Victorious Christian Living Newsletter

Victorious Christian Living Newsletter

Welcome to the January 2009 Edition

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This issue includes:

2 of My Featured Teaching Articles

Quotes for Inspiration

A Bible Quiz Question

Just for Laughs

Interesting Bible Facts

A Powerful Story

Favorite Articles from My Blog

Links to My Other Sites

Video of the Month

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Optimist or Pessimist – Which One Will You Be?

For myself, I am an optimist. It does not seem to be much use being anything else. -Sir Winston Churchill-

Even though most of us know the above quote is true, it is still easy to become a pessimist in the world in which we live today. We know that it generally makes things worse to always look on the negative side of things, but many times it seems much easier than the discipline it will take to think positive.

All good change has come to the world by different people who had a vision and carried it out. Most inventors are called eternal optimists because they are passionate about what they do and truly believe they can make the world a better place.

The problem with pessimism is that you confine yourself to only what you can see with your physical eyes, and much of it is negative. You then make all decisions based on that information instead of focusing on how things could be made better.

Our natural inclination is to look at what we see around us and take it at face value. We rarely think that God could use one person, namely us, as an instrument for positive change.

The Holy Spirit can give you a vision as to what you need to do for the future, and give you the faith to bring it to pass.

God has an awesome plan for the life of every Christian, because we are all part of the Body of Christ. He has given us certain gifts in order to carry out His work here. Our job is to discover those gifts and let Him use us in the areas where He sees fit. No earthly person can see the BIG PICTURE, so it is hard to imagine how everything will fit together when the work has been completed.

Some jobs will be tough and others easy, and you might never see exactly how things will fit together in the end; but you can have the assurance that God is in control and whatever He does is always perfect and good.

Perfect satisfaction, peace, and joy can only come from being in the center of Gods Will and submitting your whole life to Him. Only people who have a vision can change the world. Ask God to show you His Vision for your life; then ask Him to give you the faith to attain it.

Choose to think positive and see the great things God can do through your life.

By Cathy Deaton

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Faith – It Can Make The Impossible Come To Pass

When you decide to start an exercise program you either use your own equipment or go to the gym. Then you decide on a plan of action that will give you the results you desire. Lastly, you must be disciplined enough not to let other things distract you from your long-term goal.

If you exercise diligently, it won’t be long before you and others can see the good things that are happening as a result.

Hebrews 11: 1 – Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

True faith works in the same way as exercise because it helps you to become a person with whom God is pleased. The difference between the two is you can’t always see the results of faith immediately, but it will certainly give you good results if you keep doing it on a daily basis. God wants you to learn to know Him so well that you have no doubts that what He has told you will come to pass. You just believe Him – PERIOD.

In the Greek substance means a setting under (support), figuratively concrete essence; confidence.

Faith gives reality or real substance to things hoped for. It is a basis, or foundation, for support and is just as real as something tangible that you can see.

God desires your obedience, but He wants something even more – your ability to believe you can receive from Him BEFORE you have actually seen it with your own eyes. You can’t just order God to do whatever you want, but when He tells you something, He wants you to know His Character so well you have no doubt that whatever He told you will come to pass. Then when it does, you are not surprised because you have been waiting for it to happen; you just didn’t know exactly when it would happen.

Put God to the test and see what great things He can accomplish through your life. He is a God who can make the impossible come to pass.

By Cathy Deaton

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Quotes for Inspiration

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

Susan J Bissonette

The hardest thing to believe when you’re young is that people will fight to stay in a rut, but not to get out of one.

Ellen Glasgow

Always keep your eyes open for the little task, because it is the little task that is important to Jesus Christ. The future of the Kingdom of God does not depend on the enthusiasm of this or that powerful person; those great ones are necessary too, but it is equally necessary to have a great number of little people who will do a little thing in the service of Christ.

The great flowing rivers represent only a small part of all the water that is necessary to nourish and sustain the earth. Beside the flowing river there is the water in the earth – the subterranean water – and there are the little streams which continually enter the river and feed it and prevent it from sinking into the earth.

Without these other waters – the silent hidden subterranean waters and the trickling streams – the great river could no longer flow. Thus it is with the little tasks to be fulfilled by us all.

Albert Schweitzer

The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; the optimist, the opportunity in every difficulty.

