Two Attitudes, Two Destinies

There are two types of believers. There is one type of Christian who believes God and views life and its opportunities through the lens of his promises. He focuses not so much on his circumstances as on the grace and favor resting upon his life, because Jesus has promised to be with him “always, even to the end of the age.” This type of believer displays what I call a mindset of sufficiency.

What does it mean to be a person with a mindset of sufficiency? It means being someone who, like the apostle Paul, declares, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This is the person who goes through life confessing, “In God I have enough, and even more than I need, for life’s challenges and struggles.”

It is the believer who sees himself as possessing a great sack full of blessings and resources. It is the person who can say, like the apostle Paul, “God has blessed me with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

That person has an attitude of sufficiency. He has sufficiency in God. When needs, problems, difficulties, and obstacles come into his life, he focuses more on the power of God that is available to him than on the limitations standing in his way.

That is the mindset of sufficiency. It is not a superficial mindset that buries its head in the sand like an ostrich, believing that ignoring the danger will make it disappear. It is not that this person ignores complexities and problems, but that despite those complexities, he decides to confess, “God is more powerful than my weaknesses and my lack. He is faithful to see me through.”

There is another type of Christian who displays what I call a “mindset of scarcity.” This is the type of Christian who focuses on limitations, obstacles, dangers, and problems. But he does not see God’s provision. He is the kind of person who, when he is about to enter his promised land, when he considers what God has declared and promised to him, says, “Hmm, yes, but I’m not sure whether it’s true or not. And ‘I’ve seen so-and-so serve the Lord for many years, and things didn’t go well for him.’ And ‘look at him there, poor thing, in that ramshackle little house’; and ‘that’s all well and good, but I tried once and failed.’ And ‘I have no education’; and ‘perhaps that is for people who have a lot of faith,’” and so on. One doubt, one objection after another, tears apart the glorious work that God wants to do with this type of person.

It is the person who, after converting and then having a car accident, says, “Oh, well! If that’s how it is, I’m not going to embrace the Gospel, because I was better off when I was outside the church.” It is the person who embraces the Gospel and, six months later, gets fired from his job and immediately throws in the towel because “I was doing much better when I was outside.” It is the type of person who focuses only on the problem and the difficulties and does not look to God’s promise.

The destiny of your life, the trajectory of your life—whether it rises, remains merely flat, or declines—will be determined by which of those two mindsets you cultivate, which of those two positions you uphold and adopt as the motto of your life.