GOOD NEWS DAILY – October 18

I’m back in the battle. Seriously in it. Spiritual battle, that is. The kind of battle with which I’m all too familiar. Christ followers can be sure spiritual warfare is part of our journey following the Lord Jesus Christ. And rest assured if you’re in full-time ministry, on the front lines so to speak, out on the streets, on the highways and byways, sold out to Jesus, living and breathing for Him, forsaking all for Christ, yes, the battles can be fiery and sometimes seemingly relentless.

I’m blessed so very thankfully with an incredibly deep and intimate and ever-growing personal relationship with the Lord, I am continually seeking Him and hearing Him and humbling myself before Him and striving for a lifestyle of obedience to Him. When it comes to spiritual warfare, then, I am able to very clearly hear His wisdom and instructions in the midst of the battles as He brings me through them.

That said, I am not on the battlefield alone! I have the Lord above all else, I believe I have His angels all around me, and I am so very thankful for those led to pray for me.

Please pray, friends, please pray! As I press on in the Lord’s work. For the glory of Christ, AMEN!

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

THE BIG RELINQUISHMENT. These words just came to me. Why? I have been spending a little morning time with Jesus. Precious time. Time with the Lord always is. The Lord once again has been reminding me that He bought me with the price of His shed blood on the cross. He redeemed me from the curse of death, hell, and the lake of fire we all are under as sinners against God.

He died on the cross for me and was raised from the dead to be the atonement for my sins – and for the sins of all of us all around the world. He gave me the promise of everlasting life when I turned to Him as Lord. I am His. But do I think this way? Do I feel this way? Do I act this way? Do I live this way? Do I understand I belong to Jesus now? Forever? Do you?

The Lord has been speaking to my heart about humbling myself before Him and submitting myself to Him – in all things. My wishes, wants, and ways need to be laid down at His feet. I need to relinquish all day by day to the Lord. I need to surrender all.

Friend, I encourage you to consider this. Everlasting life with the Lord instead of death, hell, and the lake of fire is for those who turn from our sins, believe in Christ as Lord who died on the cross and was raised from the dead, turning to the Lord and His ways. Receiving Jesus as LORD and as SAVIOR.

Do we truly understand when we receive Jesus as Lord, our life becomes His? That He has bought us with the price of His blood shed on the cross for us? Do we live our lives accordingly? Humbling ourselves before Him as Lord and living according to His ways rather than the world’s?

Have you surrendered all to Jesus? Is it time to do some relinquishing? Anything you are holding onto you need to yield to Jesus? Turn, turn, turn to the Lord! Yield everything to Jesus!

Oh, how I encourage you to give all to the Lord! Give all to Jesus, AMEN!

“For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” 1 Cor. 6:20

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” Romans 12:1

love & blessings,

lara

A friend of mine shared with me that bed bugs were found in the apartment above his in New York City. Yes, ugh. Big ugh. His response? He wanted to make absolutely certain the apartment management company sent an exterminator over IMMEDIATELY – the very same day! – to make absolutely certain his apartment was fine. If not, he wanted the apartment taken care of – yes, IMMEDIATELY. This was plain and clear in how he spoke to me. I can’t blame him of course, but there is a message in this for you and me, friend.

Our hearts and lives should be pure and clean at all times for the Lord Jesus Christ. We’re imperfect humans, of course, so along the way the Spirit of God who lives inside His followers shows us when we have fallen into something dishonoring to the Lord. Sin, yes. Why does He do this? So we can sit and think about our wrongdoing for days, weeks, months, and years to come? Or not even think about it but simply continue in it? No!

So we can IMMEDIATELY address the problem. So we can IMMEDIATELY get rid of whatever we have allowed into our hearts and lives that displeases the Lord. So we can PURIFY OURSELVES – NOW! So we can repent – THIS VERY MINUTE. So we can be clean and pleasing to the Lord, yes.

My friend was adamant he didn’t even want the bedbugs from someone else’s apartment getting into his. He was so emphatic about not wanting bedbugs that he didn’t even want to wait until he had the problem. He wanted to prevent it!

Friend, we should so love and honor the Lord Jesus Christ that we strive day by day to purify ourselves when we have fallen short and work hard to avoid falling in the first place.

In the Lord’s strength, in His love, by His grace, in His mercy, for His glory, yes!

365 BLESSINGS is a devotional book I recently wrote that will soon be available in print by the grace of the Lord for the glory of the Lord! 

