Happiness Points: #124-130

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #124-130 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #124: Things That Pop in Your Head Aren’t Always from God

       Fear can be a driving force. We can be afraid of all sorts of things. Fear can be present that we aren’t pleasing God, that we aren’t doing what we are supposed to be doing, that we aren’t living up to where we really should be in life. And fear can be powerful. Through fear, we can develop incorrect beliefs whereby we make decisions that are not really good for us. They may seem good at the time, but later we find out that they aren’t that good. No, our fear had deceived us into making a decision that really wasn’t beneficial for us. That’s what fear can do.
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Happiness Points: #117-123

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #117-123 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #117: Do What You Really Want to Do

       I believe one of the key, core fundamental things to our lives is simply to do what we really want to do, to do what makes you happy as it is often said. We hear the phrase a lot, “Do what makes you happy,” and actually it is experientially true. The best times in my life have been when I am aligned with what ‘fits’ me, what makes sense in relation to what I personally like. This is true with working a career, doing Bible teaching, writing a blog, or making YouTube videos. Whatever it is that you do, it needs to align with what you care about. If it doesn’t, then
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Happiness Points: #110-116

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #110-116 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #110: Tomorrow You’ll Feel Like It

       
I think we’ve all had the feeling say, on the afternoon before we are to return to work, that feeling where we think, “I really don’t want to go back to work tomorrow.” Yes, even though we still have much of our day off left, we are already looking into tomorrow. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, Jesus told us we aren’t supposed to be worrying about the troubles of tomorrow. So, when we are thinking like this, we aren’t being true to what he taught us in Matthew 6. Second, this is bad because it is assuming that when tomorrow morning comes, we CONTINUE READING SERMON...

Happiness Points: #103-109

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #103-109 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #103: Create a Looking Forward to Heaven List

       We all know we are going to Heaven someday. I mean, for us it is an intellectual fact. But, what is it actually going to be like? Can we get a picture of it? I think for many of us, our images of Heaven in our minds seem vague. They seem like we really don’t know for sure what to expect. It’s like all we see are white clouds, and perhaps a throne room. Maybe we see people walking around in white robes. That thought comes to us from the Book of the Revelation, where a lot of Heavenly topics are discussed. But overall, we just usually don’t have a clear
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Happiness Points: #97-102

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #97-102 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #97: Attack Reoccurring Thoughts

       It’s just a matter of life that as we live our lives, there are going to be thoughts that tend to reoccur in our minds. Usually, these thoughts are related to some negative event that we have been part of. These can range from all kinds of things. It could be someone rejected us, someone said something against us, we got in a car accident, a person said something really bad to us, whatever, there are all kinds of things that we can find are floating through our heads. The truth is, unless we do something about these thoughts, they aren’t going to go away
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Happiness Points: #90-96

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #90-96 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #90: Have Specific Prayer Days

       There’s no doubt that we all have a lot to pray for. People present us with prayers, when we are at church or Bible study. People tell us about things they need prayer for, whether we are talking with them on the phone or meeting them for coffee. And then there are the prayers that we ourselves need, which can be a vast variety of things. Perhaps we are praying for certain family members to come into personal relationship with God. Maybe we are hoping for help with a certain project we are facing in life, or perhaps a specific goal we wish to achieve on
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Happiness Points: #83-89

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #83-89 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #83: Enjoy the Journey

       I think paying particular attention to the traffic when you are out and about is a good indicator. I mean that watching the traffic closely shows you that people are always in a hurry to go from one place to the next, from point A to point B. And, in stopping to consider that, it becomes obvious that it’s such a waste of time. What about all the travel time? Why do people always have to be in a hurry? Why not actually enjoy the journey from one place to next? Why does it have to be done in the fastest manner possible, at the fastest speeds? Truly, the drive
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Happiness Points: #76-82

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #76-82 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #76: You Can Do Fun Things for Free

       One great thing about having fun is that it often times can be free. In other words, the belief that one needs to spend money, or spend a lot of money to have fun simply isn’t true. Sure, spending money to go to theme parks, the theatre, out to dinner, whatever, yeah, those things can and are a lot of fun. But I have noticed that sometimes it is the ‘free’ things in life that give us the most happiness. It isn’t always the things that cost us money that brings happiness.
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Happiness Points: #69-75

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #69-75 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #69: Blessings in Disguise

       
There have been several times in my life where I didn’t get what I wanted. I remember, back when it happened, I thought, “Man, I’ve really lost out on something truly great. I’ll probably never have an opportunity like this again.” That’s what our minds often do. They convince us that whatever didn’t work out, whatever we didn’t get, that because of that, we have lost out on something truly big, truly great. There is that feeling of doom and dread that comes upon us at the feeling of loss. We think we have damaged our lives with this loss, and certainly CONTINUE READING SERMON...

