DOES GOD REALLY WANT ME TO BE HAPPY?

Have you ever stumbled on your way to achieving your dreams and wondered if God really wanted you to be happy? I know I have. Lots of others have, too.
When a friend’s important business deal fell apart, she said to me recently, “ Okay. God didn’t want me to have that. Is he punishing me, Melissa? Intellectually I know that’s not true, but a part of me feels like he is.”
So, does God want you to be happy? Does God want your dreams and desires to come true at least as much as you do?
God always wants your highest and best dreams and desires to manifest for you. Ultimately there’s no difference between your highest desires for yourself and what God wants for you as well. Truly, what makes you authentically, blissfully happy, is a calling from the Divine.
Along the journey to meeting your dreams, however, the world can often be cruel and unpredictable and in those times it’s easy to think that some almighty power is standing between you and what you’re trying to create for yourself.
Turbulence in your life is usually the result of several things. Sometimes it’s a mirror, a sign that you need to pay more attention to your own thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. What may seem like the efforts of an outside aggressor is a situation showing you yourself more clearly, more deeply and what it is within that you need to overcome in order reach your goals.
Other times turmoil is the place in your path when you’re experiencing the results of limiting beliefs that existed prior to a new goal.
As you set your sights on new horizons, limiting beliefs that don’t that new goal, present themselves in the form of experience, to be healed and released so you can move ahead. New goals have a way of pushing up anything that are no longer relevant.
In the midst of the chaos it can be hard to see the Guidance, the Divine helping hand and to feel the love and the compassion that is always with you. That sense of isolation is deliberate, though not real, so that you learn to reach and trust.
If you could always see where your foot would land when you struck out into something new, truly, you’d never leave behind the outdated thoughts and beliefs that you needed to. You’d never grow.
And then there are the times when something really does stand between you and what you want. Divine Protection. Sometimes there is more to the picture or the person or the deal than we can ostensibly see. And once in a while, particularly when we are spiritually focused in our forward strides, an unseen hand of Divine Protection keeps us from wandering further into a deal, a relationship or a scenario to keep us safe and out of harm’s way.
The process of creation is simple. Not simplistic, but simple.
You ask for what you want and the Universe says, ok, fine with me. You can have that. This is what you’ll need to give up, adopt, change, etc., in order to be in alignment with that.
And so the journey begins. And through it all, though there are times when you may think that God has forgotten about you, in actuality, he’s guiding you toward what you asked for and what you’ve wanted all along.
When you feel you’re at this place in your life, wear or carry amethyst with you. It offers protection and cleanses negative energies and it helps transmute lower energies into higher ones.
Continue to set your intentions and state them clearly. Pray for what you need - guidance, strength, wisdom, blessing, favor, support, a clear path, angels, miracles - and the help will come.Published At: www.Isnare.comPermanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=338307&ca=Religion

Angels And Guardian Angels

Angels.
Angels are messengers of the Lord and are spoken of in Hebrews as “ministering spirits”. In the New Testament Angels appear as ministers of God. Such as in Luke 1:5-25 when the angel Gabriel announced the birth of John the Baptist and told Elisabeth that her son would prepare the way for the Savior. Then 6 months later Gabriel appeared to Elisabeth’s cousin Mary and told her that her son would be the Savior of all mankind. Angels attended Christ throughout his life, “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels,” Matthew 16:27 of King James Version of the Bible. Angels appeared to the shepherds watching their flocks on the night the Savior was born and proclaimed, Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward men. An angel also warns the little family to flee to Egypt and tells them when it is finally safe to return. In Luke 24 we also read of two angels announcing Christ’s resurrection.
Guardian Angel Prayer, from the Catholic Forum.
Guardian Angel from heaven so bright,Watching beside me to lead me aright,Fold your wings 'round me,and guard me with love,Softly sing songs to meof heaven above.Amen.
Guardian Angels.
There are many references to angels throughout the New Testament but no clear statement as to their nature or their relation to mankind in general.
Guardian Angels are said to protect and guide not just children. Honorius of Autun believed that every soul was assigned a guardian angel. In Catholicism it is believed that a guardian angel represents individuals before God, watches over them always, aids their prayers and presents their souls to God at death.Angels are said to be Immortal spirits that appear to mankind at important moments in their lives. They appear as messengers of god, bringing comfort, warnings and tests of belief and deliverance.
In art Guardian Angels are depicted as very feminine and beautiful and sometimes with maternal attributes. Guardian Angels are typically painted wearing simple tunic style gowns in soft pastel colors or all white. Angels are most always painted with wings, their wings are said to represent their role as messengers of God. They are also often shown with musical instruments. The most popular being a harp or a some type of horn or trumpet.
Guardian Angels have been used as symbols of Christmas in the form of figurines, ornaments, Christmas tree toppers, Christmas cards and even Christmas cookies. One of the most popular uses for angels at Christmas is to include them in your nativity scene. One is typically hung above the Nativity Stable but they can also stand or kneel anywhere within the scene.
I think the most popular use of angels at Christmas is in music. A lot of the songs that we sing every year at Christmas time tell the story of angels announcing the Saviors birth. Some of those include, ‘Angels We Have Heard On High’ ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ and ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’Published At: www.Isnare.comPermanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=257922&ca=Religion

