Our third power-phrase is this:  The difference between great and small people is that while all may fall, small people just fall but great people get up again.

You see, positive thinking is the power to look at your situation and find just one positive aspect, one positive thought that you can hold on to in order to transform your negative situation into an opportunity!

Regardless of what you may face today remember this, NEVER GIVE UP! You may be at the end of your rope but remember… one positive thought has the power to loosen the grip of impossibility and propel you forward into possibility!

The second power-phrase I want you to ponder this week is: “Great people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”

Standing before a large audience of farmers, Dr. Schuller recalled another family tragedy. During the great depression and several years before the tornado disaster, a drought destroyed the family crops, forcing his father to mortgage everything to survive.  Dr. Schuller recalled entering the bank and seeing a sign on the wall that stated “Great people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”

 Five years after the destructive tornado, Schuller’s father had completely rebuilt the farm, paid off the mortgage taken after the Great Depression drought and retired a successful man!

Have you ever considered how to generate a positive thought? Over the next three days I want to introduce 3 power-phrases for you to frequently recite, and allow them to fill your sails with the wind of positive expectation!

First, Tough times never last but tough people do. 

This phrase comes from the title of one of over 37 books authored by Dr. Robert Schuller, pioneer of the first television church service.

Living positive in a negative world, or developing positive thinking patterns in difficult situations, provides a creative energy and stamina necessary to tackle life’s biggest challenges.

You may be thinking, “If you only knew the problems I am facing!”  Well, Dr. Schuller’s family certainly had their own share of problems. His own father, at the age of 60, lost everything when a devastating tornado destroyed their livestock, their crops, the family home and their barn. Nothing was left! Ten farms were utterly destroyed by that storm. Only one man rebuilt! http://bit.ly/1EFXOOW

A man once wrote of this experience. As a small town prepared to be flooded before the building of a large dam, a unique thing happened. In the months before the flooding, all improvements and repairs stopped! Why paint a house if it will be destroyed in a few months? As week by week the town deteriorated, the man offered this conclusion, “Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present.”

Hope is the picture of the future. Without that picture there is no confidence to move forward and certainly no power by which to live!

If you need hope today, you’ll find inspiring resources at LeslieMcNulty.com—you will find stories of people just like you discovering hope for everyday life!  http://bit.ly/1EEHSMX

God is a partner in our labor working things together for us. What a pleasure it is to trust in HIM, knowing that He is working behind the scenes on our behalf!

Change surrounds each one of us because of difficulties in this natural world. However, in this time of transition we use our faith and our passion to latch on to God’s will, and connect to the wealth that is available for transfer into the hands of those in the kingdom of God.

We are not down and defeated without hope or alternatives, but we are UP…expectant and dreaming of new possibilities in changing times!

Scripture: Romans 8:28

The blessing of the Lord makes you rich and He adds NO SORROW with it. There is no negative effect of God’s blessing. No regret, remorse, fear, anxiety, or defiled conscience in God’s wealth plan!

Embrace these scriptures as your contract with your Creator:

“But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth and so confirms His covenant, which He swore to your ancestors, as it is today.”

Remember that it is the Lord your God who GIVES YOU POWER to become rich.

“But YOU WILL RECEIVE POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

You are unstoppable with these powers at work in your life!

Scriptures: Prov. 10:22, Deuteronomy 8:18 NIV, Acts 1:8 NIV

When we understand the One Who lives in us and is our Helper, we are not afraid to take on any challenge. The key to overcoming is not perfection, but perseverance!

An American swimmer was after a new Olympic gold record. During the 7th race he was continually behind the Croatian swimmer, but a photo finish moment would determine his destiny. With 6 inches left to go, his opponent lifted his head and reached out for the wall. The American kept his head down, allowing for one more stroke.  Stretching his right hand out, he touched the wall 1\100 of a second before the hand of his opponent, and history was made. One extra stretch was the difference between victory and defeat!

“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Scripture: John 14:26, Philippians 3:12-14

The Prophet Isaiah said, “the fearful heart will know and understand, and the stammering tongue will be fluent and clear.” If you are fearful today, there are both practical and spiritual solutions available to you. You need to know that miracles are available today!

Regardless of your situation, today you can rise above whatever holds you back and discover that you have a friend with God! He will come to you today and reconcile what distresses you. Just say these simple words with me: come into my life, Lord, release me from the fear that holds me back.

Scripture: Isaiah 32:4

Hours before the opening night of a large mass miracle meeting in Africa, the evangelists we were told by the organizers, “Don’t expect to start on time! Here in Africa the opening night is just a test run where we work out our problems.”

Can you imagine? 75,000 people are preparing to gather. People are already standing on the field hours before the meetings are to begin! Yet, the expectation of a group of adult men was – ‘don’t worry if we don’t start on time, we never do!’ In other words, failure is acceptable!

Ask yourself a simple question: Where have I set the standard for my life? Is failure my expectation, or is overcoming the impossible where I set my goal in life?

How would you handle a situation like this if in one hour you were to address this crowd, and you had no lights and no sound?  Action was required, so the 30 organizers were fired, and forty 14-year-old male volunteers were recruited from the crowd. Why? They had not yet experienced failure! They would climb where no one else would climb, lifting lights and scaling poles! Are you willing to scale insurmountable odds?

If those 40 boys had not stepped to the line, what would have happened that night? 75,000 people who came looking for hope, searching for a miracle, and expecting good news would have left disappointed! http://bit.ly/1NAmfV0

Quote: I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it.
~Maya Angelou

Have you ever had the question arise in your heart of why something happened to you that you did not want or expect? Does God want our hearts to be broken or our energy diminished? No, He does not! He said that in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, He has overcome this world. It is clear that in this world circumstances and people can throw unexpected curve balls at you, but be of good cheer!

All that you are is NOT based on all that you have. Your value is based on the image God has of you as His righteous, holy, empowered son or daughter. The great apostle Paul went through shipwreck, near drowning, and two weeks of being tossed like a ball on the ocean before he was finally delivered and made it to land. You would think angels would have started a chorus of praise as their main man survived, but instead he gets a snake bite! What does he do? Should he get mad at God for adding insult to injury? No, He just shakes it off. He has places to go and people to meet!

Whatever happens to you, SHAKE IT OFF!

Scripture: John 16:33