Attitude Determines Altitude - Becoming a Millionaire God's Way

Excerpted from
Becoming a Millionaire God's Way: Getting Money to You, Not from You
By Dr. C. Thomas Anderson

One day a man walked by a little Chinese tattoo shop and happened to notice a customer in the middle of having "Born to Lose" tattooed on his arm. Curious, he waited until the operation was completed and the man left. Seeking out the owner of the shop he asked, "Why would anyone ever get 'Born to Lose' tattooed on his arm?"

The Chinese man looked at him and said, "Tattoo in heart before on arm."

It is a fact of life that what is in the heart will eventually come out. We all love to put on a good front for people to see but it is only a front. The attitude hidden behind it will bear fruit and it will limit your potential. Your attitude will determine your altitude. You will never achieve or succeed in life higher than your attitude.

Consider these thoughts about attitudes. Attitude has its roots in words and its fruit in actions. The things we speak not only reflect our attitude but they also help mold our attitude. Sooner or later the attitude will erupt in action. Your behavior is directly connected to what you believe in your heart. If you have a good attitude, you will have good action. If you have a bad attitude, you will have bad action. What you believe in your heart produces the action of your hands, and what you believe is directly reflected in your attitude. What you believe is your attitude.

Attitudes are never content until they are expressed. You can hide them for a while but they will find a way out. You can't just ignore them. You have to change them. Your attitude will take you where you want to go or it will keep you where you are. When you meet someone and they are introduced with the phrase, "This is George. He's an investor," you immediately have a different perception of him. You think of wealth because an investor must be wealthy. Why then do we continue to struggle, instead of learning to become an investor? A right attitude will inspire us to break out of the mold we have been in and try something new.

Attitude is your best friend or your worst enemy. Which one it becomes will largely depend on the choices you make. You can't blame outside circumstances. A bad attitude might seem to be justified, given the way you have been treated or the hardships you have to endure but it is still a bad attitude and it will affect your future. Change it before it does. Your attitude will draw people to you or it will drive them away.

Attitude is the library of your past, the speaker of your present, and the prophet of your future. Your attitude tells much about your past experiences. It also indicates where you are right now and gives a good indication of where you will end up if you don't change it now. Attitude is also a measure of maturity. When you finally realize you are responsible for your attitude, you have grown up at last.

If you condensed all of the Bible to its most basic essence, you would find one resounding theme: God is interested in the thoughts, attitudes, and intentions of the heart. All of creation, with the exception of Noah and his family and the animals in the Ark, was destroyed because the world had become so wicked that every thought and attitude was continually evil. God cares about attitudes. It's not that we don't have justification for bad attitudes. We often do. That's not the point. It's just that the bad attitude will keep you from getting to where you want to be, no matter how justifiable it is.

Joseph certainly had ample reason to develop a bad attitude. His brothers hated him. That alone is enough for most of us. "My family doesn't like me. Life is tough. I have really low self-esteem." In Joseph's case they hated him so much they threw him into a pit and sold him into slavery. He ended up in Potiphar's house where, because of his good attitude, he was given charge of virtually everything.

Yet Potiphar's wife accused him of attempted rape and in no time he was in prison. He certainly would have been justified in having a bad attitude after that. It seemed that he was just cursed. But instead, he ended up running the jail.

He had an opportunity to get out when he interpreted the dream of the cupbearer who promised to mention his plight to Pharaoh. But once the cupbearer was free, he forgot about Joseph for two full years. He could have felt very abandoned at that point and developed a perfectly justified bad attitude. But he didn't and ultimately God not only freed him from prison but made him one of the most powerful men in the world, the source of salvation for his own family and for the entire nation.

If Joseph had reason for a bad attitude, then Jesus had even more. He never did anything wrong, yet all kinds of people hated him and tried to kill him. Yet he was happy. He expected good in all circumstances. He was confident. He was forgiving. He was compassionate. He was content. He was motivated. He was a peacemaker. In trouble he drew closer to God rather than blaming Him. He was diligent, focused, flexible. He was not a legalist. He was pure in heart. He was a helper. He was full of mercy. The attitude Jesus demonstrated was never dependent on outside circumstances. He chose to have a good attitude. Without it He could never have fulfilled His mission in life.

The Right Attitude

A good attitude is absolutely essential for a good life. Knowing that, we should look closely at our attitudes toward money. What do we really believe concerning money? We seem to know that we can't get by without it, yet we have been told our whole lives that it is the root of all evil. It is really not surprising that Christians have such a difficult time with it. We want to be spiritual and not bothered with all this worldly stuff, yet we can't seem to find any other practical way to live. Let's examine, then, our attitudes concerning wealth. Ask yourself the question, "How important is money?" Your answer will say a lot about your attitudes.

The tendency has always been to say it is not important at all. We love the nobility of declaring, "I don't do it for the money." It sounds so much more godly and spiritual that way. "You can't serve God and Mammon." "It's all filthy lucre." The odds are we don't know what Mammon and lucre even are, but we know they must be awful. The moment our paycheck is short a couple of dollars, however, the superficiality of that kind of thinking comes blatantly to the forefront. We get upset. We complain about the stupidity of the payroll department. We attack our boss. We tell everyone who will listen so that they will know we have been wronged.

The contrast is interesting. The average person may claim that money doesn't matter much, yet he still works very hard for money. He knows that without it he can't have a house, a car, clothes, or even food. He devotes tremendous effort to obtaining it and tremendous worry to not having enough of it. His real attitude is manifested in his actions.

"Ah, but," you might say, "but in the ministry, things are supposed to be more spiritual. Money doesn't matter there." I don't think the electric company would agree if the church refused to pay its bill. The church building costs money. The furniture in the building costs money. It costs money to turn the lights on. You cannot even pass out tracts and witness to people on the street if someone doesn't pay for the tract. Missionaries need money. Ministries need money. The work of the church simply cannot happen without money.

How important is money? It is extremely important. If we try to say that it is not, then our attitude is shallow at best and in most cases downright hypocritical. We need a new attitude.

Why is it so important? A few years ago Peter Daniels, one of the wealthiest men in the world, conducted a seminar here at Living Word Bible Church. He spent several days teaching about how to gain wealth. One afternoon, between sessions, one of our staff spoke with a young man in the congregation and asked him how he was enjoying the seminar. With a tone of superiority in his voice, he explained that he had not been to any of the meetings, because he was not interested in money. That wasn't where God was leading him.