Many people today are familiar with miracle stories in the Bible - the parting of a sea, water turned to wine, and, most frequently in the New Testament, healings, even of blindness, leprosy, and the reversal of recent death. Yet it is not just people in the first century who have believed in miracles. Various polls peg U.S. belief in miracles at roughly 80 percent. One survey suggested that 73 percent of U.S. physicians believe in miracles, and 55 percent claim to have personally witnessed treatment results they consider miraculous. Even more striking than the number of people who believe in miracles is the number who claim to have witnessed or experienced them. For example, a 2006 Pew Forum survey studied charismatic and Pentecostal Christians in 10 countries. From these 10 countries alone, the number of charismatic Christians who claim to have witnessed or experienced divine healing comes out to roughly 200 million people. This estimate was not, however, the most surprising finding of the survey. The same survey showed that more than one-third of Christians in these same countries who do not claim to be charismatic or Pentecostal report witnessing or experiencing divine healing. What are we to make of such claims? At the very least, they testify that many people around the world today are experiencing cures in a context of deep religious faith. Numerous medical studies have shown that faith and faith communities provide a coping resource that often facilitates better health outcomes. A number of these global reports, however, exceed even our best current expectations for what "faith" can produce. In September 2010, Southern Medical Journal published an article showing that some people in Mozambique, tested before and after prayer, experienced significant recovery of hearing or eyesight. The Medical Bureau at Lourdes has long examined evidence for extraordinary recoveries. This book is full of testimony of real healing power of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ
Meditating can be so useful because it is the very essence of patience. Patience is not about passivity or resignation to one's condition or fate. It is not an act of suffering, rather in today's world patience is active and positive. Frustration is not the key to any door. Patience is a lifelong spiritual practice as well as a way to find emotional freedom. Every morning, noon, and night there are plenty of good reasons to be impatient. Another long line. A goal isn't materializing fast enough. People don't do what they're supposed to. Rejection. Disappointment. How to deal with it all? You can drive your-self crazy, behave irritably, feel victimized, or try to force an outcome; all self-defeating reactions that alienate others and bring out the worst in them. Or, you can learn to transform frustration with patience. God offers much wisdom in the saying, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens." God is sovereign. Our activity in this world is meaningful as we rely on His wisdom, His timing, and His goodness.
We value virtue but do not discuss it. The honest book-keeper, the faithful wife, the earnest scholar get little of our attention compared to the embezzler, the tramp, the cheat. - John SteinbeckThe Seven Heavenly Virtues is a classic interpretation of seven basic concepts that will lead us to glory. In alphabetical order, (each of which conveniently corresponds to one of the Seven Deadly Sins), along with some examples demonstrating each. According to Christian theology, The Seven Heavenly Virtues are the stepping stones to the glorification of the soul. They are a combination of the three Theological Virtues and the four Cardinal Virtues.The purpose of the Seven Virtues is to guide you on the path of righteousness, and keep you away from sins. In fact, they tell the virtuous what he should do, as opposed to The Seven Deadly Sins that tell you what you should keep away from.This article provides an insight into The Seven Holy Virtues and their meanings. The description is accompanied by a Bible verse that high-lights the value of each one of these virtues.
Isaiah 40:28-31 (KJV)Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faintMan for many years have taken Eagles as a symbol of beauty, bravery, courage, honor, pride, determination and grace. What makes this bird so important and symbolic to humanity is its characteristics. These 7 important characteristics of the Eagle has been closely associated to leadership and is widely researched and the facts accepted globally.For centuries, these seemingly larger-than-life birds have fascinated and inspired us with their brilliant leadership characteristics. When eagles come to mind, people commonly imagine an enormous hunter soaring above wide-open spaces on out-sized wings.Indeed, eagles are among the world's largest birds of prey. We venerate them as living symbols of power, freedom, and transcendence. In some religions, these creatures are believed to touch the face of God. Legend holds that Mexico's Aztec civilizations so revered the birds that they built Tenochtitlan, their capital, at the spot where an eagle perched on a cactus.This bird is important and symbolic to humanity because of its characteristics. You that is reading this book right now might be one of these eagles being raised up by the Lord. Study this eagle analogy very carefully, as I believe the Lord is giving all of us a very powerful and profound insight.
