Thermometers diagnose the temperature, while thermostats set the temperature. Influencers are “thermostatic” people who create a higher level of experience for those connected to them. Here are five things to know to activate the thermostat within you.
1. Know the faith walk is first to believe, and then to see – I used to only believe that something was true after I had experienced it through circumstances. For instance, I would not believe I was an influencer of nations until I actually saw that I was influencing nations. God told me, “That is not how this all works. You must believe to see, not see to believe.” Faith is believing something is true even before we see it in our experience.
2. Know things don’t immediately change when you set a new temperature on your thermostat – It would be foolish to say, “This is not working!” only thirty seconds after you set a new temperature on the thermostat. It takes time for the environment to catch up to the new setting. Likewise, our experiences will catch up to our beliefs and the waiting time is called “faith.”
3. Know we cannot get our beliefs from our feelings or our past experiences – These are the two main ingredients of “thermostatic living”: 1) We don’t deny the past, but we cannot get our beliefs from it, and 2) we acknowledge the facts of what is happening, but we believe in truths that Holy Spirit guides us into about what He is doing in the situation. These truths are actually higher than the facts of our experiences.
4. Know that what we renew our minds with today radically influences what we will experience tomorrow – Romans 12:2 says to “be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” How we renew our minds now creates future experiences. If we only renew our minds with what has happened, we will repeat what has happened. Thermostatic people intentionally meditate on and believe the promises of God even when their experiences are saying something totally different.
5. Know “life is in the power of the tongue” – Those who don’t upgrade their language will have more difficulty being thermostatic. Our words are containers of life or death (Proverbs 18:21) and they become a directing force in our lives (James 3:2-5).