Are "Positive Affirmations" OK for Christians?

so is it okay for Christians to use positive affirmations well I want to have a conversation about that in this video now normally we would have a transition right here and I'd say something about follow this Channel and this is what I do and well if you and I are meeting for the first time then yeah I'd love for you to subscribe to this channel but this video is going to be a little bit different it's going to be no fancy editing and overlays and b-roll and all those things that yes I believe helped make

videos better but today I just want to have a conversation with you about this idea of positive affirmations because I think the church has made some mistakes here and it's something that I got a message earlier uh this week from a friend who was saying that she and her husband were just struggling with this idea of of self-talk and some of the things that spill into self-love and and affir and all these things and we had a conversation about it short um and and it's something that is an important thing I think for us to

talk about and it's really at the top of so many people's minds right now because it's the new year it's the brand new year and people are making goals and and setting goals for work and for finances and for fitness and yes even their faith and often times positive affirmations come up in these conversations and is it and then Christians get uncomfortable with the with the idea of positive affirmations because I think that we often times confuse the the use of affirmations to shape our minds with just this flowery I'm going to talk to myself

and it's going to attract all these good things to me and I can just say I am perfectly fit and I always succeed and and we kind of think of that as positive affirmations but I want us to reshape that a little bit and so again without a whole bunch of editing or whatever I've got my my Bible open right here I've got some notes on a screen in front of me so I won't always be perfectly looking at the camera because I want I want us to unpack as I was doing some some thinking

through this praying through this I thought about this a lot and did some more more study and research today I I want to look at uh kind of four different views on this and not views maybe maybe a better word is even perspective I want to look at the command of Jesus and then I want to look at the warnings of Peter and the teachings of Paul and then even look at the example of David because I believe that King David actually used positive affirmations as a part of his worship as a part of his

uh renewing of his mind and so so that that brings us first where we need to start did did Jesus talk about the mind and what we do with the mind and and yes in fact when Jesus has asked the greatest commandment and that's recorded in in Matthew Mark and Luke but looking at Luke's at the response in Luke he he quotes from Deuteronomy 6 but he adds the mind to it in Deuteronomy 6 it says here o Israel love the Lord your the Lord Our God the Lord is one love the Lord your God

with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength well Jesus quotes that in response to what is the greatest commandment he says to love the Lord your he said here here it is again this is not going to be polished because I'm just walking through this with you uh he says in Luke 1027 he answers the man who asks him what's the greatest commandment he says he answered love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength and with all your mind and your

neighbor is yourself and so he is adding the I think we need to recognize that for Jesus the the mind was a very important thing and too often I think in the church because our culture has taken the shaping of our mind and affirmation specifically and taking it into unhealthy places I think that we often times throw the baby out with the bath water so to speak I think that that we we do that with the mind I remember when I was a kid and Larry Norman the music I'm going to date myself here but

Larry Norman was a rock and roll musician who came to know Jesus and then he still wanted to write rock and roll but he wanted it to be honoring to Jesus and he wrote a a song that now when I listen to it it's a little cheesy but it was fun back then called why should the devil have all the good music and the perspective of that was hey God's given us music why is it that because some people have done bad things with it that we shouldn't redeem it for God's glory and I believe

that the the the thinking positively the positive affirmations and and when they are focused not on the power within us and our own uh abilities and all that when it when it's shaped by the truths of God's scripture I believe that that is absolutely something that that Jesus would would honor as one of the ways in which we honor God with our minds and and when we look at the mind it's important to to know that that that that word used it carries yes the the cognitive thinking aspect but there is also in the loving

God with our mind there is the the submission aspect and I want to I want to look up again the exact word when he talks about loving God with our mind the the word that he is using and I think that I just uh deleted it from my notes is not beautiful but the anyhow the the the Greek word that is used at that point carries with it some connotations of yes the cognitive aspect of our mind but also the act of submitting and surrendering our mind there is the the devoting the worshiping of uh

with our minds and the and the Moral Moral and ethical judgment morical we're just going to make up a word the moral and ethical judgment uh that we do with our minds that takes a lot of pondering a lot of thought a lot of repetition the lies of the world are loud and I think we need to make the truths of God's word louder and part of the way that we do that is by repeating it by meditating on it that whole idea of the word meditation is one of of mumbling of chewing on of

what Eugene Peterson says to he WR wrote a book called Eat This Book and it's all about studying the word and meditating on it and so when we when I look at the teaching of Jesus I don't think he dismisses the mind and I think that even if Jesus were walking the Earth in our culture today where people have taken the mind and just made it about self and about anything that you want to say and repeat you can attract and all those things that they that we've taken it away from there I think that

