Dear friend,
So close by God’s grace to finishing writing my latest book that I am tempted to not send out my Good News Daily messages for a few days to conserve as much time and energy as possible to work on my book. But I don’t live for me anymore. I live for Jesus. And my precious beloved Lord has made clear that I am to send out FOUR MESSAGES today. So here they are! May the Lord use them to bring you encouragement, change, growth, renewal, inspiration, and to draw you to Himself.
I would be thankful beyond measure for very strong prayer as I press on with this book and in ministry as a whole!
Today’s titles are:
* SHE ALMOST HUNG UP!
* HELP ME DO YOUR WILL!
* WHEN YOUR MIND KEEPS GOING “THERE”
* GOODBYE BITTERNESS
love & blessings,
lara
…
She Almost Hung Up!
A woman dialed the wrong telephone number and ended up calling me instead of the person she intended to call. Right as she was ready to hang up after realizing I was the wrong person, I blurted out something to the effect of, “Well, maybe you called me for a reason. Do you need prayer about anything?”
Sure enough, she had a big challenge that day. She was in major transition and was about to take a huge action. Absolutely, she needed prayer! I prayed for her, and we both received the blessing of the Lord bringing us together to have her need met. How thankful she must have been that she hadn’t hung up and that she didn’t miss the opportunity the Lord had given her.
How thankful I was that I didn’t hang up and miss the opportunity the Lord had given me – to love, encourage, and pray for someone in need. I can’t tell you how blessed I was to be used by the Lord to help someone. What a blessing for both the woman and myself! All by the leading of the Spirit of Christ! Totally unplanned by me and the woman. Orchestrated and carried out by the Lord Himself! For His glory not ours!
Please don’t miss your opportunities to love and serve the Lord and others in His name, and please don’t miss your opportunities to be blessed by the Lord however He desires whenever He desires wherever He desires through whomever He desires. Keep your heart, ears, and eyes wide open for the leading of the Lord for the glory of the Lord, AMEN!
Lord, thank you so much for your awesome love and your endless blessings and how you orchestrate everything you do in your goodness and greatness right down to the smallest of details. And so creative you are, dear Lord! The way you have people cross paths with one another to distribute your love and blessings, you truly are amazing, so amazing, dear God! Thank you for this sweet little refreshing and encouraging and heartwarming story, and may you use it to help us all to be open to your pouring out your love and blessings upon us and through us, oh Lord. AMEN!
“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.” James 1:17
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Help Me Do Your Will!
Extraordinary! After years of being under false teaching and wanting to wave my magic wand at the Lord with the hope He would give me everything I wanted according to my will and ways, He so unbelievably transformed me that I pray now continually for His will and for Him to help me to do it. Talk about a miraculous makeover of my heart and life by the loving and merciful heart and hands of the Lord! Thanks be to the Lord, I have an insatiable hunger and thirst now to bring love, honor, praise, joy, and glory to HIS NAME! How about you, friend?
Do you crave and long to know and do the will of the Lord? Do you pray for His will and His help in fulfilling it? Do you need His transformation in this as I so desperately did? Do you desire to love and bless and honor and please the Lord? Do you strive to live righteously through faith in Him? Do you crave to bring joy and pleasure to God almighty in the way you think, speak, and live? Do you have a zeal and fervor to know and fulfill His will for you day by day? Do you chase after Him and His will with all your heart? Do you spend time alone with Him each and every day and dig deep into the Bible to learn to live by it?
Is Jesus your number one priority in life? Is His will and your commitment to do it more important to you than any to-do list you could ever come up with for your everyday life?
Live for Jesus! Live to love and glorify God almighty! Hunger and thirst to know and do His will. Enjoy the amazing journey of following Jesus and fulfilling His will for your life. To the Lord be the glory, AMEN!
Father, create in us all an insatiable hunger and thirst for righteousness! An insatiable longing to love and please you! An insatiable craving to honor and adore you! An insatiable yearning and burning to seek and do your will! And oh, Lord, help us, help us, help us, help us in every way we need help to fulfill your will for our lives, oh Lord! AMEN!
“I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.”” Psalm 40:8
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” Matthew 5:6
“”I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5
…
When Your Mind Keeps Going “There”
“Why do I keep thinking about it?” I asked the Lord.
Over and again, day after day, my mind kept going “there.” To something I shouldn’t have been thinking about. To a distraction. To something that was irritating me. Each time, I got upset. Disturbed. Bothered. Annoyed. Provoked. The love and light of Christ in my heart fell under a big heavy blanket of yuck that settled heavily and darkly over it. I was too busy thinking about what I shouldn’t have been thinking about and getting displeased about it all over again!
“It’s Satan dangling a carrot in front of you. Knowing you’ll take it,” the Holy Spirit replied to my heart.
It didn’t dawn on me until some days later why the Lord had replied giving a carrot as an example. I love, love, love carrots beyond description. But some years ago I became unable to digest raw vegetables without having big stomach troubles. Those raw carrots I adored went bye-bye. I know not to eat them.