God's Perfect Design For Christian Men And Women In Church Based On Bible Authority
By: Bill Naugle








The book of First Timothy in the Bible is about God's established Authority here on earth. God has a perfect design for church order and government that will produce the most powerful results of the gospel being preached by Men since the days of Jesus walking here on earth. Signs and wonders with miracles following the preaching of the Word of the Living God should be commonplace in the church. When God's government is displayed in the church we will see true authority over darkness, disease and storms.
The church and many believers stand on scriptures for their healing and live by them everyday. They also stand on scriptures that talk about prosperity and financial wealth and see results in their lives. Praise God for this! The church needs to stand on the scriptures that show us how to have a Godly government with the kind of church order that will produce power and authority on the level of Jesus. God is not interested in a democracy He wants a Kingdom here on earth. We need to be thinking in terms of a Kingly rule here on earth not a democracy. God wants Men to walk as kings under Jesus displaying His power and authority through them.
The right kind of Government will produce this. Jesus sent His disciples (Men) out in twos. Jesus gave authority to men. We do not have the right to pick and choose what scriptures we are going to believe and live by. God wants us to live by All of the Word of God. If you cannot embrace the scriptures on church order then throw the whole bible out and follow the devil. God wrote the whole bible and expects His people to live by all of His Word.
God does not give you permission to live anyway you want. Jesus died for you and poured out His blood and you are bought with that blood and because of your gratitude towards God with appreciation of your salvation out of a loving heart for Jesus you gladly live by all of His Words. This is a true Christian. I believe that this book will help you understand the truth about the men and women's role in the church, home and the workplace if you approach in a new light.
First Timothy 2:11-14 is the foundational passage for understanding the men and women's role not because I say but because God says that it is. This passage reverts back to the beginning to the book of Genesis to our original creation and the way God meant it to be until Christ comes back. If you have studied beginnings in the Bible you will know that they are foundational doctrines in which we establish true doctrine and the way in which we are to live.
When you understand this passage in First Timothy you will be able to understand all passages dealing with the men and women's role in the entire Bible and see how they come together with no contradictions. The way God designed our roles in the book of Genesis is made more clear in the book of First Timothy, that is why we have this information today so we can better live according to the truth. Women never have authority over men in any area of life and men rule with authority over all of the earth. When you understand this truth then all other scriptures make sense. God Bless!Published At: www.Isnare.comPermanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=242461&ca=Religion