Jesus would still talk even more so more directly about meditating on and chewing on and mumbling over and speaking what is true and right and of him and I think that is a big part of loving God with our minds now shifting gears from the teaching of Jesus we then also have the the major writers of the new you've got Peter who walked with Jesus heard him teach heard a lot more directly from the mouth of Jesus than than he recorded Ed in the letters that we have or in the sermons that he preaches in

the book of Acts well in First Peter this letter that is about how to live out a god honoring Jesus glorifying life in a world that doesn't honor that three different times in chapter 1 verse 13 in chapter 4 verse 7 and in chapter 5 ver8 of First Peter he says to be sober minded and this idea is again this keeping our minds free from intoxicants well that is what that word means and he says it three times in five chapters he tells his readers and through that tells us to be sober minded and I

think that a lot of how we keep our minds free from in toxicant is filling our minds with that which is holy with that which is good with that which is true right that that we find that in developing other habits if you want to cut out on TV watching time well then fill that time that you would normally watch TV with reading books or exercising or going for a walk or playing games with your family or whatever when we fill space occupied normally or previously by something negative then and we fill it with something

POS positive then by definition that negative isn't present there anymore and I think that so often if we if we don't intentionally think about what is sobering what is true what is good then part of the sinful nature part of living This Side of Heaven is that the lies of our world the lies of our culture the untr truths that we find all around us we'll just go there we'll just sit there we'll just fill our mind unless we are intentional about keeping our mind sober and I think that part of being sober minded isn't

just about keeping the intoxicants out but it's putting something in that make it so that the intoxicants can't get in so we see in the warning of Peter three different times to stay sober minded to be sober minded now shifting gears again we see Paul author of so many books right in the in the New Testament we see all through out his teaching him talking about what we're thinking about what we're dwelling on what we're chewing on he the Mind wasn't just important to Jesus it was important to Peter it was important to Paul enough

that he talks about it frequently just a few passages in which he talks about it we see in 2 Corinthians 10 verses 3-5 we read this for although we live in the flesh we do not wage war according to the flesh since the weapons of our Warfare are not of the flesh but are powerful through God for the de demolition of strongholds we demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought captive to obey Christ the idea of taking every thought captive there is intentionality

there about about what we put into our mind and the way in which we shape our mind when to take every thought captive you're going to the thoughts that you're going to take captive are the ones that are creeping in that Peter warned us about about being sober minded and we have to have the truth so clearly in our minds so at the ready that the Holy Spirit can bring it to our minds so that we can take every thought captive so we see in 2 Corinthians 10 he talks about it probably the most one

of the most famous verses Paul ever wrote is how he started out Romans 12 now you look at the totality of the book of Romans and I kind of only half jokingly say that in the first 11 chapters you feel like you're at a debate and it's Paul's turn right people have been making their arguments and Paul is making the argument for Jesus and for the gospel and for all of our need for him whether we are Jew or whether we are Gentile we all need Jesus we all need Grace we all need salvation and

after chapter 11 he starts out with the remainder of that chapter being kind of the practical application it's almost like Paul's saying okay well if you if you believe what I just said for the last 45 minutes then here's what your life should look like and the very first thing he says out of the Chute is therefore brothers and sisters in view of the mercies of God I urge you to present your bodies as a Living Sacrifice holy and pleasing to God this is your true worship do not be conformed to this age but be

transformed by the renewing of your mind mind so that you may discern what is the good pleasing and perfect will of God that the the starting point is the the recognition of our need for the the mercies of God and his offer of the mercies of God and what do we do we present our bodies as a Living Sacrifice well how do we do that by not being conformed and by being transformed again it's not just about not doing the negative it's about intention Ally doing the positive and how are we transformed we are transformed

by the renewing of our mind it's not the renewed one time it is the renewing what the tense that's called the the active present it's it's not kind of like when he says do not get in Ephesians when he says do not get drunk on wine which leads to debauchery instead be filled with the spirit is actually be being filled it's like not just filling a cup one time but what if you were filling a cup and that cup was also being poured out and it was continuously being filled this being transformed is a continual

regular daily hour by hour practice of renewing our minds and I believe that the the positive affirmations as long as those a positive affirmations are built on our identity in Christ on the truth of who God is the truth of what God has done and the truth of who we are based on who God is who God is and what God has done then positive affirmations are absolutely something that we need to repeat over and over we need to meditate on we need to chew on we need to constantly be renewing our minds and and

Paul not only said we need to take every thought captive but that we need to be transformed the way we are transformed is by the renewing of our minds and then one last teaching of Paul is in one of my favorite books in all the Bible Philippians in Philippians 4 he talks early on in that chapter he talks about rejoicing always and he talks about not being anxious and presenting our request to God and being thankful and he talks about the peace of God which surpass passes all understanding right will guard our hearts and what

and our minds in Christ Jesus and then what is the very next thing that he says the very next thing that he says right after that because that verse of the piece that surpasses understanding is verse seven of chapter 4 well here's verse eight finally brothers and sisters whatever is true whatever is Honorable whatever is just whatever is is pure whatever is lovely whatever is commendable if there is any moral excellence and if there is anything praiseworthy dwell on these things dwell on these things depending on what translation you have it might say think about

