Heaven Ministries
August 2006
Volume 4 Issue 33 

Marriage Alive Newsletter

Articles
Motivated by Love

5 Healthy Ways to Save on Your Monthly Groceries

Joke of the Month
I Said Chicken!

Monthly Devotion for Mom's
Resting in the Lord

Joanne's, Monthly Devotion
Feed them With Love

 

Heaven Ministries Updates

Love The Woman You Married
$9.45

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Finally, the companion book to Love The Man You Married is finished! 

God knew what he was doing when he created Eve for Adam. First He created Adam a strong powerful male specimen. God did not make another Adam for Adam. Instead he made a smaller more feminine version of the first, with a few variations in the sexual organs and personality and she was amazingly beautiful. He made sure that when He created Eve that Adam was going to find sexual and emotional pleasure from this new feminine creature. And it was good!  (Quote taken from Love The Woman You Married)
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Love The Woman You Married explores several main issues that are involved in preserving a happy and purposeful marriage, mainly the areas of submission and spiritual authority. Why are women afraid to submit to their husband’s spiritual leadership? Society has taken this subject out of its true context and turned it into something menacing when it is something beautiful! Love the Woman You Married is the companion book to Love the Man You Married. Both books are excellent teaching tools for husband and wife to read together.


Motivated by Love

 

What motivates you? You wake up in the morning and you decide to make a positive change in your life. Maybe you decide you want to stop a bad habit that has been controlling you. Maybe you have decided to start your own home based business. Maybe you want to spend more time with your children or work on your marriage.  Or, maybe you have decided to wash all of your windows inside and out. What is it that motivates you to do something positive and productive in your life?

Our attitude plays a big role in many of our positive life changes that we make throughout our lifetime. Unfortunately, our attitude can also bring about many negative results also. I would venture to say that when an individual wants to do something positive and productive with their life, no matter what it is, they are being motivated by love in some way shape or form.

A positive and joyful attitude is love, and that love can change an entire life in a blink of an eye.  In a blink of an eye, a joyful and positive attitude can change a bad attitude of everyone in a room. So wouldn’t it be great to be motivated by love all the time and influence those around you? Is that even possible?

Our thoughts play a big role in how motivated we are. For instance, if I don’t like my job and I always tell myself how I can’t stand going to work everyday I will feel bitter and hateful about my job because I told myself so. I will not be motivated by love but by my negative attitude instead.  Is there a way, we can stop allowing bad thoughts to enter into our mind?

Find out what might be causing your negative outlook on life and fix it. What is it that is stopping you from feeling good about yourself and life? Do you need to forgive; do you need to stop a certain sin that is controlling your life? Don’t let what others think of you be your motivation because in the end, it will bring you down.

When you find yourself motivated by love, you will have the influence to love others unconditionally. Love conquers all, and wins out in the end. You are in control of your thoughts. Knowing this, then, you will know that you’re also in control of your attitude. If you are in control of your attitude, then you are in control of your life! Don’t let a bad attitude bring you down in life.

If you want to be motivated by love then allow your loving persona to come out! You have the power to let love motivate your daily activities so you can be more productive with your skills and abilities. Don’t allow your attitude to keep you tied down, burying your talents and abilities.

Your attitude can be your best asset or your worse enemy. Not loving self is the biggest barrier to becoming motivated by love. To love who we are so we do not stumble in our bad attitude is to give what we hate about ourselves over to God and let Him deal with it. Once we do that we won’t have any barrier standing in the way of allowing love to motivate our actions. We become love.

It is your choice.

Let love be your motivator and you will see how your negative attitude can turn into a joyful and loving attitude in a blink of an eye. Love is within you and you have the power within you to bring out that love in everything you do, whether it is working on your marriage, or washing all of your windows inside and out. Let love be your motivator

Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth,
1 John 3:18. 

 

5 Healthy Ways to Save on Your Monthly Groceries

 

Besides using coupons and scanning your community advertisements for the grocery and sundry products that are on sale, here are several other tips and tricks for saving on your groceries and staying healthy at the same time.  

  1. Buy More Than Just One

When your favorite imperishable food and sundry products come on sale, don’t just buy one or two, buy ten, fifteen or twenty. For an example in our family of five, we only use extra virgin olive oil and that tends to get expensive. Occasionally it comes on sale and when it does, depending on how many gallons we buy, we usually save two dollars per gallon. This amounts to anywhere between $20 and $40 dollar saving just on olive oil!  Olive oil lasts indefinitely in a tinted jar or can away from light.

  1. Limit Buying Processed, Boxed, and Frozen Foods

If you can limit the buying of boxed and processed foods you can save a tremendous amount of money each month and eat better too. For instance take a box of instant potatoes vs. a ten pound bag of potatoes.  Which do you think is more food in the long run? Fresh potatoes are also healthier for you than the dried version. 

  1. Limit Buying Boxed Cereals

Boxed sugary cereals are good, no doubt about it, but they also don’t last long when you have three children. Cereal tends to get expensive when the average box of cereal cost $3.50 and only last for two days. I did the calculations, and for one month buying boxed cereal for just two children will cost around $52.50 just for breakfast! Boxed cereals are a waste of money and they aren’t good for you.

