Affirmations

This blog post is taken from my Seminar Notes, and it’s about Affirmations and how to use them.

To begin with, I’d like you to Imagine that you’re holding a cup of coffee in one hand, and a cup of of water in the other hand.

If you pour the water into the cup of coffee, then the coffee will become diluted.

And if you then take a pitcher full of water and pour it into the cup, then the coffee will become even more diluted and it’ll become almost clear.

In other words, you can “transform” a cup of coffee by pouring water into it… and in a similar manner, you can transform your mind by pouring the Word of God into it.

Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

And the reason that I’m sharing this with you is because we all have minds that need to be transformed so that we can “have the mind of Christ”… and there are 3 main ways that I’ve worked on transforming my mind.

First of all, I’ve spent thousands of hours reading and listening to God’s Word, and I consider this to be the very best way for anyone to transform their mind.

Second, I’ve made an intentional effort to spend time with people who love the Lord and seek to bring Him Glory and Honor.

And third, I’ve worked on reprogramming my mind by using Affirmations.

Now I realize that this concept of “using Affirmations” is probably misunderstood by most people, so let me go ahead and explain what I mean when I talk about using Affirmations.

First of all, the dictionary says that to “affirm something” is to declare that it’s true.

And research indicates that when you think or speak things, your mind assumes that you’re declaring these things to be true.

In other words, every thought that you think and every word that you speak is an Affirmation.

And these Affirmations can be Positive or they can be Negative.

And most likely, your Affirmations will be Negative unless you make a conscious effort to develop Positive ones.

And the things that you think and say (your Affirmations), are either working for you or they’re working against you – they’re either making you more like Christ, or they’re making you less like Christ.

And since you’re the one who gets to choose the way that you think, you have the ability to change the way that you think.

Many of our thinking patterns are the result of how we were taught to think when we were young, and most people have never taken the time to intentionally train themselves how they should think or how they should talk.

The idea of using Affirmations is to consciously choose words that will either help to eliminate something (that you don’t want) from your life – or help to create something (that you do want) in your life.

When I first heard about saying or listening to Positive Affirmations, I thought the idea was hokey – I thought it was stupid – and I thought that it was a waste of time.

But then I realized that people exercise on a regular basis to improve their physical health, so I started thinking of Positive Affirmations as exercises that I could do to improve my mind.

In other words, Daily Affirmations are to the mind what exercise is to the body.

And unless you make a conscious effort to use Positive Affirmations, your self-talk is gonna be destructive and you’ll say or think things like…

These are Negative Affirmations, and we’ve all had similar thoughts, and this is why you’ve got to make an intentional effort to fill your mind and your speech with Positive Affirmations.

And although Affirmations can change behavior, I’d like to mention that I don’t think, (and I’m not trying to imply), that having a Positive Mental Attitude will allow you to do anything that you want to do.

However, I am convinced that having a Positive Mindset will allow you to do things better than if you have a Negative Mindset.

And my final thought is that if you’d like to hear some of the Personal Affirmations that I’ve recorded, then visit the “Free Resources” tab of this website.