8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Philippians 4:8 (NIV)
If anyone is to doubt whether the Bible is truly a positive thinking book, the above verse should have made it clear. Being a Christian is not about going through rituals as practiced by religious churches. It is about changing the way we think, speak and response to the situations that are around us. In short, a Christian life is a life of positive thinking, positive speaking and positive responding at all times even if we are in a really bad situation.
If you bother to read through the Bible, you will be able to read stories on how godly people got into deep trouble that seemed to be impossible to get out. Yet, they chose to be positive and trust in the Lord as their deliverer. In the end, they managed to get out of the troubles with greater prosperity in their lives.
This is the second purpose of the Bible.
There are 2 functions of the Bible:
1. Show us how to secure our place in heaven.
2. Show us how to prosper in every area of our lives.
The first one is simple. All you have to do is to accept Jesus as your savior as specified in the First Layer Gospel and your future in heaven is secure.
Even religious churches like to use this as a marketing ploy to lure unsuspecting public to join their church.
(The difference between religious churches and true churches is the religious churches change their “gospel” the moment the non-believer becomes a believer. For example, they will tell the non-believers that the moment they believe in Jesus they will be able to go to heaven. After they believed, they will be taught to do many things to preserve their heaven membership. Should they fail in any of them, they will go to hell. )
Overall, the first function is very simple to deal with, simply because it cannot be proven. Who can provide any proof that the First Layer Gospel is false? So, you can preach about it without having to worry over anyone coming out with some counter proofs.
However, the second function is more difficult because it can be proven. This may be one of the reasons why most preachers are afraid to preach about it. They must be afraid of being proven wrong by hard evidence. Unfortunately, such cowardice has denied many Christians from the prosperity that God wants them to enjoy while they are still on earth.
This is the reason why I will not waste time in attending those counterfeit churches. As far as I am concern, I am already saved based on the authority of the First Layer Gospel. So, I do not need resaving. My interest is in the second function of the Bible. I want to have abundance of prosperity in every area of my life. This is why I only listen to real Bible based preachers.
Let us get back to the above verse. As you can see, the writer wanted his audience to think thoughts that are good. What can we learn from here? I can see 2 points:
1. Positive thinking is a regular practice.
2. Positive thinking is independent from any external circumstances.
The above verse seems to imply that the act of thinking positive requires effort. Not thinking negative does not count. If you really want to receive good things your life, you cannot afford to slack in this area. You need to be disciplined and set up specific time to think positive.
Second, the above verse does not place any conditions for that instruction. It does not tell us to think positive only when the external circumstances are positive. If you want to have good things in your life, your positive thinking routine must be continuous even if you are going through some rough passage in your life right now.
In fact, positive thinking is more crucial when we are physically in a bad situation.
Let me give you an example. Certain routines like drinking lots of water and having enough rest are good for our health. We should do it daily. However, if you are sick, these things are even more important to you. You need to do them more.
Likewise for our thought lives. I can never over-state the importance of maintaining a healthy thought life for it is the key to all the prosperity we ever desire. The choice is yours. Will you obey or disobey?