Victorious Christian Living Newsletter
Welcome to the July 2009 Edition
This issue includes:
3 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
Don’t Let Others Dump Their Garbage On You!
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
-Mahatma Gandhi-
Many people feel they don’t have a choice but to take whatever garbage another person might try to dump on them.
But you always do have an option as to how you respond to what someone else has either said to you or actions they have taken against you. You may not physically be able to do something to correct the situation, but you always have the choice of doing the right thing as far as how you personally handle it.
You don’t have to let people get to you, even if it is someone that you must be around frequently.
Philippians 4: 13-14
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Every Christian life has a special call, but Satan considers it his job to keep you preoccupied doing things that won’t make much of an impact for the Kingdom of God. He will even send other people to try to get you off track. He knows very well how to push your buttons, and he has made it his job to try to control your life as much as possible.
If you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, you are a very special Child of God. From that point on, you don’t have to accept lies from Satan anymore; he will tell you whatever he thinks you will believe and will even mix in some truth to make you think he is telling you the whole truth.
You must find out the truth from God; then determine to have tunnel vision toward the mark that He has called you to. Don’t get distracted by any person or circumstance that might come into your path.
Satan loves to use people to do his work just as God uses people. The bad thing is that sometimes good people or even Christians think they are working for God, when in actuality they are working for Satan. Your job is to find out the difference: Is Satan working through another person to try to bring you down, or is God trying to tell you something and using another person as His spokesman?
God will tell you the truth, but you must ask Him sincerely and really want to hear His answer; then whatever it is go forward from that point.
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER let another person dump so much garbage on you that you give up the ‘Special Call’ God has for your life. Remember, you always have a choice as to how you respond to the actions of another.
By Cathy Deaton
You Must Hear The Truth Before You Can Know It!
If you will not hear the truth, you will never know it.
-from the movie Passion of the Christ-
This sentence made such an impact on me the first time I heard it that I watched the movie again with pen in hand to write down the quote exactly. It is what Pilate’s wife said to him after she had a dream that he should not have anything to do with the crucifixion of Jesus. He didn’t want to compromise his position and ruin his chance of advancement, so he decided not to go against the wishes of the people, instead going against the advice of his wife.
Truth is different things to different people and many times we try to make it relevant to whatever situation we are facing.
The dictionary definition is:
1. Conformity to fact or actuality.
2. That which is considered to be the supreme reality and to have the ultimate meaning and value of existence.
In order for truth to change your life, you must seek it, hear it, and take whatever steps are needed to walk in it; but it is always real regardless of whether you believe it and act on it. It also never conforms to your opinion or belief just to make you feel better. You can’t just believe whatever you want and make everything fit into a neat little mold if you want to be REAL.
If you don’t accept less than truth from the start, you won’t have a lot of major changes to make. When you have allowed yourself to live in compromise for awhile, it can take a lot of determination to take the first step toward living a life of integrity. You must start to think differently and not allow yourself to be put in a position where you will compromise your beliefs again.
It takes much determination to hear truth and act upon it, and you can never really know it if you refuse to hear it and get rid of any pride that might stand in the way of conforming. Instead of hoping it will conform to you, make the choice to conform to it.
God always has your best interest at heart and He is ready to come to your aid if you will just take the first step toward change. It might be hard at the beginning, but if you pursue this new way of life, you will definitely be changed for the better.
By Cathy Deaton
My Dream And What God Spoke To Me Through It
I had just fallen into a fairly deep sleep when I awoke with a start. You know how sometimes you dream and it seems so real that you wake up and find yourself physically attempting to handle the situation.
So it was with my dream. My grandson is 19 months old at this writing, so naturally he is curious about everything. It always amazes me how far those little hands can reach. He stands on tiptoes and stretches his hands as far up as possible, putting every ounce of energy into his endeavor. I know that every person reading this can picture a child as they do this. They are totally engrossed in that particular object and nothing else is on their mind.
