Keep The Right Perspective | Victoria Osteen

Hey, thanks again for being with us today. Always my honor to be able to share God's Word with you and hopefully inspire you and encourage you. If you're enjoying the podcast, I hope you'll share it with a friend, pass it along. Let's inspire some other people as well. But know that we love you. It's going to be a blessed day for you.

Thank you, Father, that we're here and in your love.

Amen.

So how's your outlook on life today? Did you get up this morning ready to embrace the day? I believe that you did. But you know, there's too many people that allow their circumstance to dictate their attitude. They don't even realize that their attitude is a choice that they make every single day. See, the Bible tells us to consistently and constantly put on this fresh new mental attitude. See, we choose the way we see life. We can either look at what's good in life and decide to be grateful about that, or we can look at what didn't work out and how things didn't go our way and allow it to give us a negative perspective on life.

We've all heard that saying, the glass half full or the glass half empty. You see, that saying is so timeless because it makes such an amazing point. See, the water in the glass is the same amount It's just how one chooses to see the water that makes all the difference in the world. I know this girl that kind of always had a bend towards negative. You could ask her, how you doing today? And it was almost funny.

You could predict she was going to start telling you the things that were going wrong in her life. One day she said, oh, I was late to work. I had to take my children to the doctor. The doctor didn't open till nine o'clock. She said, now I have to stay late at the office because there's so much work for me to do. And you know, you're listening to this and it almost makes you grin because you're thinking you're kidding, right? Then she goes on to say, my house is a disaster when I get home late from work. My husband doesn't know how to work the vacuum cleaner. He doesn't know how to work the dishwasher, on and on. And you know, when you listen to this, you realize, you know what? She's probably got a pretty

good husband. In fact, I know her husband and he's a good man. He has a good job. He works hard. He loves to take the kids out on Saturdays and she can have the whole house to herself. But instead of looking at the richness in her life, she chooses to look at the negative. And when you begin to focus on the negative, you know what you see? More negative.

And when you see this negative, it's like swimming against the current. It's just a struggle. It's difficult and it's hard. I believe that we need to learn how to manage our thoughts. We need to learn how to rearrange our thoughts. so that we can literally see what we have and then enjoy what we have. The other day, I walked past one room in my house. It's my living room.

And sometimes when I go in there, I think, I don't like the way this room looks. In fact, I thought, I wish I could just get rid of all this furniture and start over. That would be so amazing. I found myself walking past the room several times, you know, as the days went on, and looking in there and having just a really negative attitude towards that room, almost like, ugh.

And then I realized, I'm not going to be getting any new furniture anytime soon, so I better just go in there and rearrange the furniture. So I began shifting the furniture, putting towels under the legs of the couch. How many of you women done pulling that couch, scooting everything around? You know, by the time I finally finished, I stepped back and I looked at that room and I thought, I like this room. This looks really good.

I went and got myself a cup of tea, sat on the couch. I thought, I've never seen that piece of furniture from that perspective. That really looks good the way that curves around there. You see, I was able to have a fresh new attitude about that room. I was able to see it differently because I rearranged it.

And just the way I rearranged my furniture, we need to rearrange our thoughts. We need to push our thoughts around so our thoughts don't push us around. You know, when you get down and discouraged, you need to recognize what it is and you need to stop and think, what am I thinking about? And I think oftentimes we need to rearrange our thoughts in simple ways. One, we need to be grateful, but sometimes we just need to change the atmosphere that we're in. Have you ever been working in the office and you're tired and you think, you know what, I just need a break. Maybe you need to walk outside and begin to look at the trees and the sunshine and the sky and the buds on the flower, the texture of the bark and begin

to just say, isn't that beautiful what God has created? To just stop and think about something differently. You see, I believe sometimes if we'll simply just change our routine, maybe there's some things that we're doing that we need to not be doing anymore. A friend of mine said that every day she would go out to lunch with the same group of people. And she loved her friends and all, but when she got back to work, it was just like, oh man, I've got half a day to go. She made this conscious decision. She said, you know, I don't like the way I'm feeling about my job.

