Victorious Christian Living Newsletter
Welcome to the February 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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Change Your Thoughts and Change Your Life – Make Each Day Truly Count
The future lies before you like a field of driven snow.
Be careful how you tread it for every step will show.
-Richard Halliburton-
At the beginning of every year, we temporarily feel we have a clean slate for a fresh beginning. Maybe that is why there is so much celebration on New Year’s Eve. It is as if we feel we can make a totally clean break and erase the past.
Of course that is not the case, and before January is over we have discovered that it will take a lot of effort to get this new life we are dreaming of; instead of pursuing it with determination, we gradually let ourselves go back to the way we have done things in the past.
It is easy to think of TODAY as just one day out of thousands of your whole life. That doesn’t seem like much when you think of it in that way. You convince yourself that it won’t matter if you put off something important for just one more day.
The problem with that is it gets to be a habit. Then one more day turns into a few more days, and then hundreds more days. Before you know it your dream has started to fade, you are starting to get older, and you eventually give up and let yourself get tossed about wherever life takes you.
As you get older, the weeks seem to pass faster. Before you know it they are all just a blur of the same old things. You go to work, come home, eat, do every day chores, and go to bed. Then you get up the next day and do it all over again.
In order to really change your life, you must start to think differently. You must think of each day as an important gift from God that is to be used to accomplish something good for Him. One day you might do something small, the next it might be something big. Before you know it, life isn’t humdrum any more like it used to be.
You still go to work, buy groceries, eat, and do every day chores, but in the midst of that you learn to open your heart to God and follow His direction. Serving Him becomes your greatest desire because it is the thing that makes everything else worthwhile and meaningful.
There is no greater feeling than being in the center of God’s Will. How awesome it is to realize that He has chosen YOU to carry on His Work for the day. Many people will never listen and He won’t be able to use them. What a terrible thing to miss out on such a great way of living.
At the end of the year you won’t have to mourn because another year has passed and all you have done is coast through it with nothing significant to show for it.
Let God change your future by making each day truly count for Him.
By Cathy Deaton
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Always Dwell on Worthwhile Things
Often we allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget. We lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year’s time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections, and enduring undertakings.
-Andre Maurois- 1885-1967, Writer
In the course of everyday life we interact with many different kinds of people; some do things that get on our nerves, and others say and do thoughtless and cruel things that hurt our feelings.
More times than I would like to remember, I have gotten upset over something and brooded over it much too long. It has sometimes affected my everyday life because I couldn’t think about anything else. I always seemed to end up pacing the floor, talking about how unjustly I had been treated.
You have probably done the same thing. We all have wasted many hours brooding over something that in a month was completely forgotten. Looking back, we know it would have been much better if we had made ourselves put an end to the “pity party” and dwell on better things.
You always have a choice as to how you will respond to something said or done to you. Ask yourself if it will be important a year or even a month from now. If the answer is no, force yourself to change your thoughts as soon as possible and don’t let the flesh win when you know it’s not that important.
Every day is a valuable gift from God; it is called the present and you should treat it as such because you can never get it back. You can’t do anything worthwhile today if you are full of anger or resentment over something that happened yesterday or in the past.
God is pleased with living in the present, because when you live each moment to the fullest you are more open for Him to speak to you about His plans. He works in the small things as well as the big ones. He wants you to give your best to everything you do. When you start to develop this kind of attitude, you will find that everyday life is much more enjoyable because you know that God is working in everything you do.
Give God control of your feelings, actions, thoughts, and undertakings each day. You truly will live a much more peaceful and rewarding life.
By Cathy Deaton
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Quotes for Inspiration
Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer every one.
Colossians 4: 6
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is to try to please everybody.
Herbert Bayard Swope
If your view of life is cloudy, maybe your windows need washing.
Mildred Barton
Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.
Anonymous
Prayer is the STOP that keeps you going.
Anonymous
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A Bible Quiz Question
Which Jewish festival coincided with Jesus’ last week in Jerusalem?
The answer will be given in the newsletter next month.
The answer to the 1-2009 newsletter quiz question is Asenath (Genesis 41: 51-52)
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Just for Laughs
The Investment
The manager of an IBM project that lost $10 million before it was scrapped was called into a meeting at the corporate office.
“I suppose you want my resignation?” he asked.
“Resignation nothing!” replied the boss. “We’ve just spent $10 million educating you.”
Forgive Us
A four year old was praying one night, having been listening at church: “And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.”
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Interesting Bible Facts
The Wilderness of Zin – A district between the Arabah and the Desert of Paran, or Tyh mountains, and consisting of three terraces, sloping toward the Dead Sea, by the Wady Fikreh, KADESH was in this.
Josephus speaks of a hill called Sin, where Miriam was buried. This hill may be what is now Moderah, isolated, conical, and standing a little South of Wady Fikreh.