I can’t recall what the object was now, but I had placed it on a shelf above him that I didn’t think he could reach. At the moment I awoke from my dream, his fingertips were almost to the bottom of the object I had placed above him for safekeeping. I actually sat up in bed and was almost to the point of racing to him because it was heavy and would have hurt if it had fallen on his head.
I was able to get my bearings before I actually woke up my husband by bounding out of the bed. At that moment I felt the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit say: “This is the way you need to live your life – stretching and yearning for God with just as much intensity as your grandson was trying to reach the object that so fascinated him. He put every ounce of energy he had to reach the thing he thought of as a prize.
My ultimate prize as a Christian is an eternal life in Heaven one day, but while I am living on the earth it is my duty to live for God with everything in me and allow Him to use me to accomplish things for Him. I can’t even begin to imagine what He has in store for my life.
A lot of people think of God as being irrelevant, old fashioned, and outdated in the world today. There is nothing that could ever be further from the truth in my experience. In fact, I have found that this world and the things in it are very boring compared to living a life that is sold out to God, and I know that I have only scratched the surface in seeing Who God Is.
I encourage you to stretch as far and high as you can from the tips of your toes to your fingertips toward the prize of living a life sold out to God. He will meet you right where you are and start to grow and stretch you in order for Him to be able to do a great work in and through your life.
By Cathy Deaton
Quotes for Inspiration
It is only by forgetting yourself that you draw near to God.
Henry David Thoreau
The wonderful thing about saints is that they were human. They lost their tempers, got hungry, scolded God, were egotistical or testy or impatient in their turns, made mistakes and regretted them. Still they went on doggedly blundering toward heaven.
Phyllis McGinley
Jesus is God spelling himself out in language that man can understand.
S D Gordon
If you think about it, you will find that there is no meaning of life if you are estranged from God.
Catherine Bramwell-Booth
A Bible Quiz Question
In the theatre of what great city did the silversmiths riot, because they feared Paul’s influence?
The answer will be given in the newsletter next month.
The answer to the 6-2009 newsletter quiz question is Pilate’s wife. Matthew 27: 19
Just for Laughs
According to a news report, a certain school in Garden City, Michigan, was recently faced with a unique problem. A number of 12-year-old girls were beginning to use lipstick and would put it on in the washroom. That was fine. But, after they put on their lipstick, they would press their lips to the mirror leaving dozens of little lip prints.
Every night, the maintenance man would remove them and the next day the girls would put them back. Finally, the principal decided that something had to be done. He called all the girls to the washroom and met them there with the maintenance man. He explained that all these lip prints were causing a major problem for the custodian who had to clean the mirrors every night. To demonstrate how difficult it had been to clean the mirrors, he asked the maintenance man to show the girls how much effort was required. The maintenance man took out a long-handled squeegee, dipped it in the toilet, and cleaned the mirror with it. Since then, there have been no lip prints on the mirror.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY…
There are teachers, and then there are Educators
Interesting Bible Facts
STOCKS – Used in two primary ways: One in which the body was placed in a bent position; and when the feet alone were confined.
They consisted of two beams, the upper one movable, with grooves between them large enough to receive the ankles of the prisoner. They were often erected in market places, that the insults of the people might be added to the pain of confinement.
STONES – Were used for building. Some were very large; also for pavements. Large stones were used for closing the entrances of caves. Flint stones sometimes served for a knife.
Stones were used in slings as ammunition of war, as weights for scales, and for mills. Large stones were set up to commemorate any remarkable event. Such stones were occasionally consecrated by anointing. The heathens worshiped stones.
STRAW – Both wheat and barley straw were used by the ancient Hebrews chiefly as fodder for their cattle. It was used by the Egyptians in making bricks. They reaped their corn close to the ear and cut the straw close to the ground. This was the same straw that Pharaoh refused to give to the Israelites, and they were therefore compelled to gather STUBBLE, which was the short straw left standing.
A Powerful Story
Among America’s greatest orators was John Jasper, a former slave, who once began a funeral sermon, saying,
Let me say a word about this William Ellyson. I say it the first and get it off my mind. Ellyson was no good man – didn’t say he was; didn’t try to be good, and they tell me he died as he lived, without God and without hope in the world. It’s a bad tale to tell on him, but he fixed the story himself.