these things or think on these things but this idea is sitting in it of dwelling in it Jesus talked about if my I I if my words remain in you there's this idea of of abiding read read John 15 and you'll hear Jesus teaching about abiding he's not specifically only talking about the mind at that point these are talking about the mind but he's talking about abiding about dwelling and this is a piece of it to have our minds dwell on what is true how do you dwell on something if you just can only think

about it when your Bible is open how can you dwell on something that you only read once and then you move on to something else the only way that we can dwell on something to think on something is to ponder to meditate to chew on to as that word meditate implies to mumble it over well it's to speak it it's one of the reasons I believe it is so important for us to internalize scripture to be able to carry it with us when we are out when we are waging that war that spiritual war when

we are out living in the flesh but waging that spiritual war we need to have the sword of the spirit at the ready and that's what internalizing is about so that we can dwell on what is true and honorable and just pure and lovely and Admiral that we can dwell on those things all day long and so we see in the in the uh in the teaching of Peter in the I mean the command of uh Jesus and in the warning of Peter and in the teachings of Paul we see that Jesus Peter Paul they

all knew how important the mind was to the Christian Living out a life that honors God life in the spirit life that glorifies the Sun and so now just kind of as we land the plane a little bit I want to look at I came across just this this just kind of hit me as I was I a couple years ago as I was thinking about the mind and and loving God with our mind and what does that really mean uh and I was reading through the I was doing a rapid Bible read through through

the whole Bible and I just stopped one day when I was reading Psalm 26 Psalm 26 it's not like the most popular Psalm out there but it's a Psalm of David it says of David right at the beginning it's a Psalm of David and and we know David's history we know David's Perfection we know David's sin we know David's flaws we we know of his adultery we know of so many so many different pieces or parts of scripture recount for us the ways in which David struggled and David fell short and David was in need

of God's grace just like the rest of us now he's referred to later as a man after God's Own Heart right well look at what David says in Psalm 26 think know knowing David's past look at what David says in Psalm 26 it's only 12 verses I'm going to go ahead and read the whole thing vindicate me Lord because I have lived with integrity and have trusted in the Lord without wavering test me Lord and try me examine my heart and mind for your faithful love guides me and I live by your truth I do

not sit with the worthless or associate with Hypocrites I hate a crowd of evildoers and I do not sit with the wicked I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar Lord raising my voice in Thanksgiving and telling about your wondrous Works Lord I love the house where you dwell the place where your glory resides do not destroy me along with Sinners or My Life along with men of Bloodshed in whose hands are evil schemes and whose right hands are filled with bribes but I live with Integrity redeem me and be gracious to

me my foot stand hands on level ground I will bless the Lord in the assemblies now tell me if David isn't using positive affirmations of the the person he wants to be the person he knows God is calling him to be David knew his own faults you see in other Psalms you see him asking God to cleanse him he is not I I don't believe it's dishonest for David to say I live with Integrity he is not just speaking about this is what I've perfectly done forever he is positively affirming the person he knows God

has called him to be and he knows that in the recounting of this my guess is that David said this Psalm over and over and over I don't believe that David just wrote it and then somehow it got pass passed on and we have it here I think that David knew this I think David said this I think David meditated on this I think David spoke this I think David turned this into a prayer that these again I think it's so important for us to recognize that positive affirmations for the Christian are based on the

truth of who God is what God has done and who we are and who we are called to be because of who God is and what he has done if our positive affirmations are Simply Built on what we've set up as our goals and the power that is within us and and this is this is just what I want for myself and I'm going to speak it into ex man I think that can certainly lead us astray and we should be wary of that but if we're going to throw out the use of positive affirmations

simply because the the world has taken it in a direction that is unhealthy and Unholy I think we are missing out on what Jesus commanded what Peter warned us about what Paul taught us about and what David a man after God's Own Heart lived out by example so as you start the new year and as you look at the person that God is calling you to be in your goal setting for your finances and for your Fitness and for your family and all those all those aspects because I believe that God is integrated into all

of them and wants to be Lord and is Lord of all of those I think for for you to to spend some time reading scripture meditating sitting in silence praying through what are the affirmations based on the truth of who God is what God has done who we are and who God is calling us to be because of who he is and what he has done ask him to show you what affirmations you should be chewing on you should be meditating on you should be internalizing and you should be repeating day after day after day

after day so again this was a a little bit different video and I I've got a lot more coming in the year but I pray that this was helpful if you found this helpful for you then please like this video so that YouTube recommends it to to others share it with a friend leave me a comment I'd love to know what you think and if there are some other scriptures that I didn't speak on that speak to this for you I would I would love for people to be able to kind of read through the

comments of this video and and almost see it as a discussion of how can we do this how can we have practice positive affirmations in a way that glorifies and and honors God so happy New Year it is uh good to look forward to another year of being your Bible coach I'll see you in the next video I