L P Jacks

A pessimist mourns the future.

Anonymous

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A Bible Quiz Question

What was the name of the wife of Joseph, son of Jacob?

The answer will be given in the newsletter next month.

The answer to the 12-2008 newsletter quiz question is Philippi (Philippians 4: 14-16)

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Just for Laughs

For The Sick

A little girl sitting in church with her dad suddenly felt sick. “Daddy,” she whispered, “I have to vomit!” Her father told her to hurry to the restroom.

In just a moment she was back. “I didn’t have to go too far,” she explained. “There’s a little box by the door that says, ‘For the Sick.’”

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Interesting Bible Facts

OINTMENT – Ointment was a general term for perfumes, cosmetics, for substances used for medicinal, sacred, and ceremonial purposes. Olive oil formed the body of these ointments.

A particular ointment was appointed for use in consecration – myrrh, cassia, sweet cinnamon, sweet calamus and olive oil.

With this also, the furniture of the Tabernacle was anointed. Dead bodies were anointed with both ointment and oil. It was largely used in medical treatment, alluded to by Christ in curing the blind man. As a cosmetic for the face, so common with the Greeks and Romans, it was also used by the Egyptians and Jews, and is now by the inhabitants of Palestine to this day. Allusion is made to the use of ointments in many places in the Bible.

OIL – The olive was the chief source of oil. It was used in the preparation of meat offerings in the Temple. The second pressing was used for lamps. It was an extremely important article of merchandise.

NUTS – Spoken of as among the good things of the land to be taken by Jacob’s sons to propitiate the governor of Egypt. This nut was most likely the pistachio. Botnim, (Pistachio Town), a town of Gad, probably derives its name therefrom.

One Arabic term for walnut is jaws; another is chusf, which means tall tree. Walnuts were anciently very plenty around the Sea of Galilee. They are still cultivated near Sidon as an article of commerce.

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A Powerful Story

City of Everywhere

In Hugh Price’s story, the “City of Everywhere,” a man arrived in a city one cold morning. As he got off the train, the station was like any other station with the crowds and redcaps, except that everybody was barefooted. They wore no shoes.

He noticed the cab driver was barefooted. “Pardon me,” he asked the driver, “I was just wondering why you don’t wear shoes. Don’t you believe in shoes?”

“Sure we do,” said the driver.

“Why don’t you wear them?”

“Ah, that’s the question,” came the reply. “Why don’t we wear shoes? Why don’t we?”

At the hotel it was the same. The clerk, bell boys, everybody was barefooted. In the coffee shop he noticed a nice-looking fellow at a table opposite him who was also barefooted. He said, “I notice you aren’t wearing any shoes. I wonder why? Don’t you know about shoes?”

The man replied, “Of course I know about shoes.”

“Then why don’t you wear them?”

“Ah, that’s the question. Why don’t we? Why don’t we?”

After breakfast he walked out on the street in the snow but every person he saw was barefooted. He asked another man about it, and pointed out how shoes protect the feet from cold.

The man said, “We know about shoes. See that building yonder? That is a shoe factory. We are proud of that plant and every week we gather there to hear the man in charge tell about shoes and how wonderful they are.”

“Then why don’t you wear shoes?”

“Ah, that’s the question.”

Don’t we believe in prayer? Don’t we know what it could mean in our lives? Then why don’t we pray?

Ah, that’s the question… Why don’t we?

(Taken from the book All Things are Possible Through Prayer by Charles Allen)

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My Favorite Blog Posts

One Important Aspect of a Successful Person

I came across this quote a few months ago. It made an impression on me to the point that I made this motivational poster for it and stuck it in my office. A truly successful person must be able to concentrate on what they are called to do without getting distracted by others.

For most of my life I have been a people pleaser. In time that puts a huge amount of stress on you, because there is no way to please everybody and stay true to your own values and beliefs. You are torn between doing what you know is right and the guilt that you feel because you didn’t agree with or had to say “no” to somebody. I have had guilt for hours and even days over making decisions like this.

I felt this immense guilt even though I knew that I was making the right decision and saving myself a lot of heartache down the road. It took me a good while to be able to say “no” and not feel guilty about it.

Now if a person asks me to do a particular thing, I tell them I will pray about it and get back to them. Then I DO ask God to show me the answer. I don’t just make a decision based on how I personally feel at the time.

