe am I.  Love lifted me!  Love lifted me!  When nothing else could help, Love lifted me.”  Make God bigger in life and the outlook will see God doing great things in your life.

Another quotation I dug out of the pocket clutter was:

“PRAYER:  The world’s greatest wireless connection.”

When we let Jesus fill our hearts with his love and grace, we have a direct connection with God.  It doesn’t require an internet connection fee.  It is free.  Jesus paid for it for eternity on the cross, dying for our sins.  All we have to do is call out to Him to be our Savior and we have a direct connection that is faster than anything we can pay for on the internet and has a range of reach that is out of this world for help to live in this world.

The other gem I lifted out of my pocket file is this:

“When life gets too hard to stand, kneel.”

Bowing ourselves before God takes us out of the spotlight, where we usually like ourselves to be, even in our shyness, and placing God foremost.  This is a good point to remind us of the JOY acronym: Jesus first, Others second, Yourself last.  May our prayer include asking the Lord to give us a Jesus "Outlook" on life.

 God bless!  Fred