Wool – Wool was an article of the highest value among the Jews. The “fleece” is mentioned in Deuteronomy 18: 4. The wool of Damascus was highly prized in Tyre. Wool is an image of purity.
Garments made of woolen and linen were prohibited by the law; the cloth bore a peculiar name “thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts”.
Josephus says the reason for the law against wearing a garment woven of linen and wool was that such were worn by priests alone.
Wormwood – A bitter plant, a symbol of whatever is nauseous and destructive. Different species are found in Palestine. It was used by the Romans as a stomach infusion in wine.
Diffused in alcohol, it is now used to an alarming extent in France and Switzerland. The Jews put it in their wines, probably for tonic purposes. The word occurs frequently in the Bible, and generally in a metaphorical sense.
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A Powerful Story
Anesthesia
Imagine surgery before the day of anesthesia. Patients were strapped down while scalpel and saw cut through tissue and bone, every slice and turn of the knife causing unimaginable pain.
One Christian physician determined to do something about it. Sir James Young Simpson (1881 – 1870) practiced medicine in Scotland. He became Senior President of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh when only 24, and in time received virtually every possible honor and position.
He dreamed of finding a way of putting patients to sleep during surgery. On Monday evenings, Simpson periodically invited small groups of physicians to his home to experiment with chemicals, crystals, and powders, which were placed over a burning brazier while the doctors inhaled the fumes.
Nothing worked until November 4, 1847. One of the men had purchased a crystal called chloroform in Paris. As the doctors sniffed the burning substance, they fell to the floor unconscious.
Simpson had his answer, but he soon encountered another problem. He was attacked by fellow Christians who claimed that pain was a God-ordained part of life. Freedom from pain comes only in heaven, and it is immoral to devise dangerous ways of escaping it on earth.
Sir James went to the Scriptures, seeking answers. He no sooner opened his Bible than he came to this verse: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place.”
Carefully studying the text, Simpson wrote an article entitled, “Answer to the Religious Objections Advanced Against the Employment of Anesthetic Agents in Midwifery and Surgery.” He ended his paper saying, “We may rest fully assured that whatever is true on point of fact or humane and merciful in point of practice, will find no condemnation in the Word of God.”
His critics were silenced, and a new day dawned in medical science.
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My Favorite Blog Posts
Have You Lost Your Sense of Wonder?
As we get older, it is easy to lose the sense of wonder about things you see every day because you start to take them for granted. Children get excited about doing just the plain, ordinary things of everyday life and we love to see the world through their eyes.
It is also easy to put God in a box and expect Him to act only in certain ways that you might be accustomed to. He has the whole universe at His disposal and can use any person or circumstance to answer your prayer or meet your need.
As God has been working in my life the last few years, He has led me down roads that I would never have thought about going on my own. I have been filled with much wonder and amazement at how He has brought things together. It is an awesome feeling when you know you are in the center of God’s Will for your life.
Suddenly your own plans don’t seem as important as they once were. You feel as if you are part of something much greater than anything you could ever conjure up on your own. You also get so excited that God would choose you to do something for Him. After all, He could have chosen anyone, but He chose YOU. What an honor!
When you can reach this point, your childhood wonder will have returned about everyday life. It won’t be boring and mundane anymore because God will definitely encourage you to trust and prove Him to see what He can and will do in your life.
Try it and see what happens!
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Don’t Settle for Less than God’s Best!
How many times have you settled for something that looked good to you and missed the awesome thing that would have been God’s Best.
Just like the picture, they are so focused on the small thing that they are missing the much bigger and better thing that is right behind them.
God has a great plan for your life, but you must focus on Him in order to find out what it is. You cannot look at any situation with your limited vision and determine the right thing to do. God may want you to do something you have never even thought about. After all, you are not capable on your own of seeing the big picture and how everything fits together.
God wants to be able to tell you to do something that you are definitely not capable of doing on your own. Then He will get all the credit and glory for it. This can be a scary place until you realize that you can truly trust Him with your life. He looks down at you and just wants you to let Him take care of all the details.
The Holy Spirit wants to lead you in decisions you make each day. Don’t try to do it alone anymore and don’t settle for anything less than God’s Best for your life.
To check out my blog go to Who God Is
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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
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Video of the Month
How Much Do You Yearn for God!
This video really made an impression on me. It is a time-lapse of a vine as it “twines” for the stick that it will attach to so that it can grow. Even though I knew this happened, I have never seen the actual process. It swings around in circles while growing longer and longer until it finally gets long enough to grasp the stick and wrap itself around. You can actually see it reaching out for the stick. AMAZING!!
This is just another thing that shows you the glory of God, and how He cares for the smallest of details in His creation. If He cares this much for a plant, how much more does He care for you.
I am continually amazed at how much He loves me even though I mess up and disappoint Him with my actions. God draws each of His children to Him and wants to show us just how much He really loves us.
I want to always be “twining” for God like this vine does for the stick that it will wrap around to grow on.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTljaIVseTc&hl=en&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1]
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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,
