{"id":9793,"date":"2021-11-01T06:10:17","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T06:10:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=9793"},"modified":"2021-11-01T06:10:17","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T06:10:17","slug":"the-power-of-our-conclusions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=9793","title":{"rendered":"The power of our conclusions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><b>Our conclusions about circumstances are almost always more important than the circumstances themselves.<\/b>\u00a0Consider the story of the twelve spies in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/ESV\/Numbers13\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Numbers 13<\/a> and 14. The spies were commissioned to give a report to Moses and the children of Israel concerning the land God had promised to them. After forty days, they came back to Moses and were divided into two groups: 1) Joshua and Caleb, and 2) the other ten spies. Both saw the same set of circumstances but put a different conclusion to what they saw. Many factors contribute to how we make conclusions. Some of them are:<\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li>Whether we have the habit of magnifying the Lord or magnifying the problem (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/ESV\/Psalm34%3A3\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Psalm 34:3<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Whether we have been renewing our minds on spiritual faith food or worldly doubt food (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/ESV\/Romans12%3A2\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Romans 12:2<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Whether we believe God has equipped us to be victorious or has not really promised that (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/ESV\/Deuteronomy28\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Deuteronomy 28<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li>Whether we believe that opposition to our promises is normal or not \u00a0(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/ESV\/1%20Timothy1%3A18\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1Timothy 1:18<\/a>)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Here are some great truths from the story of the twelve spies that will help us attach higher conclusions to the circumstances we face:<br \/>\n<b><\/b><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li><b>Future blessings motivate us to keep going and to not give in easily to fear-based conclusions<\/b> (13:27) Hope is the belief that the future will be better than the present, and I have the power to help make it so.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Giants to defeat should not surprise us <\/b>(13:28).<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>The more we talk about our problems; the worse our conclusions get<\/b> (13:29). As we mature, we learn to share the facts of a situation without releasing a concluding, spirit of unbelief in what we say.<\/li>\n<li><b>Our conclusions largely depend on what reports we listen to and receive<\/b> (13:32). It takes no effort at all to be pessimistic or to have a victim mindset about the future, but we are empowered to overcome these and every obstacle we face.<\/li>\n<li><b>Who we think we are will largely determine the conclusions we make about life\u2019s circumstances <\/b>(13:33). It is often what we think about ourselves that prevents the promises from being realized.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">You and I need to be the Joshuas and Calebs of this generation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">adapted blog by Steve Backlund 26.10.21<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our conclusions about circumstances are almost always more important than the circumstances themselves.\u00a0Consider the story of the twelve spies in Numbers 13 and 14. The spies were commissioned to give [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,76,51,71,45,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-destiny","category-hope","category-identity","category-kingdom","category-mindset","category-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9794,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793\/revisions\/9794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}