You Can't Out-Give God

After nearly five years of trying and two miscarriages, I was pregnant. Our entire family was elated! But we already had two teen boys and money was tight. I prayed fervently that God would supply our needs.
Soon after I began praying, my parents came to visit. Mom held out an envelope and said, “Grandma sent this for you.”
My grandmother? The one who survived the depression and rarely gave me anything more than $1.00 bill in my birthday card? I opened the envelope and inside was a check for $500.00. My mother explained that “Oma” had helped one of my sisters with a down payment for her house and felt that she needed to be equitable in distributing funds to the rest of us. My mind raced, picturing the crib, clothes, and many baby supplies I could purchase!
I cashed the check and made one small purchase before my husband brought me to a halt. We were having an ultrasound soon that would hopefully reveal the baby’s gender. He wisely pointed out that unless we wanted to spend the next weeks returning items, we should hold off.
Much to our despair, at the ultrasound, our baby refused to cooperate. We left, thankful to know that our little he or she was healthy but no wiser about what color clothes to purchase.
The next morning, I awoke frustrated with God for the ultrasound disappointment. My prayers consisted of complaining to God that we weren’t able to go out and purchase the items we wanted for the baby. Then God answered me. He said, “That’s not your money. I gave it to you for Scott and Kathy.” Our good friends were leaving soon on a mission trip. God was telling me to give up our needs for our friends.
But I resisted. We needed that money for the baby! Wasn’t that just as important? I told myself I got it wrong or that maybe it was the devil’s voice I’d heard. I called my Pastor to ask his advice. Neither he nor his wife was available. I then frantically called my husband. I just knew he would say “no” to giving that money away. I was shocked when he told me that if God had prompted me to give it, I should give it.
I hung up the phone and flipped on the television. Joyce Meyer was speaking, and at that exact moment she delivered a word to me. “Why is it that when God tells us to do something we call all our friends and take a poll of what they think? Why don’t we just listen and obey God?” I didn’t even wait to hear the rest of the message. I was on the phone again, this time calling the church to find out how much was still owed on our friends’ trip. I was still reasoning to myself that the amount we had to give would probably not be enough anyway and wouldn’t make any difference. The receptionist didn’t have a total, but said she could get it for me. I told her I would be dropping by in a bit with a contribution.
When I arrived at the church, the receptionist gave me the total. My jaw dropped. The amount owed for both of our friends’ trip was the exact amount of cash I was holding in my envelope. I gave her the cash and took my receipt, hoping God knew what He was doing.
He did.
Because there was a 13 year gap between our youngest child and the expected baby, our church family blessed us with a baby shower, where we received all of the financial blessing back and then some. Every single small and large need was met for our dear son. On top of that, my husband’s office gave us a shower where we were again blessed beyond what the original amount was. Not long after that, my husband received a job offer that changed our life. Our income has expanded to support our three boys as well as the addition of yet a fourth child. I am also able to stay home with them.
I often wonder if God would have blessed us in the same way if we hadn’t obeyed and given that money away. I’m just thankful we did. He asked us to give out of our need. And when we obeyed, He proved His faithfulness by opening up the windows of heaven and pouring us out a blessingPublished At: www.Isnare.comPermanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=316108&ca=Religion

God Already Gave Us The Secret To Finding Happiness

By: Ray Subs





“For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16
Anyone who knows what it’s like to love a child knows the soul deep agony losing that child causes, because it lingers on the edges of their consciousness as their deepest fear. Can you imagine loving someone so much, even though they’ve been petty, and selfish, and cruel, and rejected you at every turn, that you would offer up your only child, subject him to an agonizing death, just so they would know the secret to finding happiness?
Most of us could never conceive of such a thing, willingly offering ourselves up as a sacrifice for the ones we love but protecting our children fiercely. We would never willingly subject them to an experience that was going to cause them harm just to guide someone else on the path to finding happiness. Yet that’s exactly what God did when he sent his son to earth to die on the cross. He sent his child, whom he loved dearly, for the sole purpose of allowing him to suffer persecution and prejudice, torture and rejection and eventually a horrible death on the cross just so a world full of sinners would have the chance to find true happiness in their lives and spend an eternity in paradise after their death.
Most of us spend our entire lives in the pursuit of our constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We go out on the weekends with our friends, spend quality time with our family, choose our jobs with care and work hard to achieve our career goals and believe that we’re living. We think we’re happy. Then the demons that lurk deep in our soul that tell us we’re not good enough, we’re not strong enough, we’re not pretty enough or thin enough, we’re not enough, not enough, can never be enough, start whispering in our ear, and all of that happiness we thought we had just floats away on the breeze.
We don’t know the secret to finding happiness, and so we never do.
In his book “The Big Lie” Stan Sanderson, from the Spiritual Coach Program, tells his readers that the world is full of lies about finding happiness. We spend our whole lives working ourselves to the bone to find the happiness we think we’ve been looking for only to discover that at the end we’re just as unhappy as we were when we started. We’ve made our career, our jobs, our family our idols and spent our time pursuing them in the pursuit of happiness when we should have been pursuing a deeper, closer relationship with Christ.
We can never earn happiness. None of us are so selfless, so giving, so pure of heart, that we deserve happiness. We all have our secrets, our flaws, our dark spots. The difference is, people who have discovered the truth about finding happiness have opened their hearts to God and allowed the blood of Christ, spilled so many years ago, to wash that darkness clean. To take advantage of the pure happiness he so selflessly gave us when he sent Christ to die for our sins so that we could be washed clean of sins we couldn’t begin to atone for and therefore deserve the paradise that he has waiting for us.
God’s already given us the secret to finding happiness, through the son he sent to die. All we have to do is open our arms and accept it.

