KEY PRINCIPLES FROM THIS MESSAGE:
Pastor Philip in Myanmar:
“The purpose of your life isn’t happiness; the purpose of your life is usefulness.”
The way to genuine happiness is to discover that God built you a certain way for a certain purpose.
As a general rule, the “happiest” people are the people with the most purpose.
We all ought to be encouraged by the simple fact that we have been made unique and placed in the Body of Christ with a definite, personal purpose. If you know you have a purpose, and accept it at face value, then you are driven to contribute to the welfare of Christ’s Body.
Burned Out Happiness – blog 6/16/17
We live in a world where multibillion dollar industries exist for a single reason, to counterfeit the fruit of true peace in the soul.
Notice I used the word peace and not happiness. The word “peace” shows up in the New American Standard Bible over three hundred and fifty times, the word “happiness” less than five and “happy” less than twenty. What does that say to you???
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Hopefully you read this blog on your own, but here’s just another excerpt that exposes Satan’s counterfeits in this world, that NEVER satisfies us…
Happiness is much easier to counterfeit than peace. There are many counterfeits that stimulate some form of happiness, but they cannot stimulate peace in the soul. For some, it’s food, others drugs or alcohol, and for others wealth or travel. Choose your poison.
Satan knows this, so he redefines the goal of living in terms of happiness instead of inner peace.
If he can get you to accept this fundamental misdirection, he can get you to shift your eyes to myriad counterfeits. The saddest part about his version of happiness, as Solomon alluded to, is that it is an empty shell.
Both giving and receiving encouragement is a vital part of our purpose (thus the great importance of gathering together, ala Heb 10:24-25, not only at church, but at other times and places in twos and threes, to God’s glory)!
Whom Do You Turn To For Love? – Blog
When faith is tested, fear erupts from within you, always. What is the nature of this fear? That is the critical question you must ask yourself. Sometimes you can’t answer that question discretely, though, meaning you can’t put your finger on it or even begin to describe it coherently to yourself. So, then you must ask yourself, whom do you turn to when you’re stricken with fear?
Who you turn to in time of crisis is quite telling of your faith. In that moment of decision making, you might not fully understand what you’re afraid of, but you do know who your go-to person is that you seek comfort from. In essence, your faith in another person(s) says a lot about the nature of the fear, itself, that you’re suffering.
The fear of man lays a snare,
but whoever trusts in the LORD is safe.
— Proverbs 29:25