how I'm just being so mundane about it. She said, I'm gonna choose a few new people to go to lunch with. So she looked around her office and she asked some different people to go to lunch with her. In fact, she got a new little group. And she said, I had so much fun Just getting in a new group of people listening to their ideas their jokes the way they were She said I came back to work and she said I had a new perspective I was ready to tackle that day. It was so refreshing You see sometimes we just need to get a new outlook on what we already have I heard about this man who was really down. He was really discouraged and He went to one of his pastors at the church and he told him, he said, my life is just, I

just don't have anything good going on. My life is just a wreck. The pastor said, come on into my office and let's just sit down and talk a little bit. the pastor pulled out this legal pad of paper. He drew a line down the center of it and he said, let's take this little test. He said, on the right side, I'm gonna put all your assets, all the things that are good in your life. On the left side, I'm gonna put your challenges, your problems, your disappointments. The man just kind of hung his head and he said, you know, I'm not gonna have anything right in my life. The pastor said, let's just go ahead and take the test.

He said, you know, I am so sorry to hear that your wife passed away. He looked up and he said, my wife didn't pass away. She's alive and she's healthy. He said, really? He wrote on the right side of the page, wife alive and healthy. He said, that's a shame that your house burnt down. The man looked at him and he said, what are you talking about? My house didn't burn down. I'm living in my house. He said, oh, he wrote on the right side of the page, living in a house. The man said, where are you getting all this ridiculous information? The pastor looked at him and then he wised up and he realized he's trying to show me a new perspective, a new way of thinking.

By the time they finished their little session, that man had listed several things on the right side of the page that was right in his life. And he left out of there with a good attitude and a spring in his step. Amen. Have you ever heard that saying that says your attitude determines your altitude? What that means is, is there our attitudes have a direct correlation with the success in our life? Have you ever met somebody with just a good attitude? They always saw the solutions and not the problems. They felt like they could tackle anything.

It makes you want to just be around that person. See, your attitude determines can determine your altitude. All of you know the story about Joshua and Caleb. They were two of the 12 spies that Moses picked to go into Canaan, which was the promised land that God had promised the Israelites when they left Egypt. And so Joshua and Caleb and 10 other spies were directed by Moses to go into Canaan and to buy out the land to see what the cities were like, see what the people were like, look at the vegetation. He even said, bring back some of the vegetation so we can see what the soil is like and what it's producing. So the 12 men went into the land of Canaan. They were there for 40 days. They collected these huge grapes. They saw these

amazing pomegranates. They saw the people. They wandered around for 40 days. And when they got back to the camp, every one of those men said, the land is rich. It is indeed land that is flowing with milk and honey, just like we have heard. But the difference was that 10 of those men took what they saw and they perceived it differently. They perceived it as it was great land.

It was flowing with milk and honey, but there are giants in the land. The cities have huge walls around them. We'll never be able to conquer those people because they're way bigger than we are. In comparison to us, we look like grasshoppers in our own sight. They begin to take what they perceived and spread it throughout the whole camp Two million people. Can you imagine? They just went in and spread that. Well, when Joshua and Caleb said, we saw the same thing. The land is good. It is what God said it was. We need to go up right now and we need to take that land at once. And if God is pleased with us, we'll be successful. Ten spies saw the glass half empty. We're two million. Spies saw the glass half full. It's amazing

how your attitude can affect what you see. Joshua and Caleb, although they had a good report, that good report was not good enough to diffuse the negative rumors that had spread throughout all the people. It was so negative that the Bible says they were crying and complaining and murmuring saying, can we just go back to Egypt? And do you know the Lord told Moses, he said, every one of you are going to go back to Egypt because of your bad attitude, your murmuring, your complaining, your perception of who I am in your life. But the point of my story and the one that I really want us to see today is this, that God gave Joshua and Caleb a second chance to enter the promised land. The Bible says that the 40 days that those men were

examining the promised land, that's how long that the children of Israel were going to wander in the wilderness. One year for every day. They were going to wander 40 years in the wilderness. Now, can I tell you, the ones with the good report, Joshua and Caleb, the ones... With the attitude, if we can take the land, they also had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years.

