GOOD NEWS DAILY – November 13

A homeless man appeared on my street one day who seemed out of touch with reality and his surroundings. He spoke gibberish and seemed to be demon-possessed. He also had an apparent speech impediment. He seemed lost, broken, and invisible to the world. I gave him a Gospel tract and talked to him about Jesus a number of times as I walked by. Then it turned cold. And wet. And he had wet his pants. And was cold. Hungry. I stopped to speak to him that cold morning. He spoke some. A little conversation. I talked to him about Jesus. Prayed for him. He was willing to receive help. Thank God. The temperature that night would be in the 20’s. It was already drizzling. I held my umbrella over him.

Police and an ambulance came when I made a phone call for help though I had hoped for help finding him physical shelter. Maybe the hospital would be a good place to start. The officers treated him like a piece of trash. And they treated me pretty much like garbage. Like neither of us mattered. No respect. No kindness. No compassion. No love.

They hauled him off to the hospital with not an ounce of care. I thanked them anyway to be polite. And walked off deeply sad not just over this, but over how often I see this and experience it in my own life. A world in such dire need of the Lord Jesus Christ with its back mostly turned against Him. A cold, brittle, callous, hard-hearted world. A world without Jesus. Without His love.

PLEASE PRAY FOR THOSE IN DIRE NEED OF JESUS! And that the Lord would send out laborers to help people find and forever follow Him!

“Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”” Matthew 9:37-38

““Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” Mt. 25:37-40

PLEASE ENJOY TODAY’S EDITION OF GOOD NEWS DAILY AND REMEMBER TO SCROLL ALL THE WAY DOWN TO SEE THE FULL ISSUE!

IF YOU NEED HELP BEGINNING OR PRESSING ON IN A FOREVER RELATIONSHIP WITH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT AT 843-338-2219 OR lara@GoodNews.love

love & blessings,

lara

I was looking at churches online which I periodically do when I stumbled across this: “Dream it and you can have it.” I believe the church was advertising some conference or something.

Friend, this is a LIE. It is FALSE TEACHING. It is DANGEROUS. And it can be DEADLY when we believe and live by what does not line up with God’s Word. And it can be VERY DECEPTIVE when the false teaching is coming right out of church pulpits and pews.

I speak from experience. I was under false teaching for years, did not heed the warnings when they were delivered by human messengers, and only by God’s grace was delivered from it all by the Spirit of God through His Word.

Notice there is no mention of the Lord Jesus Christ in that saying about dreams. Should we be living our own personal dreams apart from God anyway? No! We should be living to love, worship, praise, serve, adore, experience, enjoy, honor, revere, and glorify the Lord and to tell the world about Him – and to fulfill the dreams HE has for us according to His perfect plan, will, and purpose!

Please measure whatever you hear, read, see, and believe against the Bible because the Lord always and only speaks and acts and lead us in line with His Word.

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” 2 Timothy 4:3-4

“Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Matthew 24:11-13

love & blessings,

lara

I hate when it’s cold and rainy and my umbrella virtually flies away from me but instead sticks around and in the wind turns itself inside out so I look like a fool walking down the street and have to try to get it turned back around the right away as I get soaked in the rain. Ugh. When I reread the update and prayer request I wrote above in this issue of GOOD NEWS DAILY, I noticed how I had written that I had hoped to find shelter for the homeless man I tried to help. I edited the piece and added, “physical” before the word “shelter” because the Holy Spirit showed me that I had already pointed the man in need to shelter.

To the shelter of the Lord Jesus Christ. All man-made shelter, whether it be houses, tents, homeless shelters, sleeping bags, whatever it may be, is temporary. This world will one day be gone before the Lord creates the new heavens and earth and His followers are with Him face to face forever in His glorious eternal Kingdom. We can help people in need to find physical shelters, but the most important help we will ever give anyone on this earth is to help lead them to the shelter of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Jesus is Lord. He is the Son of God. He came to the earth and lived a perfect life in human form. He died on the cross an indescribably heinous death to pay our sin penalty and was raised from the dead. We are all sinners bound for hell and the lake of fire forever apart from the Lord. But those who turn from our sins and believe in Him as Lord and in His cross and resurrection, fully devoting ourselves to the Lord and His ways, receive Him as Lord and are promised forever life with Him.

