AFFIRMATION

'...notice and verbalize.'
Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.158.  

AFFIRMATION

'Always model what it is you want from others.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.127.

AFFIRMATION VS. FLATTERY

'...how shall we distinguish flattery from affirmation? While affirmation commends virtues, flattery exagerates them, glosses over flaws, offers excessive input, and is insincere, not chiefly interested in building up the recipient in Christlikeness, but interested chiefly in obtaining some kind of direct favor. Healthy affirmation does not exagerate or schmooze. Having affirmed, the affirmer can walk away with no expectation of receiving anythiung from the recipient. A good affirmer...looks to God for his reward. In contrast, there is a thread of seduction in flattery. The flatterer is after something from the flattered. While affirmation is a free gift with no strings attached and trusts God to bring about whatever good harvest he wishes to bring from the seed planted, flattery is a bribe, and a direct return is expected - soon.

Godly affirmation approves of Christlikeness and disapproves of anything contrary, whereas the flatterer approves anything - Christlike or not - that may achieve the desired response.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.108.

SWEEPING STATEMENTS

'Beware of blanket endorsements and blanket condemnations. The situation in the real world is more complicated than that.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.105.

IDOLATRY

'We make idols when we praise what God has made more than we praise God, or praise those things without regard to God. But we glorify God when we praise what he made by commending how it reflects and testifies of him.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.91.

AFFIRMATION

'Behaviours that are rewarded and celebrated are more likely to be repeated. So reward what you'd like to see more of. It's basic Psychology 101.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.75.

AFFIRMATIONS & CORRECTIONS

'Affirmations are deposits. Corrections are checks that you write against the balance in the account. If you write too many checks in relations to deposits, your checks bounce - they're no good. It will take additional deposits to restore your credit. And if the pattern of writing bad checks continues, you'll not only face overdrafts and fees and penalties and bounced checks that don't buy anything, but your account may be frozen until you get serious about putting things in the black. Your checks may be refused at certain businesses, regardless of your restored balance with the bank. These establishments may no longer wish to do business with you; your record with them is too problematic. And if your pattern of writing bad checks continues, you may be arrested and removed from circulation altogether.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.52.

REWARDS

'...self-interest is not selfishness. Everyone knows that to seek gain by means of someone else's loss is wrong-headed. But if you seek to be rewarded by enriching someone, that is not selfish. Your reward for their enrichment is not selfish on your part, even though your reward for doing it is your self-interest. Rewards are a big deal in God's economy. You can't even come close to God unless you believe that he rewards: "And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him (Heb.11:6).'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.48.

AFFIRMATION

'Affirming Christlike transformation makes a distinction between praising a doer of good and praising a do-gooder. One commends the pursuit of that which is truly excellent; the other flatters the performer who longs to outdo others, seeking attention and man's applause.

Our problem then is not that we want to be made much of. Our problem is that we want to be made much of for the wrong reasons. Our problem is that we do not want strongly enough, desperately enough, to be made much of by God himself for reasons that he establishes and brings to completion in and through Christ and for his glory. We are nothing without him - but he has not abandoned us there.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.29.

AFFIRMATION

'To fail to commend the character of Christ in people is to fall into the same lackluster indifference of a person who never exclaims what a beautiful morning it is, thereby robbing the Creator of Glory he deserves for making that sky, that volcano, that character.'

Sam Crabtree, Practicing Affirmation, p.24.