A time like this, calls for a book like this. When things are difficult we need to find a way out. What prompted the writing of this book is to give hope to humanity in our generation. The only thing that is constant in life is change therefore if we are in a time of difficulty, be rest assured that very soon the tide of time will turn around. What the world is experiencing today is not new in history. It happened during the time of Joseph and Pharaoh in Egypt. However, I want you to know that the difficult time in Egypt was what brought Joseph to limelight. Therefore the period we are passing through will definitely bring you to the top were people will celebrate you, only if you can see the unseen benefit in a time of difficulty. The bible says that everything works together for good to them that loves God, so remove your eyes from the negative condition around you. (It's only a symptom of something good) and look very deep in the situation you will see the good in it. As my mentor would say... Your worst days are over things can only get better, this is the best time to be alive. Arise shine for your light has come.
It's tempting sometimes to fall into the habit of thinking that God only hears the prayers of those who have achieved some level of holiness above the average. Have you ever found your-self asking your pastor or priest to pray for something as if their prayers are likely to ring louder in the ears of God than yours? We're taught, Jesus won't hear your prayers if your motives are selfish. And, Jesus won't answer you if you don't believe the right things about him. But in the Bible we find Jesus not just answering, but honoring, the request of a woman made out of selfish motives and based on an entirely false assumption about him. The nameless woman's story appears in all 3 gospels (Mark 5:25-34, Matthew 9:20-22, Luke 8:43-48) and it's one of Jesus' strangest and yet most touching miracles. In all three accounts, the healing of the bleeding woman is presented as an interruption to a larger story; Jesus raising Jairus' daughter from the dead. Jairus, a synagogue leader has approached Jesus, asking him to heal his dying child, and the two of them, together with the disciples, are making their way through a dense crowd of onlookers and supplicants toward Jairus' house. En route, the nameless woman approaches Jesus in secret, blending in with the thronging crowd, believing if she can merely touch the fringe of Jesus' cloak she might be healed. We're told she had been subject to vaginal bleeding for 12 years. She's spent all her money on remedies and treatments, only to find herself destitute and alone, a shadow person dwelling at the edges of society. She would have been viewed as a niddah, that is, a menstruating woman and therefore ceremonially unclean. But she wasn't menstruating. She was continuo-usly bleeding, which effectively made her a per-manent niddah, in a constant state of uncleann-ess. The implications of this are tragic. At this time, no man would put up with this condition. As a single woman, a very rare thing, she lived an extremely tenuous existence in the ancient Near East. It would appear she was unable to carry a child or give birth. She would have been barred entry to the synagogue or temple. She was broke. As an unmarried, childless, penniless woman, unable to enter religious premises or make offerings to God, I can't emphasize enough the social and religious isolation she would have endured, not to mention the discomfort of her physical condition. Little wonder she believes she can't approach Jesus directly. Instead, she tries to steal a miracle from him by touching the fringe of his garment. At first this might seem like an odd decision, but there was some precedent for this. The Pharisees at that time had taken to wearing the tzitzit - extra-long fringes or tassels on their prayer shawls or clothing. In Matthew 23:5, Jesus berates them for such outward displays of religiosity, bemoaning, "They make their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their garments long." Nonetheless, common people had come to believe that because of the Pharisees' great religious standing their tzitzit was imbued with a mystical power. This might very well be exactly what the Pharisees wanted them to think, but Jesus had scorned them for behaving so. There's no power in a Pharisee's tzitzit whatsoever, he declares. It's all for show. They're charlatans. Unaware of this, and assuming Jesus to be equivalent to a Pharisee, the bleeding woman comes to believe that if she could just touch the fringe of his clothing she would be healed. This whole situation is so desperately sad. A filthy, hungry, sick woman, who dare not appear openly in public or approach a holy man face-to-face, slinks furtively through the crowd, edging her way toward Jesus, not knowing there's actually no special power in the fringe of his robe. And yet... Mark's Gospel says that upon touching Jesus' cloak, "Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering." (Mk 5:29) It's weird, isn