THE VIRGINITY BIRTH OF JESUS-DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

Index Religion


In two of the four New Testament gospels we read that Jesus is born of a virgin (Mary) who was conceived by the Holy Spirit. Matthew does not give us many details how this happened and just mentions the basic facts: “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).
In Luke’s gospel many more details about the background of Mary, her encounter with an angel and her relationship with Joseph are revealed. Luke explicitly mentions that Mary was a virgin (Luke 1:34: “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”), that she was engaged to be married (Luke 1:27: “a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.”) and that the child was not conceived by a man but by God through the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35: “The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.”).
That Jesus was to be born from a virgin through the Holy Spirit is with our 20/20 perfect hindsight completely understandable and considered a great miracle. Jesus can only be (the Son of) God if He was not just human. By having a divine Father and a human mother we can intuitively understand that He is both God and man at the same time.
And we now know that through the virgin birth the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah 7:14: “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.” was to the letter fulfilled. Not only because Mary was His virgin mother. Jesus’ divinity also explains the name “Immanuel,” which means “God with us.” Since Jesus is God, that part of Isaiah’s prophecy was literally fulfilled.
But how do we know that the virgin birth account was not just added to the gospels to embellish Jesus’ birth as fulfilled prophecy and a supernatural event? It is obviously not possible for us 2000 years after this event to study any medical or other scientific evidence to support this claim. However through logical analysis combined with our knowledge of life and the culture of those days the case for the virgin birth seems surprisingly strong.
Have you ever wondered why the miracle of the virgin birth of Jesus only received limited attention in the New Testament? Yes, both Matthew and Luke briefly mention it at the beginning of their gospels, but it is not brought up again by them or any of the other New Testament books as an evidence for the Divinity of Jesus anywhere. Actually the Bible is remarkably quiet about this. Why was this great and important miracle not mentioned again and again?
For us to understand this, we need to go back to the culture at the time of Jesus. In those days a girl’s greatest asset was considered to be her sexual purity. Only a young woman who retained her virginity could expect to secure a good man for a husband. Mothers kept their daughters out of the public eye as much as possible to not expose them to temptation. A pregnant unmarried woman was considered a grave insult to the honor of her family. As still seen today in many Arab countries (whose citizens still live under the Islamic laws and culture as it was in the ancient Middle East) such pregnancies would often lead to honor killings. The father and/or her brothers, lamenting her inability to marry, could kill her to avoid the disgrace.
Against this background Jesus’ virgin birth was not heralded as a miracle. Especially for Matthew, writing about Jesus’ birth must have presented a real dilemma. As a devout Jew, Matthew’s decision to record that Joseph, representing the royal bloodline of Jesus, was not Jesus’ natural father, could open up a potential flood of compromising criticisms that Jesus was born out of wedlock. This account in Matthew’s gospel shows his unconditional commitment to writing the truth without altering any of it.
Therefore the most logical conclusion is that the mere mentioning of the conception and birth of Jesus from a young woman who was not married and still a virgin IS the compelling evidence that it really happened. If the gospels were not factual, mere legends and embellished stories, the account of the virgin birth would not have been included.


About the Author
Rob VandeWeghe is a skeptic turned Christian. Rob’s book ‘Prepared to Answer’ and many more evidences for Christianity are available at www.WindmillMinistries.org.
Published At: www.Isnare.comPermanent Link: http://www.isnare.com/?aid=334111&ca=Religion