Renewing Old Habits
Not all habits are bad! We call our Christian practices the disciplines of the faith. A part of discipleship is learning new habits such as reading the Bible, prayer and regularly assembling with the church. The era in the church when Teresa and I were young disciples was during the peak of the Charismatic Movement. There were some things in that season that were not sound theologically. Yet, most of what came during that time was revolutionary for us. We learned of a new fresh worship. We heard a fresh message on the home that saved our marriage. We learned about the church and the function of the church and found out that every member of the church is a priest unto God. We were ruined to ever just "having church" again. We were the church!
Another emphasis that was taught during that time was the positive confession. It basically said that we could change our atmosphere by what came out of our mouth. Proverbs 18:21 (NKJV) says,21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue... "
I had grown up in a pretty negative mentality that came out of our mouths. If that was true then, no wonder we had so many troubles. Was it possible that we could actually be setting into motion negative circumstances through negative words? As we studied the principles we started finding more and more Scriptures that seemed to confirm this teaching.
Teresa and I entered an agreement that we would not speak negative words and we gave each other the freedom to correct our speech. I could barely talk for a couple of weeks and then we entered into a new world of the positive. We could see a difference that confessing only positive things according to Scripture was producing in our lives. We weren't just confessing a kind of verbal "positive thinking" doctrine, although positive thinking is a powerful practice. The Bible tells us to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Philippians tells us how to think positively. Obviously then, there is a connection between thinking and speaking. As we brought our thought life and tongues into a more positive discipline, our circumstances started improving. Then, preachers started making fun of the positive confession message. It affected me and I think subconsciously I drifted back into the old negative ways.
Recently, I have been thinking about this again. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose by thinking and speaking positively and saying about ourselves and our futures what the Bible says. Let's renew an effort to get our thinking and speaking in line with the Scripture and watch our atmosphere and the atmosphere of those around us change!