But the Bible says this about them. They were of a different spirit. One version says an excellent spirit. So when it was their opportunity after 40 years to take the younger generation into the promised land, This is what Caleb said. He said, listen, I'm stronger and I'm more determined than ever to take this land. When they thrived in the wilderness for 40 years, the rest of them died in the wilderness. Can I tell you, when you have a perception of who God is, when you can look out over your situation and you can have a good attitude using what you have and valuing what you have, You can make it through the struggles of life. You can make it through the wilderness moments better off and more determined than you ever thought you were. When Joshua

and Caleb were about to go in, this is what they spoke to the younger generation. This was their mantra, their leadership vision. They said, guys, I can only imagine. He looked at all them and he said, choose ye this day who you will serve. He was saying, every day, choose your attitude. Every day, you can choose the way you see life. Choose today how you're going to see this journey into the promised land. And he said, for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

We're going to choose to overlook offense. We're going to choose to quiet the discouraging voices that would try to come against us. We're going to choose to believe that God is a big God and we're going to hope on in faith. You see, I believe when we take inventory of our thoughts, we will be like Joshua and Caleb.

In fact, we'll outlast anything. that the enemy is trying to come against us with. And we'll go in and we'll take the land that God has given us.

Amen.

Amen. He's an awesome God.

Don't wait for the perfect time. Don't wait for things to change. Don't wait another day. Start believing and taking action now.

The scripture says, write the vision and make it plain to see. There's something powerful about writing down what you're believing for. That's why I'd love to send you my new I Believe Planner. It's a place to write down your dreams, your prayers, and the promises you're standing on. What stays before your eyes has a way of staying in your heart. Every time you see what you've written, let it be a reminder to thank God that it's already at work behind the scenes, even.

When you can't see it.

As you keep your faith in front of you day after day, you'll be encouraged, your expectation will grow, and you'll begin to see God bring those dreams to pass.

The I Believe Planner is a beautiful new resource designed to help you believe God for more in your health, your family, your future. Inside, you'll find a weekly I Believe Declaration to frame your mindset and shift the atmosphere with God's Word. daily planning, to-dos, and prayer prompts, and space to reflect and record God's faithfulness in your life.

Each month brings a fresh scripture and theme, plus a QR code linking to an exclusive message from Joel to keep you encouraged all year long. This 15-month planner will inspire you for the rest of this year and set you on a course for breakthrough throughout 2027. It's yours as a thank you for your gift to the ministry today.

Be sure to request your copy of The I Believe Planner, available this month by visiting us at joelosteen.com or call 888-567-JOEL.

Don't just carry your dreams in your heart. Put them on paper. And as you read them each day, keep thanking God that He's working. Victoria and I are praying for you and your family every day. Thanks so much for your prayer and support. Your generosity helps us take this message of hope to people around the world. A special thank you to our Champion of Hope partners for all you do to make the ministry possible. Until we meet again, may the Lord keep you and bless you.

Be sure to request your copy of The I Believe Planner, available this month by visiting us at joelostein.com or call 888-567-JOEL. With an additional gift, you can also receive the I Believe in His Word collection, featuring the Passion Translation New Testament Reader's Edition, alongside the I Believe Planner, so you can carry God's Word with you every single day, right alongside the promises you're standing on. Don't wait until 2027 to believe God for more. This is your moment. You can request these inspiring resources by calling 888-567-JOEL or logging on to joelostein.com today. Call or click anytime, 24 hours a day.

Keep The Right Perspective | Victoria Osteen

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