Jasper then shifted gears and took his audience on a breath-taking tour of heaven.
I loves to go down to the old muddy James, might red and muddy, but it goes along so grand and quiet like it was tending to business. But that ain’t nothing to the river which flows by the throne.
I longs for its crystal waves, and the trees on the banks, and all manner of fruits. This old head of mine often gets hot with fever and rolls on the pillow, and I has many times desired to cool it in that blessed stream as it kisses the banks of that upper Canaan. The thought of seeing that river, drinking its water and resting under those trees… Oh, to be there!
After that, I’d stroll up them avenues where the children of God dwell, and view their mansions. Father Abraham, I’m sure he got a great palace. And David. And Paul, the mighty scholar who got struck down in the Damascus Road, I want to see his mansion. Then I cut round to the back streets and looks for the little home where my Savior set my mother up to housekeeping. I expect o know the house by the roses in the yard and the vine on the porch.
At that point, Jasper dramatically sprang back, clapped his hands, and shouted,
Look there! See that one! Hallelujah, its John Jasper’s. Said He was going to prepare a place for me. There it is! Too good for a poor sinner like me, but He built it for me, a turn-key job, and mine forever!
Jasper waxed on like this for an hour and a half, but to the listeners it seemed like only a moment. That day, they glimpsed glory.
My Favorite Blog Posts
Can You Give The Revenge To God?
Genesis 15: 13-16
And he (God) said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance,
And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
But in the fourth
be an heir, and certainly didn’t have as many descendants as there were stars in the sky.
This happened several hundred years before the Israelites were even a nation of people. God wanted to show Abram what would happen to this chosen people who would come through him.
The thing that is very interesting about these verses is the last, verse 16. God specifically told Abram that the Amorites would be allowed to stay in generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
God came to Abram and told him what would happen in the future to his people. At the time, Abram didn’t even have a son of his own to the land until their iniquity had been fulfilled, or completed.
God already knew their heart and knew they would not change, but He still had a set time before He would pronounce judgment upon them. What a merciful God we have!
They were a heathen nation who worshiped all different kinds of idols, and probably never even recognized the One True God at all. Yet God gave them much more mercy than they ever could have deserved.
Many times it looks like evil people get away with things indefinitely, but God always has a timetable for everything. When the right time has come, the evil will be judged and God’s justice will prevail. This is why you can forgive the person and get on with your life.
They will be judged at some point because God said so. You can let it go and concentrate on constructive things instead of dwelling on revenge. If you make yourself do this, you will have a much more peaceful and joyful life.
Can You Really Trust God With Your Life?
The Potter’s Hand by Darlene Zschech
Take me, mold me, use me, fill me;
I give my life to the Potter’s hand.
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me;
I give my life to the Potter’s hand.
Do we as Christians really want our Heavenly Father to shape, mold, fill, and use us in whatever way He desires?
For many years of my life I felt that if I truly gave God everything, He would make me go to some far-off place as a missionary and I would hate every minute of it. I imagined forcing myself to make it through each day so that I could do what I thought God wanted me to do.
Thank goodness I came to realize what a distorted view I had of my wonderful Heavenly Father. The more I got to know His Character, the more I realized that He will bring my desires into alignment with His. If it is really my desire to do His Will, I will truly be excited to do whatever job or calling He has for me.
God has an awesome job for each Christian to do, but it takes being willing to step out of our comfort zone and tread into the unknown, knowing that God can see every step of the way and knows exactly what He wants to do in each of our lives.
Don’t be afraid to place your life into the Potter’s Hands and let Him mold and shape you into a Christian who can do great and mighty works for God.
To check out my blog go to Who God Is
Please check out my other sites by clicking on the links below:
Blueprint for Victorious Christian Living
Handbook for Victorious Christian Living
Power of the Living Word
Video of the Month
Sunday’s Comin
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naajYZSbWdw
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,
Cathy Deaton