If the answer turns out to be “no”, I tell them that I have prayed and don’t feel that God wants me to take on the particular thing now. If the answer is “yes” then I can pursue it with passion, because I know God will give me whatever it takes to do that thing successfully and I won’t get burned out after a short time.

I have found that “burnout” comes from taking on too many things that you shouldn’t be doing in the first place. Then you struggle trying to get everything done that you were not supposed to do anyway. You get frustrated because you think of all the time you are spending on these projects when you could be doing something that you enjoy and is more fulfilling.

This brings me to the last part of the quote.

I think about the many kinds of bricks that people will try to throw at you. They don’t always agree with what you feel called to do, and many times don’t want to see past their own need. It is at this point that you have to decide whether you will stay true to your own convictions or be tossed around by the opinions of others. A person can never be truly successful who changes his mind every time someone has a different opinion or just because he wants to please them.

God wants to use every Christian in some way. Each one is responsible to find what that plan is and carry it forth, knowing that God will give them the strength to do it. When you do find out His plan, don’t let the opinions of others keep you from carrying that plan forth.

I know that many times God does send other people to give you a word of encouragement, call you to accountability, or be an answer to prayer. I am not talking about these kinds of situations; I am talking about when you know that you have heard from God, and others are trying to drag you down because they don’t understand.

First, make totally sure that you have heard from God

Then, believe what He told you with all your heart and carry it out

Lastly, don’t let others keep you from doing what God told you to do

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God Answers the Prayer of a Righteous Person even Years Later

In the 1930s, Stalin ordered a purge of all Bibles and all believers in the former Soviet Union. Millions of Bibles were confiscated and multitudes of believers were sent to the gulags (prison camps), where most died for being ‘enemies of the state.’ In Stavropol, Russia, this order was carried out with a vengeance.

Recently, the CoMission ministry, which Campus Crusade for Christ sponsored, sent a team to Stavropol. The city’s history was not known at that time. But when our team was having difficulties getting Bibles shipped from Moscow, someone mentioned the existence of a warehouse outside of town where these confiscated Bibles had been stored ever since Stalin’s day.

After much prayer by the team, one member finally got up the courage to go to the warehouse and ask the officials if the Bibles were still there. Sure enough, they were. Then the CoMission asked if the Bibles could be removed and distributed again to the people of Stavropol. The answer was ‘yes’!

The next day the CoMission team returned with a truck and several Russian people to help load the Bibles. One helper was a young man, who was a skeptical, hostile, and agnostic collegian who had come only for the day’s wages.

As they were loading the Bibles, one team member noticed that the young man had disappeared. Eventually, then found him in a corner of the warehouse weeping.

He had slipped away hoping to quietly take a Bible. What he found shook him to the core. The inside page of the Bible he picked up had the handwritten signature of his own grandmother! It had been her Bible! Out of the many thousands of Bibles still left in that warehouse, he stole the one belonging to his grandmother — a woman persecuted for her faith all her life.

No wonder he was weeping — God had just dramatically revealed Himself to this young man. His grandmother had no doubt prayed for him and for her city. Her prayers had followed him, and now this young man’s life has been transformed by the very Bible that his grandmother found so dear.

To check out my blog go to Who God Is

You can sign up on the right side to receive an email every time I make a post.

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Please check out my other sites by clicking on the links below:

Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living

Handbook for Victorious Christian Living – Practical ways to learn to live a victorious Christian life

Power of the Living Word

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Video of the Month

Sin can make you fall into a trap quicker than you think!

This video is a great illustration of how quickly Satan can snare you when you flirt with sin. The boy intended to do harm to the wall, but the wall fought back.

Satan has a huge amount of patience. He sits back and waits until you carelessly leave a door open, and He slowly comes inside to do his dirty work. Many times we don’t even realize he is there until he has already done a lot of damage.

There is an old Caribbean song that sums up everything very well: “Shut the door, keep out the devil. Shut the door, keep the devil in the night. Shut the door, keep out the devil. Everything is gonna be alright.”

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That’s it for this newsletter. I hope that you have been truly inspired and blessed. I have prayed about each word written that it would minister in whatever way God desires.

It is also my prayer that God will bless you and your family and start to truly show you Who He Is. He is far greater than anything you could ever imagine.

In Christ,