Starting Your Best Life Now: A Guide for New Adventures and Stages on Your Journey

by Joel Osteen

Overview

Grow your faith and develop a positive attitude with Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen's inspiring advice about everyday living, happiness, and personal growth.

Happy and fulfilled people make the most of new opportunities, live in the present, and expect great things from the future. They're living at their full potential -- and so can you! In Starting Your Best Life Now, you'll learn how to:

• Enlarge Your Vision
• Develop a Healthy Self-Image
• Discover the Power of Your Thoughts and Words
• Let Go of the Past
• Find Strength Through Adversity
• Live to Give
• Choose to Be Happy

No matter what you're going through, it's never too late to start living your best life. Today is the day -- don't wait another minute!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780446539944
Publisher:	Hachette Nashville
Publication date:	08/12/2008
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	206 KB

About the Author

Joel Osteen is the senior pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. More than ten million viewers watch his weekly televised services each week in the United States, and millions more in 100 nations around the world. He can also be heard twenty-four hours a day on Joel Osteen Radio SiriusXM channel 128. He is the author of eleven national bestselling books and has been named by numerous publications as one of the most influential Christian leaders in the world. He resides in Houston with his wife, Victoria. You can visit his website at http://www.joelosteen.com.

Read an Excerpt

Starting Your Best Life Now

A Guide for New Adventures and Stages on Your Journey

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By Joel Osteen

Faithwords

Copyright © 2007 Joel Osteen
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-446-58101-1

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Chapter One

Dare to Unpack Your Dreams

From the time she was a little girl, Tara Holland dreamed of becoming Miss America. After two years as runner-up in the Miss Florida pageant, she was tempted to give up, but she chose instead to focus on her goal. She rented videos of every pageant she could find and watched them over and over again. As Tara watched each young woman crowned a winner, she pictured herself receiving the crown and walking down the runway in victory.

So when Tara was crowned Miss America in 1997, taking that long walk down the runway came as natural to her as breathing. Afterward, a reporter asked her if she was nervous about being on television, in front of millions, accepting her crown. "No," she said, "I wasn't nervous at all. You see, I had walked down that runway thousands of times before." She was simply living out the dream she had practiced so many times in her mind.

SO WHAT ABOUT YOU?

What do you want to do with your life? What are your dreams? If you could write your best life story today, what would it say?

Is your first reaction to hesitate? Perhaps you most often see and describe yourself in terms of past experiences or present limitations. Perhaps you see yourself more in terms of losing or just surviving rather than fulfilling your dreams.

If you've packed away your dreams, dare to unpack them today. It's time to enlarge your vision. Dare to ask God to rekindle those dreams in your heart and mind. He wants to do big things and new things in your life. God wants us to be constantly increasing, to be rising to new heights. He wants to pour out "His far and beyond favor" on you (Ephesians 2:7).

Quiet your heart and receive God's Word: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future'" (Jeremiah 29:11).

Friend, if you will get in agreement with God, this can be the greatest time of your life. With God on your side, you cannot possibly lose. He can make a way when it looks as though there is none. He can open doors that no man can shut. He can cause you to be at the right place, at the right time. He can supernaturally turn your dreams into reality.

Never allow your own wrong thinking to keep you from God's best.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Starting Your Best Life Now by Joel Osteen Copyright © 2007 by Joel Osteen . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Introduction     8
Enlarge Your Vision     12
Dare to Unpack Your Dreams     14
Expect Great Things     18
Rise to New Levels     22
Break Through Barriers     26
Declare God's Favor     30
Develop a Healthy Self-Image     32
See Yourself as God Sees You     34
Be Strong and Courageous     38
Be an Original     42
Become What You Believe     46
Discover the Power Of Your Thoughts and Words     48
Win the Victory in Your Mind     50
Think About Your Thinking     54
Speak to Your Mountains     58
Confess God's Word     62
Let Go of the Past     64
Let the Old Go     66
Get Up and Move On     70
Forgive to Be Free     74
Keep Moving Forward     78
Find Strength Through Adversity     80
Stand Up on the Inside     82
Trust God's Timing     86
Be Patient     90
Walk Through the Fire     94
Live to Give     96
Be a Giver     98
Walk in Love     102
Keep an OpenHeart     106
Reap a Harvest     110
Choose to Be Happy     112
Rejoice in the Lord Always     114
Excel in Integrity     118
Enjoy Your Best Life Now     122