BLESSING 156

“Sing to the Lord, all the earth;
Proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day.” 1 Chron. 1623

What an awesome, awesome blessing that the Lord is worthy of all our praise forever, and that He gives us opportunities day by day to love Him, worship Him, pray to Him, honor Him, glorify Him, and to tell the world about Him. What a privilege, honor, and blessing it is to declare the good news of Jesus who is forever Lord to a world in desperate need of Him! Oh, bless the Lord, friend, bless the Lord! Praising Him when on our own – and praising Him before others! Praise, praise, praise the Lord! How blessed we are to praise the Lord!

““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Matthew 5:43-48

“Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”” Mt. 6:38

“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

The Lord has been working on my heart in a certain matter. The matter of hurt. Yes, big, hard, hurt. The kind of hurt that causes the heart to want to run and run and run away somewhere safe and secure and protected from any more hurt. But what has the Lord spoken to my heart about this hurt? Specifically right now when it comes to one particular person and the way the person is hurting me?

The Lord has made known to me He doesn’t want me to run from the person. He wants me to GIVE to the person! Can you imagine? To GIVE to the very person hurting me? Would the Lord really call us to do something like this? Always, always, always measure what you believe you hear from the Lord against the Bible. The Lord always and only speaks in line with it. Read the verses above. Read the Bible in its entirety. The Lord is so very clear when it comes to loving Him with all our hearts and loving others – even when they hurt us!

Oh, yes, there are times the Lord calls us to walk away. To distance ourselves. To take a time of separation. To end a relationship. When it’s His will, that is what we must do. But even then, we are to love and to forgive. But what about when He calls us to stay in someone’s life and to love, to forgive, and to GIVE to the very person who is breaking our hearts? What must we do? LOVE AND OBEY THE LORD! So we must GIVE!

But how? Isn’t this impossible? Doesn’t this hurt like crazy? Doesn’t our flesh feel like it’s dying when we have to humble ourselves and GIVE in such cases? Oh, yes, we may feel like our flesh is dying! And so it is! And we are very much so called by Jesus to DIE TO SELF and to LIVE FOR HIM.

How can we do this? As Christ’s followers, we are filled with His Spirit. We can ask for a fresh filling of His Spirit. We can pray, pray, pray – for the other person and for ourselves that we might obey the Lord. And, in Christ’s strength, His love, mercy, compassion, caring, kindness, hope, joy, peace, and forgiveness, we can GIVE to the very person He calls us to give to.

Oh, how my flesh wants to RUN, RUN, RUN. But I will stay. I will stay and LOVE and FORGIVE and GIVE to this person – and to any others the Lord desires – IN THE STRENGTH OF CHRIST FOR THE GLORY OF CHRIST. Amen!

Is this message for you, friend?

“And He looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury, and He saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So He said, “Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, but she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.”” Luke 21:1-4

I can’t explain it. I simply felt led on my birthday to tell thousands of people it was my birthday and that it would be a wonderful blessing to have new sponsors and donors for my ministry to help me fulfill my life’s calling for Christ. I wan’t surprised by what happened. Just sad – yet again.

One person – yes, one – made a generous donation. This one person as far as I know is not a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. She is a dog lover, and most assuredly her donation will be used for the care of my handicapped streets ministry doggies.

So what happened to the Christians? You might be shocked by how few people in recent years have stepped forward to give to this ministry to help me do streets ministry around the country and write and publish Gospel tracts, devotionals, and books that go onto the streets, into prisons, homeless shelters, rescue missions, to street preachers, to ministries, to churches, to wherever and whomever the Lord desires. Not so I can have a big salary. I have none. But for the cause of Christ and helping people to find and forever follow Jesus rather than spend eternity in everlasting torment in hell and the lake of fire.

Friend, I do not write this to plead with you to give to this ministry. If it is the Lord’s will, then glory be to the Lord. But I write this to remind us all that everything in our hearts and hands belongs to Jesus. And that we have a responsibility to help build and support the Kingdom of God. In our prayers, in our actions, and in our giving of our hearts, time, and yes, even in our finances.

In my case, I have done something perhaps a bit off the beaten track. Since I travel from place to place and go to different churches and fellowships for periods of time as the Lord leads me to do there whatever He desires in the way of loving and sharing, and most importantly loving, worshiping, and serving, I decided some years ago to give the Lord 100% of the money He – yes, He – places in my hands. It is ALL His. My heart’s cry is to spend it however HE desires. If He wants to give me a little blessing, so be it. But I no longer am the materialist I once was. I no longer live my life chasing after earthly pleasures and treasures. My greatest pleasure and treasure is Jesus – and telling the world about Him!

Let us each and every one of us spend the money with which He blesses us in a way that is honoring and pleasing and glorifying to the Lord God almighty whose Holy Spirit will lead us in how exactly He desires that it be spent including in love for and obedience and service to Him. Hallelujah!