We are promised to be in His forever Kingdom, everlasting shelter with Christ! And our relationship with Him begins right here on this earth such that even through our toughest times and mightiest battles on this earth, we can run into the shelter of Christ and His Word. Finding love, peace, hope, joy, comfort, compassion, wisdom, direction, grace, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, tenderness, rest, etc. IN CHRIST!

Come into the shelter of Christ, friend! Come into His refuge! Abide in Him! Enjoy His love and comfort forevermore, AMEN!

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 192

“And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,” Ephesians 5:18

NOTHING and NOBODY will ever satisfy and fulfill and complete and richly, abundantly, magnificently, lovingly, peacefully, gloriously, wondrously, joyfully, blissfully, bless us the way the Holy Spirit of God who dwells inside Christ’s followers does – and will. Just as we can drink and drink thirstily and longingly and desperately of drink and the things and people of this earth, we can turn our focus to the Lord, to His Spirit, and to His Word – the Bible – and receive satisfaction beyond description. Oh, may we thirst, thirst, thirst for the Lord – and cry out to Him to fill us with more and more of His blessed Spirit, AMEN!

“Help me to gratify you,” I prayed one morning.

Now hold up a minute. Did I pray that? ME? Self-centered me? Me so self-centered the whole world was supposed to revolve around me? Or so I had seemed to think for years?

I couldn’t recall ever thinking of the word “gratify” in any other way than as relating to GRATIFYING THE FLESH. GRATIFYING SELF.

Did I just pray to gratify the Lord? What exactly did the word mean anyway? I looked it up. Merriam-Webster dictionary online says, “to be a source of or give pleasure or satisfaction to.”

I was reminded of verses I had read the night before in my endless hunger and thirst for more of the Lord and the Bible. The verses above.

What had struck me as I read them is the idea of ABOUNDING – which makes me think of overflowing and growing still – in PLEASING JESUS! Not just pleasing the Lord a little here and there. But desiring and committing to please Him MORE AND MORE! Yearning to bring pleasure to precious Jesus in abundance – and more and more of it at that!

Oh, how the Lord has changed my heart. I don’t live any longer to gratify me. I desire more than anything to gratify the Lord – more and more and on and on!

Let’s leave self-gratification behind, my friend. The Lord loves us and will provide for us and take care of our needs and bless us however He desires. Our greatest desire shouldn’t be to gratify ourselves. May our greatest love be the Lord and our greatest desire be to worship, serve, obey, praise, honor, revere, magnify, glorify, and GRATIFY the Lord!

I DON’T WANT TO GO THERE!

“Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.” Luke 9:23

“and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” 2 Cor. 5:15

““But why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do the things which I say?” Luke 6:46

^““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” Matthew 7:21

I have been loving and serving the Lord with all my heart for some time now, and one wild and beautiful thing I’ve discovered about where the Holy Spirit sends me is this. So many times where and to whom I desperately don’t want to go have turned out to be some of the most incredible and powerful opportunities to serve Jesus and others.

It goes against the human flesh and modern day culture to go where and to whom we don’t want to go, doesn’t it? We as a world seem to be more and more focused on me, me, me. On SELF. On THE FLESH. Even so many who profess Christ as Lord it seems call Him Lord but believe we are to live our lives to satisfy ourselves. Oh, not so! So wrong!

But following Christ isn’t about us. It’s ABOUT THE LORD and it’s about LOVING AND SERVING HIM AND OTHERS WITH ALL OUR HEARTS!

When the Lord says go somewhere or to someone, we need to go. In obedience to Him. For His is Lord forever.

If you’ve been resisting the Lord and even rebelling against His will for you as far as where or to whom He has made clear He wants you to go, deny yourself, take up your little cross, and follow Him forth. Go and love. Go and serve. In Christ’s name. For the glory of Christ, AMEN!

p.s. For years I called Christ Lord but lived for self. No more. We weren’t created to live for us. We were created to live FOR HIM! Glory be to the Lord forevermore! AMEN! Hallelujah!