Happiness Points: #63-68

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #63-68 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #63: You Will Be Misunderstood

       When I first started preaching, some seven years ago now, I didn’t have a firm grasp on this happiness point. I thought that whatever I said, people would just naturally get it. I thought that I wouldn’t have to explain or elaborate on anything. The thing is, people have different perspectives in how they approach the same information. One person can hear one thing, and another person can see something totally different from the same thing. That’s just the way it works. We all take our background experiences and apply them to the new information that we
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Happiness Points: #57-62

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #57-62 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #57: Get to the Root of the Problem

       We all face problems on a daily basis. Some problems small. Some problems big. They could be going on inside our heads, or they could be manifesting themselves in our world around us. What we need to understand, and this is fundamental for any level of happiness to be obtained, is that, in essence, there is a root to every problem. Often times I think that we just focus on the external symptoms of a problem and are not dealing with the root. It is only when we get down to the core, the underlying cause, that we can begin to truly tackle it. Sure,
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Happiness Points: #50-56

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #50-56 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #50: People are Responsible for their Characters

       It is the oldest game in the book—blaming someone else or something else when something goes wrong. Remember? That’s what Adam did the first time he sinned. He blamed Eve. He didn’t take responsibility. Recently, I watching a pastor prepare to give a sermon on at highly esteemed church in the evangelical world. He was reading over the passage of Scripture and thought he lost his place. So what did he do? Did he take responsibility? Even in this minor infraction, the pastor blamed the reason on the fact he had just purchased a new Bible. It kind
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Happiness Points: #43-49

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #43-49 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #43: Caught Between Two Different Worlds

       It is definitely true that some individuals out there will find themselves caught between two varying worlds—worlds that are different, each with their own promises. Yes, indeed. That’s where many in fact can find themselves in, especially if you were raised in a stricter church setting. We know, if we are a student of the Scripture, that we cannot serve two masters. That’s Christianity 101. It is like Luciano Pavarotti said one time, “if you try to sit on two chairs, you will fall between them. For life, you must choose one chair.“ Definitely true.
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Happiness Points: #36-42

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #36-42 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #36: The Top Isn’t Always the Best

       It is a common belief that arriving at the top, being the best in the game at something, is really the best place one can arrive. Sounds good. We hear it a lot. But the truth of the matter is that being at the top isn’t always the best. There are several reasons as why this is the case. We certainly don’t want to be at the bottom. That’s no fun. But for most of us, we aren’t going to want to be at the top either. This will become apparent as we evaluate the following issues with being at the top.
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Happiness Points: #29-35

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #29-35 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #29: Have a Midday Devotional Refresh

       I am certainly a believer in having a good, solid morning devotional time. It is a place where I can re-gear my mind, per say, and get all of my thoughts in check. I can let go of any desires that have cropped up and are subtly robbing me of my freedom. I remind myself that all that really matters is God. In this whole entire process, then, in whatever I am reading, whether that is a good book or the Good Book, I try to take a few notes so that I can remember what I was thinking about. If I am on my smartphone or tablet, for instance, I accomplish this task through
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Happiness Points: #22-28

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #22—28 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #22: God Isn’t Limited on Resources

       For many, many years of my Christian life, I believed something bad that I didn’t even realize I believed. That was, I believed that God was limited on his resources. There was the prevailing belief in the background that God only had so much good, and once it was taken up, you would either have to take the leftovers, or not get anything at all. What I didn’t realize at the time, and what I have come to understand now, is that God is infinite in his ways, and abounding in his resources.
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Happiness Points: #15-21

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #15-21 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #15: Don’t Spend Too Much Idle Time

       We’ve all heard the old saying, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop.” Actually, what I have found over the years is that is true. It really is the case that the more idle we are, typically the more we find ourselves thinking about things we shouldn’t be thinking about. I think it’s more of a mind thing. It’s not that sitting down in a chair to rest is bad, for a half hour or even for an hour. It’s just that if we do this without watching what thoughts are flowing through our heads, our rest can turn into a really bad thing. We can just sit and ruminate about hypotheses we have
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Happiness Points: #8-14

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #8-14 - Daniel Litton
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Happiness Point #8: Don’t Get Overhyped About Things

       I don’t know how many times I’ve gotten on vacation only to be a couple days into it and realize, this isn’t as good as I thought it would be. It’s not that my current vacation isn’t going well, it usually is, it’s just that it’s not as exciting and exhilarating as I had expected. There still resides worries from things back at home, and there are the standard hopes and desires that everything on the vacation will go as planned—and that the weather will be good. The problem isn’t that the vacation isn’t really going that good, the problem is that I had set up unrealistic
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Happiness Points: #1-7

Peace to Live By Happiness Points: #1-7 - Daniel Litton
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I hope everyone is doing well today.

       I believe you have made a wise choice—that is, in your decision to pursue happiness, to increase your overall level of happiness. Certainly so, happiness isn’t some sinful worldly concept, reserved for those who would eat and be marry, but rather, happiness is for the Christian—for God created us to be happy in the first place. But as we will find with most things in life, with happiness comes the importance of choice. Therefore, one chooses happiness. CONTINUE READING SERMON...

Special: Season 1 Commentary, Part 3

Peace to Live By Special: Season 1 Commentary, Part 3 - Daniel Litton
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       In part 3, Daniel commentates on a couple clips from Season 1 of Peace to Live By in 2013-2014. Episode 15: Love Gone Astray- Adultery & Divorce and Episode 19: Hell- The Eternal Sentence of Unbelievers are discussed.
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Special: Season 1 Commentary, Part 2

Peace to Live By Special: Season 1 Commentary, Part 2 - Daniel Litton
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       In part 2, Daniel commentates on a couple clips from Season 1 of Peace to Live By in 2013-2014. Episode 10: Living as Seniors, Married, Parents, & Singles and Episode 14: Exposing Errors in Postmodern Thinking are discussed.
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Special: Season 1 Commentary, Part 1

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[Transcript isn't available for this broadcast, sorry]

       In part 1, Daniel commentates on a couple clips from Season 1 of Peace to Live By in 2013-2014. Episode 6: The Reality of Satan & His Demons and Episode 8: The Providence of God are discussed.
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