What would you say if I asked you to tell me the biggest problem you’re facing right now?
Would you say your finances? Family problems? Sickness? Job frustrations? Your weight?
If you said any of those in fact, if you listed any circumstance at all I have some startling news for you.
You’re mistaken. That’s right, you’re mistaken! I can tell you without even knowing the details of your life that, if you’re a born-again believer, money is not your problem. Sickness is not your problem. Your family, weight, job, background, lack of education…none of those things is your problem.
Your problem is the way you’ve been thinking about those things.
“Oh now, Brother Copeland, be realistic. These are hard times. The economy is bad. The government is a mess. Everything is going downhill. Those things aren’t just figments of my imagination. They’re real. What difference could it possibly make how I think about them?!”
I’ll show you. Look at 2 Kings 6, beginning in verse 24. God gives us a dramatic illustration of what a difference your thought patterns can make even in the worst of situations. He tells us of a time when the city of Samaria was in deep trouble. An enemy king had surrounded it with fortified troops and put it under total siege. No one could go into the city and no one could go out.
“And there was a great famine in Samaria: and, behold, they besieged it, until an ass’s head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove’s dung for five pieces of silver” (verse 25).
(That’s worse than a recession, folks! It’s worse than any economic depression any of us have ever seen!)
“And as the king of Israel was passing by upon the wall, there cried a woman unto him, saying, Help, my lord, O king. And he said, If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee?” (verses 26-27).
This king was saying, “Look, lady, the government is just as broke as you are. What do you expect us to do?”
“And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him today, and we will eat my son tomorrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son. And it came to pass, when the king heard the words of the woman, that he rent his clothes” (verses 28-30).
This situation had gone way beyond serious. It was pathetic,and tragically hopeless. Listen to what the king said next: “He said, God do so and more also to me, if the head of Elisha the son of Shaphat shall stand on him this day…. Behold, this evil is of the Lord; what should I wait for the Lord any longer?” (verses 31-33).
All he knew to do was get mad at the preacher and blame the problem on God. Have you ever had thoughts like that? Well, sure you have! We all have!
But when the king sent someone to cut off Elisha’s head, Elisha delivered a surprising message from the Lord. “Then Elisha said, Hear ye the word of the Lord; Thus saith the Lord, Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria” (2 Kings 7:1).
Don’t you know those words were a shock to those who heard them? Here they are in the midst of the most desperate situation they’ve ever seen. There’s no sign of hope anywhere and the prophet of God says, “Hey, good news! This is all going to be over by tomorrow and we’ll all be enjoying prosperity!”
God wasn’t the one creating the disaster. He was the One with the solution to it. Yet, instead of rejoicing over this thrilling word of hope, “A lord on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God, and said, Behold, if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be? And he [Elisha] said, Behold, thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof” (verse 2).
This man, who actually served as the “vice president” of Samaria, didn’t respond to God’s Word in faith. He responded to it with skepticism. He thought, Even if God got involved, this situation is too bad to be turned
around now! His thinking was so geared toward the negative that he couldn’t even imagine a positive turn of events.
As all this was going on, there were four lepers sitting outside the city’s gates. They’d been thinking negative, fear-filled thoughts just like everyone else. But then, something happened.
When Elisha spoke God’s plan, the Holy Spirit moved on these men. Suddenly, their thinking changed. They didn’t know it—but they began thinking the thoughts of God. “…and they said one to another, Why sit we here until we die? If we say, We will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city, and we shall die there: and if we sit still here, we die also. Now therefore come, and let us fall unto the host of the Syrians: if they save us alive, we shall live; and if they kill us, we shall but die” (verses 3-4).
Do you see the change in their thought pattern? Up to that time, they had been famine thinkers and leprosy thinkers. But now they were saying, “Why are we just sitting here waiting to die? Let’s do something!”
When their thinking changed, their actions changed. Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for themselves, they jumped up and headed toward the Syrian camp. Do you know what they discovered when they arrived? No one was there!
The camp was abandoned. It was filled with an abundance of food and clothing and supplies but all the soldiers were gone. These lepers had stumbled onto a spiritual law. It’s this: When hard times come, they’re
never as hard as they look. That’s so important, I’m going to say it again. Hard times are not as hard as they look—unless you’re looking in the wrong place, through the wrong eyes, thinking the wrong thoughts, and imitating the wrong people.
You may say, “But Brother Copeland, the lepers’ thinking patterns didn’t change that situation. God changed the situation. He made the Syrian army hear the sound of warriors coming and it scared them away!”
Exactly. But that miracle of God would never have been a blessing to those lepers or anyone else for that matter if they hadn’t changed their thinking.
As a born-again believer, you’re in much the same situation. God has already moved on your behalf. He sent Jesus to the cross to bear your sickness, weakness and pain (Isaiah 53:4-5). He healed you by His stripes
(1 Peter 2:24). He became poor so you could be rich (2 Corinthians 8:9). He covenanted with you to meet all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
He has given you “all things that pertain unto life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3). The only thing powerful enough to keep you from receiving those things is your own thinking.
Wrong thoughts will paint the wrong pictures in your mind. They’ll tell you things are worse than they are. They’ll tell you that you can’t do what it takes to succeed in life. But I’m here to tell you, you can succeed!
It doesn’t matter how bad the economy is. People who understand money aren’t afraid of hard times. In fact, it’s the ungodly people who are money-minded who actually wish for hard times. Such people made great fortunes back during the Depression years. They bought up goods at about 10 cents on the dollar and ended up rich while others went broke.
But, of course, as believers, that’s not our motive for prospering during hard times. We want to prosper in order to help others get back on top.
We want to say, “Hey friend, let me teach you how to prosper with me. Come on over here in the kingdom of God. Get over here in my house. No flood of recession or depression is going to tear it up. It’s built on the
Rock!” (See Matthew 7:24-25.)
If people are sick, we can say to them, “Don’t let sickness and disease knock your feet out from under you, friend. Come on over here to my house. It’s a healing house. By the power of God, we can show you how
to be well!”
That’s what the good news is really about. If we’d preach it that way instead of preaching it as some kind of religious club people need to join, they’d come running to us. If we’d preach the gospel to the poor and let them know they don’t have to be poor anymore because of Jesus, they would beat down the church door just to get in there with us.
But we aren’t preaching that way because we aren’t thinking that way! So, how do we change our way of thinking? God tells us in Isaiah 55: Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it (verses 6-11).
If we want to live the kind of life God has in mind for us, we must trade our thoughts for His thoughts. We must lay down the perspectives we’ve gained through past experiences and instead, pick up the wisdom of God.
Just look at what Proverbs 4 says about the importance of that wisdom: “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee…. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee” (verses 7-9).
Acquiring the wisdom of God is the number one priority in our lives. Some people think prayer is top priority. But prayer without wisdom won’t get you anywhere.
How many times have you prayed and failed to receive your answer? It wasn’t because God missed it! The Word of God says you ask and receive not, because you ask amiss (James 4:3). You need wisdom. You need God’s thoughts about the situation before you can pray effectively.
Many times you may be crying out to God for healing when what you actually need is a miracle. You may be praying about a money shortage when what you have is a giving shortage. You may even be causing the problem yourself without knowing it.
You need God’s wisdom!
How do you get it?
Jesus shows us in Luke 11:49. There, He says, “Therefore also said the wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of them they shall slay and persecute.” Think about this for a moment. Jesus said, “Therefore…said the wisdom of God…” then He began to quote Scripture. He called the written Word of God the wisdom of God.
