When we allow our past failures to dominate our thinking, we undermine any confidence we have in God’s ability to change and increase our lives. We cannot allow those destructive, negative thoughts to remain in our mind. Thoughts of despair, ugliness, negativism, self-pity, and poverty are detrimental to achieving our high calling in God. Those thoughts are seeds in our life. Those seeds will ultimately grow if we continue to nourish them.

Paul tells us what to think about, “Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise” (Philippians 4:8 NLT).

We must cultivate new thinking! Paul tells us how to cultivate new thoughts: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves toward the goal of true maturity” (Romans 12:2 Phillips). When we allow God to remold our thoughts from within, our lives will prove the plan of God is good as we move toward our God-given goals.

Let God’s Word create thoughts of prosperity, power, confidence, compassion and beauty—thoughts produced by God’s nature. These new thoughts inspired by God’s Word will begin to lift us into a new realm of living. They are seeds of achievement in our lives. We will begin to see the possibilities that have been made available through the gospel of Jesus.

Now we have set the stage for our success in the kingdom of God. We have planted the seeds that will produce power in our lives.

When we reach out to know God’s ways and think His thoughts we will achieve the success God desires for us.

Psalm 103:7 says, “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (NKJV). Like the children of Israel, the vast majority of Christians are content to see the acts of God. The miraculous acts of God are exciting, but it was not enough for Moses to see God’s great acts of power and deliverance. He was hungry to know the Lord in a more personal way. Moses wanted to know God’s thoughts, His ways, His likes and dislikes. In Exodus 33:13, Moses sought God saying, “…show me now Your way…” (NKJV).

Oh yes, Moses saw God’s powerful acts and praised Him for them. But when he sought to know God’s ways, God revealed His glory to Moses as He had to no other man. The more we know God’s ways, the more we can be a part of God’s actions and experience His glory. The more we know God’s ways, the more we can make them known to hurting humanity.

We can be the light that Jesus spoke about. “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father” (NLT).