Just like I knew not to keep thinking about that same situation and those people about which I kept getting so provoked. Riled up to be precise. But I kept going back there in my thoughts anyway! Ugh.
“He is using the same bait because he knows you will keep taking the same bait,” the Holy Spirit continued. “Once you take it, your focus is off of me [meaning the Lord].”
“Once you lose your focus, you are unable to do what I call you to do,” the Holy Spirit said.
“Watch out for when he throws the bait at you. Take every thought captive.”
The Holy Spirit had brought to my remembrance the Bible verse below. A strong reminder that we are not to allow thoughts to exalt themselves above God and His Word. And that every thought needs to bow down to Christ. If the thoughts run contrary to God and His Word, are dishonoring and displeasing to the Lord, do not glorify Him, draw us away from Him, etc., they need to go.
“He is baiting you in your mind,” the Holy Spirit continued. “One of the fruit you are to bear is self-control,” He said. “Use it. Refuse to take what he throws at you. Choose to set your affection on things above.”
References to two more Bible verses. Please find them below. In other words, we are to control our thoughts and choose to focus on the Lord. Surely not what I was doing!
He gave me another verse then. Also below. About our hearts being where our treasures are. Jesus is to be our greatest treasure! Our hearts are to be focused on Him, the Bible, and what the Bible teaches us is good to focus on.
“Focus on me and my Word and what I am telling you to think about in my Word,” the Holy Spirit said.
Now He had reminded me about the verse below from the book of Philippians about what to meditate on in our thoughts. Certainly not what I had been thinking about!
I wish I could tell you I am perfect in getting rid of those wrong thoughts. In not taking Satan’s bait – or carrots in my case. I’m so very far from perfect. But I’m striving to do right in all this. To submit my thoughts to the Lord. And to His Word. And to learn how not to get distracted and upset about things I shouldn’t be thinking about in the first place.
Will you join me, friend, in working on this? I would love the company in so doing!
Father, thank you for this powerful message. May you bring it to my remembrance and that of my readers every time we need it and to put it into practice. Lord, it is so incredibly hard sometimes to resist those wrong thoughts. But in your strength I know we can. Please Lord use the verses I will add to this message at your leading to bring us to a new place when it comes to our thoughts. Drill this into us, Lord. There is so much good and right to think about Lord starting with the most important of all. YOU! Thank you for your patience with us, oh Lord, and for your help in all this. AMEN! P.S. Please, please forgive me and all those who need your forgiveness in this, Lord, for the times we fall short when it comes to our thoughts. AMEN!
“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-6
“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Luke 12:34
“Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Colossians 3:2
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” Philippians 4:13
…
Goodbye Bitterness
Bitter beer. I drank tons of beer decades ago in my time as an alcoholic before the Lord set me free. But not bitter beer to the best of my recollection. Not the really bitter kind anyway. Bitter chocolate. Tried it when I fell head over heels in love with chocolate for a season on the road for Jesus. But the bitter kind? No way. Bitter coffee? I haven’t had a cup of coffee in many years, but the very bitter kind, no thank you. I am just not in the least enamored with things bitter. But when it comes to bitterness, which is a sin, I can fall prey to it if I’m not careful.
Know what the Lord asked me one time?
“Are you loving toward them, or bitter?” He said in reference to some people with whom I was upset and hadn’t as of yet really even figured out why.
“Bitter,” I confessed right away.
“Please get rid of it,” the Lord replied immediately.
Not only was the bitterness standing in the way of the love of Christ I should have been showing these people. But bitterness is just plain old wrong. It’s sin. It makes anything that could and should be beautiful and lovely and right and positive and blessed and rewarding, etc. – well, bitter. Ungodly. Unappealing. Unattractive. Unhelpful. Unbecoming. Yuck.
Feeling bitter about someone? About something? Ever struggle with bitterness? Here’s the message the Lord placed on my heart for you and me and others.
Bitter? Get rid of it!
Friend, let’s walk in the love of the Lord, AMEN!
Father, shine your light in our hearts please! Show us any bitterness we may have! It could be lurking in crevices and corners where we cannot see. We may not even be aware of it. It could have been there for years. Or be brand new. Oh, Lord, you know. If there is one ounce of bitterness in us, please, oh God, take it from us! Forgive us for it! Cause us to rid ourselves of it!
And for that matter, dear Lord, help us to continually purify our hearts and lives before you. May we get rid of everything distasteful and unappealing and unpleasant and displeasing to you, oh Lord! Fill us, oh Lord, those of us who believe in you, Jesus as Lord, with your Holy Spirit. Where every ounce of sin is purged from us, replace it with more of you and your love and kindness and patience and joy and peace and hope and everything good you desire to fill our hearts with. Thank you, dear Lord! And if that bitterness sneaks back in there, please Lord let us get rid of it all over again. Let there be a big sign on our hearts, Father, saying “Bitterness not welcome here!” Amen!
“Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.” Ephesians 4:31
“looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, and by this many become defiled;” Hebrews 12:15