Journey to Jesus: Attitude

I got to thinking a little bit about this journey to Jesus that I have been on.  It is a lot like a weight loss journey.  There are going to be ups and downs along the way.  But once you commit to it, you just learn to push through on the hard days.  You learn to lean more on Christ and depend less on yourself.

When I realized that I needed to get my act together, it was not something brand new that I was learning.  I grew up in a home where Jesus was talked about regularly.  I think that it was a process that I had to go through to find my own faith.  I had to seek out what I truly believed. I could not just take my parents' faith and say that because they are Christians, I am a Christian.  It does not work that way.  I had to develop my own relationship with Christ.

In 2 Corinthians 5:17 it talks about who we are in Christ:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

We are made new in Christ when we decide to give our lives to Him.  My Bible Study Fellowship notes say, "God creates within us new emotions, a new attitude of mind and new power of will--what the Bible calls 'the new self.'"  I really love that quote because when we are in communion with Christ, He changes our heart, our mind, and our attitude.

The third phase that I went into on this journey is what I call my "attitude phase."  It kind of goes hand-in-hand with the mindset phase.  Once you change your mindset and what you are focused on, it is a lot easier to change your attitude.

I knew that in my health journey, my mindset had changed from, "I need to lose weight," and "I want to be skinny," to "I need to take care of my body because that is honoring God."  With that change in mindset, my attitude shifted.  I went from feeling pure dread about working out everyday to actually wanting to work out.

This was not an overnight shift, however.  It still took time for me to figure some of this out.  A lot of the time I felt that I had the attitude of "fake it 'til you make it." But each morning, I would sit in my quiet time and pray. I would ask God to help me have an attitude of "want." I wanted to want to workout because I knew that it was another form of worship.  I asked Him to help me "want" to eat healthy. I asked Him to help me "want" HIM more. I wanted to want to make this my lifestyle, because ultimately, I knew that is the attitude HE wanted me to have.

I knew that I could no longer have an attitude of someone in the world.  I could not base this healthy lifestyle on my looks.  I needed to have an attitude adjustment.  God calls us to be good stewards.  I had always applied that term to money, as I feel that it has always been taught to me that way.  But what if we applied that term to our bodies?

Dictionary.com states that the term "steward" means to manage another's property.  As I shared previously, we were bought with a price.  So if you think about it, our bodies are not our own.  We need to "manage" our bodies well.  When I started thinking about it that way, I had a much more positive attitude towards working out and eating healthy.

Colossians 3:23 says:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men...

If you are on this journey, this make take you some time.  That is okay! Ask God to help you change your attitude.  He will honor your request and help you!

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