GOOD NEWS DAILY – DECEMBER 18

“Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”” Matthew 22:37-40

I sat at my computer getting ready to start writing as the tears remained right at the edge of falling out onto my face. But I had stopped them in their tracks. I didn’t want to cry. I was just hurt. Someone in the position of being responsible for helping me with something had treated me pretty poorly because he was having a bad day. Over and again, he had treated me like, well, dirt. No acknowledgement. No apology. Still treating me as such. To top it off, I’ve always been sensitive. This all made me think of something.

Friend, we need to be careful with how we treat people. I’ve done my fair share of hurting people, and the Lord has taught me how to repent before Him and to seek the forgiveness of those I have hurt and make necessary changes. But we live in a world in which countless people walk around hurting people without seeking the Lord’s forgiveness and without seeking the mercy of those they have hurt. They simply march forward hurting more people.

Let’s watch out for pride, friend. Let’s humble ourselves and let the Holy Spirit show us when we’ve hurt someone and make right what we have done wrong. The Lord’s greatest commands? To love HIM with all our hearts and to LOVE others as ourselves. Let’s do both!

“that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” Ephesians 4:22-24

Sometimes big messages come in small packages. Like a single sentence.

The Lord spoke this to my heart concerning why He has allowed my trials through the years.

“Because I am teaching you how to be like me and using you to tell people about me and drawing you ever closer to myself…”

Three powerful reasons for trials He allows even when we cannot see or understand what He is doing in the midst of them.

We will all face trials in this life, and how hard they may be, but how comforting to see what beauty the Lord can bring in and through Him!

365 BLESSINGS is a devotional book I wrote that is available in print by contacting me at 843-338-2219 or via lara@GoodNews.love.  

Blessing 234

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” Romans 6:1-4

There is a final resurrection we who believe in and follow the Lord Jesus Christ will experience whereby we will be with Jesus forevermore, but we don’t have to wait until then to be raised up in that glorious resurrection! When we repent and turn to Christ as Lord, receiving Him as Lord and Savior of our lives, we DIE TO SIN so we can learn to LIVE FOR JESUS! We are now to live in “NEWNESS OF LIFE”.

Wow! Old life gone. New life begins. Oh, sure, we may try to go back. We may in fact turn back at times. But none of this is what God desires. His desire, and what He gives us, is the right and responsibility to GO FORWARD. How so? In “NEWNESS OF LIFE”. He gives us NEW LIFE. He gives us the love, power, grace, and ability to MOVE AHEAD not staying stuck in sin but learning day by day to be free from it. What a blessing He gives us NEW LIFE!

Notice the word “should”. This is what we “should” do. And this we must LEARN to do. This we must PRACTICE doing. And, when the Spirit of God shows us we have fallen short in this, we need to REPENT and keep going FORWARD. In “NEWNESS OF LIFE”. A life inconceivable and unachievable on our own. But, in Christ, exactly what we’re called to do. And, through Christ, exactly what we can learn to do.

For the glory of Christ, yes, for Christ’s sake, AMEN! The blessing of “NEWNESS OF LIFE” IN CHRIST. The blessing of “NEWNESS OF LIFE” THROUGH CHRIST. The blessing of “NEWNESS OF LIFE” FOR CHRIST. NEW LIFE because of the Lord Jesus Christ, hallelujah, oh, the joy of such a blessing! Thank you beloved Father for “NEWNESS OF LIFE” in you!

One of the greatest changes in my life and relationship with the Lord has come in seeing the Lord not just as my Lord and myself as His servant but in seeing the Lord as my Father and myself as His daughter! And the greatest change of all has been in coming to know the Lord intimately through much time alone with Him and the Bible and falling in love with Him and ever more so.

Imagine the difference in my service to Jesus when I serve Him with such unfathomable love in my heart for Him and with seeing Him as my loving forever parent in addition to being my everlasting Lord, master, and King.

Let us look to Jesus Christ as Lord and Father, let us love Him ever more, and let us serve Him from a place of overflowing love, joy, passion, and thanksgiving!