Every flu season, we see long lines of people waiting to receive their flu vaccines to help prevent them from getting sick. But just as one takes a vaccine to prevent a disease or sickness from being contracted, you can take your spiritual vaccine daily.
What I mean is we have to live life, go to work, and sometimes be around unpleasant people and circumstances. You may work around negative, sour people, but the best vaccine you can take is to get up every morning with a song of praise in your heart. Thank God for what He has done. Focus on what's right, not on what's wrong. Be excited about your future. When you do that, you're taking a vaccine that will keep you from those negative, toxic things contaminating your faith-filled spirit.
It will keep you from being influenced by them. We can't expect to live in a bubble and never have any kind of negative influences around us. But we can take our daily vaccine and become filled with the faith of God and His Word.
When you know you're going to be in an extremely negative environment, you need to take more of that vaccine! How do you increase your doses? Turn up your joy. Turn up your praise. Turn up your expectancy.
When you hear those negative voices saying, "We never get any good breaks. We're just poor and defeated," your vaccine will kick in. Then the voice of victory will begin to say over your life, "No, no. Speak for yourself. I'm blessed. I'm prosperous. I've got the favor of God. Goodness and mercy are chasing me down."
When you wake up the next day and take your daily dose of vaccine, you're praising God for always causing you to triumph and acknowledging that He has you in the palm of His Hand. Then when you hear that fellow classmate in your history class say, "Well, we come from the wrong family. We're the wrong nationality. We just live in the wrong country. There's no way I can succeed." Instead of letting that talk of defeat penetrate your spirit, your vaccine will kick in, and you'll say, "No, not me. I come from the right family. I'm a child of the Most High God. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Who my parents are doesn't determine my destiny. God determines my destiny. Where I was born, how I was raised, the country I'm living in right now, none of that can keep me from becoming all that God has created me to be."
When you think and talk like this, you are taking a vaccine. When those negative comments and thoughts come to try to steal your joy, steal your vision, and sour your life, they will bounce off you like water off a duck's back. Why? You've got the shield of faith. You've got the sword of the spirit, God's Word, coming out of your mouth.
The more they talk defeat, the more you need to talk victory. The more they complain, the more you need to praise. The sourer they look, the happier you need to look. Don't let them infect you. You can infect them.
I've discovered just as negativity is contagious, faith is contagious. Just like complaining, being discouraged and having a sour outlook is contagious, so is being hopeful, positive and faith-filled.
As you daily take your vaccine, others around you will notice the difference in you; how you're staying hopeful when you should be discouraged, how you're staying peaceful when strife is all around, how you're staying calm and full of joy when everything around you should be stealing your joy. Before long, they'll want what you have. They will see the difference in you, and just like scripture says, you'll be letting your light shine before all men so that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16).
JOEL OSTEEN
Joel Osteen is pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas — a vibrant and diverse church that Forbes calls the largest and fastest-growing congregation in America. Joel shares a positive message of hope and encouragement that extends all around the world. This message reaches all across America and 100 nations of the world. Joel's books, Your Best Life Now and Become a Better You, quickly became a #1 New York Times Bestsellers and are distributed worldwide in several languages.