  1. Buy Oatmeal Instead of Boxed Cereals

Wondering what you’re going to eat for breakfast if you don’t have boxes of cereal in your cupboard? Make homemade granola, add milk and enjoy. Your kids will love it. Granola tastes good and is healthier than the other boxed sugary cereals. You can add nuts, seeds, raisins, figs, sesame seeds, blueberries, pumpkin seeds, coconut flakes to your granola to prepare it the way you like, and it’s healthier. The possibilities are endless.

Oatmeal too, is a tasty hot cereal. Prepare the oatmeal as directed and add apple, raisins, cinnamon, and a little real butter, yummy.  Hot foods keep your children satisfied longer than those sugary cold cereals. You can also make oatmeal cookies using half the amount of sugar it calls for and you would be getting less sugar than the boxed cereals. Crumble the cookie up, add milk and enjoy! Make oatmeal honey bars. Freeze them and take out what you need the night before.

  1. Cook With Your Crock-pot

I know that schedules and time constraints has a lot to do with how we eat and what we eat. But did you know that healthy eating makes us more productive and happier in the long run. No one wants to feel run down and bloated because of not eating right.  Get that crock pot out from under your cupboard, get a crock-pot cook book, throw the ingredients in and let the pot do the cooking.

Ironically, by cooking your own beef, chicken, lamb, pork, etc in your crackpot you will be saving money. Why? Because fresh food makes way more food than those frozen dinners ever could. By putting a roast and some potatoes in your crock pot before you leave for work, you will not only be saving money but you will also be eating healthier. Your family may eat two or three times on your crock-pot pot-roast.

Crock pots make better stews and soups because it cooks the food very slow and gives the food a chance to come out with all its flavors. Crock pots are very safe and can be left on while you are at work. Go ahead, let the pot do the cooking.

Joke of the Month

A man goes to his doctor and says, "I don't think my wife's hearing is as good as it used to be. What should I do?"

The doctor replies, "Try this test to find out for sure. When your wife is in the kitchen doing dishes, stand 15 feet behind her and ask her a question, if she doesn't respond keep moving closer and asking the question until she hears you."

The man goes home and sees his wife preparing dinner. He stands 15 feet behind her and says, "What's for dinner, honey?" He gets no response, so he moves to 10 feet behind her and asks again. Still no response, so he moves to five feet -- still no answer.

Finally he stands directly behind her and says, "Honey, what's for dinner?"

She replies, "For the fourth time, I SAID CHICKEN!"

  (Quoted from the Dr. Mercola's Health Newsletter)

 

 Monthly Devotion for Mom's

by Jill Hart

Resting in the Lord

Recently, my 4 year-old daughter asked me to get down a toy from up on a shelf that was too high for her to reach. “Just a minute,” I said to her, “I’m right in the middle of something. Let me finish this up and then I will get it down for you.”

A few minutes later I heard something scooting across the carpet in her room and then a large thud. I found her lying in a pile of dress-up clothes with a tipped over pink plastic chair on top of the heap. When I asked her what had happened she admitted that she hadn’t wanted to wait for me and so she took matters into her own hands and tried to reach the toy by standing on a chair.

As I reflected on the incident later that day, I realized that I act the same way in my spiritual life. I ask the Lord for something and if He doesn’t immediately bring it about, I take matters in to my own hands to try to make it happen. God’s Word tells us that we are to have self-control and that we are to trust Him even when his answer is “Wait.” We are to trust Him, resting in the knowledge that He will do what is best for us.

Psalm 37:7 tells us, “Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for Him.” Fellow mom, have you learned to rest in Him?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jill Hart is the founder of Christian Work at Home Moms, CWAHM.com. This site is dedicated to providing work at home moms with opportunities to promote their businesses while at the same time providing them spiritual encouragement and articles.
Jill and her husband, Allen of CWAHD.com (Christian Work at Home Dads) reside in Nebraska with their two children. Listen to Jill’s radio show, Christian Work at Home Moment, at http://www.cwahm.com/loudblog

 

Joanne's Monthly Devotion

FEED THEM WITH LOVE

 

“If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?”

 

James 2: 15, 16

King James Version

 

If we see people who are hungry and don’t feed them, it will be impossible to prove to them that Jesus loves them.  It is the same with people who are hurting and desperately need to know that someone cares about them.  If we don’t put our arms around them and hug them for Jesus, all our words are in vain.  When we see people that are cold because they don’t have the proper clothes, if we don’t make sure they have warm clothes, all the preaching in the world won’t convince them that Jesus loves them.

 

We must put action to our words.  It is not enough to tell someone that Jesus loves him or her; we need to prove it to that person by our actions.  Jesus is Love!  We must feed people the love of Jesus so they not only will know that He loves them, they will want Him as their personal Saviour.  There are many cold and lonely hearts that desperately need the touch of warmth from our Saviour.

 

Has there been a time in your life when you were discouraged and needed someone to remind you that Jesus loves you?  If so, then you know how painful it is to feel like you’re all alone with a heavy burden.  If we want people to encourage and love us, then we must also encourage and love them.  There are too many one sided relationships in this world.  We must treat others as we want to be treated.  Are you feeding your family, loved ones and friends the love of Jesus?  Do they see Jesus living in you?

 

Joanne Lowe

July 16, 2006

joannelowe8@cox.net

http://joannelowe.blogspot.com/

http://www.heavenwardbound.com/

 

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I hope you enjoyed this issue of the Heaven Ministries Newsletter.

 

God bless!

 

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