GOOD NEWS DAILY – October 19

If you read the book of Nehemiah about how the Lord used Nehemiah the King’s cupbearer to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and if you’re willing to dive deep with the Holy Spirit who is promised by the Lord to teach His followers His Word, you may notice something rather interesting about the enemy of Nehemiah and those rebuilding the wall. The enemy – a group of people in fact – are relentless in trying to come against Nehemiah and the builders. As a matter of fact, the enemy tries to STOP the builders from getting started, the enemy tries to STOP the builders from continuing in their work once they get started, AND the enemy still is coming after the builders AFTER they have built the wall!

Friend, Satan is the enemy of God’s children. And he despises when God’s children are sold out to loving and serving Him. And he will go to any lengths to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). He will use anyone and anything he possibly can to come against Christ’s followers and their service to Christ. He will try to stop us from getting started in what the Lord assigns us to do for Him, he will try to stop us in the midst of our work, and he will come after us after we have completed an assignment for the Lord.

Some Christ followers experience less of this. Some experience a moderate amount. And some an extreme. But it all stems from Satan, and the only answer to it all is victory in, through, and for the Lord Jesus Christ.

I am in the midst of fiery spiritual warfare right now, and it is exhausting and quite frankly hurts like heck. But in the strength of Christ for the glory of Christ I will persevere.

And my prayer request today is that you would please if you’re led pray for all those Christ followers around the world who are missionaries, evangelists, pastors, any people at all who are on the front lines of helping to build and strengthen the Lord’s forever Kingdom of followers.

I could use prayer beyond measure, but so could my brothers and sisters worldwide who are totally sold out to serving Jesus now and forever, AMEN!

Thank you for praying for us all!

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

Know what the Spirit of Christ who lives inside His followers tells me sometimes? He says: “You may do this BUT…”

I emphasize the BUT. Here is why.

Sometimes I have a strong mind to do something. The Lord makes clear He WILL ALLOW IT. But He also makes clear IT IS NOT HIS WILL.

I feel strongly compelled to share this with you right now, and here is why.

Is there something in your life you’re doing, or something you’re planning to do, or even simply thinking of doing that IS NOT the will of the Lord?

Please seek the Lord. Please read the Bible to make sure you are in the will of the Lord as He will never speak to us anything against His Word. Please seek counsel from Christ followers strongly grounded in the Bible. Please pray. Please pray. Please pray. Please hear the Lord. PLEASE OBEY THE LORD.

Life as a Christ follower is not about our will. It’s about the Lord and His.

Just because the Lord allows us to do something doesn’t mean it’s His will.

Let’s strive day in and day out to live our lives in a manner pleasing and honoring and in obedience to Christ!

love & blessings,

lara

I was heading right down the pathway of rehearsing in my mind all the wrong things a friend had done in the way of hurting me when clear as day I heard the Spirit of the Lord bring to my remembrance the scripture above.

Strong conviction. Strong correction. Strongly necessary. Why? Friend, the Lord makes clear in His Word we are to live a lifestyle of love, forgiveness, grace, compassion, and mercy. Not of anger, hurt, bitterness, self-pity, holding grudges, being obsessed with others’ wrongdoing, judgment, condemnation, bad-mouthing, and vengeance.

The Lord stopped me before heading further down that wrong pathway. He set me right back where I belong. On His way. The way of His love.

What did I need to do? LOVE. FORGIVE. PRAY FOR THAT PERSON. And press on in following Jesus and fulfilling the Lord’s will for my life.

How about you, friend? Got some loving to do? Some forgiving to do? Some letting go of the past to do? Wish I could say I do any of this perfectly. I have such a long, long way to go. Perhaps you do also. But when we’re on the path of Christ, yielding ourselves to the Lord and His ways, we can trust His Spirit will lead us forth, bring correction when we need it, empower us to do what is right, and remind us when we need reminding that the life of a Christ follower belongs to the Lord. Now – and forever. AMEN!

Please note I normally in my writing use the NKJV version and sometimes KJV version. With 1 Corinthians 13:5, a number of times in different translations the original Greek words are translated into essentially love not keeping account of wrongdoing. Please consider doing your own study on these verses using a Bible dictionary, Strong’s concordance, or however the Lord might lead you. Bottom line, we are called to love and to forgive as the Lord Jesus Christ so blessedly modeled and models to us!

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! 

Blessings #157-173

“I waited patiently for the Lord;
And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the Lord.

Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.

Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart.”

I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O Lord, You Yourself know.
I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly.

Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.
For innumerable evils have surrounded me;
My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up;
They are more than the hairs of my head;
Therefore my heart fails me.

Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me;
O Lord, make haste to help me!
Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion
Who seek to destroy my life;
Let them be driven backward and brought to dishonor
Who wish me evil.
Let them be confounded because of their shame,
Who say to me, “Aha, aha!”

Let all those who seek You rejoice and be glad in You;
Let such as love Your salvation say continually,
“The Lord be magnified!”
But I am poor and needy;
Yet the Lord thinks upon me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
Do not delay, O my God.” Psalm 40

Seventeen blessings in a single psalm? Absolutely! Honestly, you will likely find plenty more than 17 even in this single psalm if you dig deeper. The Bible is so full of blessings a lifetime wouldn’t be enough to find them all, would it? Just look at – and be thankful – for some of the blessings in this particular psalm.

* We can and should wait on the Lord, and He will hear us!
* When we cry out to Him with humility, with repentance, and in faith, He will bring us out of the pit of discouragement, despair, hopelessness, etc.
* He will give us something to sing about – HIMSELF and His greatness – in PRAISE!
* He blesses those who trust in Him and do what is right!
* His “wonderful works” are endless, aren’t they?
* He teaches us to desire to please Him by doing His will!
* We can read the Bible and fill our hearts with His Word – His law, His truth, wisdom, promises, etc.!
* We are blessed when we tell others of the Lord and do not hold back proclaiming Him and His greatness!
* It is a blessing not to hide but to declare to others His faithfulness, salvation, lovingkindness, and truth!
* God’s mercy, lovingkindness, and truth are without measure in their awesomeness!
* We can be overwhelmed by our sin and its consequences, but the Lord will forgive us when we repent! And we can cry out to Him for His mercy and deliverance!
* The Lord will deal with our enemies! We don’t need to seek vengeance nor should we! We need to forgive and hand them off to the Lord!
* Those who seek the Lord have reason to rejoice and be glad and celebrate for the greatest joy of all is the Lord! Everlasting joy we find in Jesus!
* We can magnify and exalt and lift up and proclaim the Lord and find happiness in doing so!
* When we humble ourselves and confess our poverty and need, we are blessed for we can be confident the Lord cares for us, loves us, thinks of us, and desires to provide for us!
* He is our help and delivers us!
* As patient as we must be in waiting on the Lord for He is the one we need, we can cry out to Him in utter desperation and beg Him to hurry and answer our cries – and rest assured He will answer when we humble ourselves before Him! In His timing, of course, for His glory, absolutely!

“Do you want what’s easy, or do you want what will please me?” the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart as I knelt on the ground with my face near the floor huddled and humbled before Him pouring out my heart to Him.

I had just finished telling Him what I – yes, I – felt would be easiest in a particular situation. Very much easiest in fact. For He had given me something hard to do. Very challenging. To my heart. Something in which I needed to be exceedingly vulnerable in one of the hardest of ways for me. Now there I was telling the Lord how I thought things should go. Never a good idea. Oh, sure, we can speak our hearts to Him. But, ultimately, HE IS LORD. And we must – yes, MUST – bow down before Him. Not just on our knees, if we so choose to do when we pray – but IN OUR HEARTS. YIELDED TO HIM. SURRENDERED. To the Lord. And to His will.

I knew what I needed to do. I needed to persevere in obeying Him in this particular area of my life. No matter the cost to my flesh. No matter how much day by day I would have to die to self. To live for Him.

Do you see the intimacy in this, friend? Do you see the communing with the Lord? Do you see the closeness? The nearness to Christ? That I can hear His very Spirit speak to my heart. That I know in His chastening, in His corrections, in His refining, in His call to obedience, in His conforming me to Himself is His love, grace, and mercy? Do you see how I can recognize His very voice? Knowing He always and only speaks in line with His Word which I read and apply to my life daily?

Friend, this is not because I am anyone special. Not because I am better than. Not because I have done anything incredible. I am nobody. I am nothing without the Lord. I consider myself the worst of all sinners saved only by His grace. I am not special. I am simply surrendered to Jesus and to the Bible. Wholly His. And, as such, I am blessed with an incredibly intimate and ever-growing relationship with the Lord.

You can have the same, you know. Turn from your sins, believe in Him as Lord who died on the cross to pay your sin penalty and was raised from the dead, and truly commit your life to the Lord and His ways. Spend alone time with the Lord and the Bible each and every day. Surrender yourself utterly to Christ. Learn to pray to Him and to hear from Him and to measure what you hear against the Bible. Live a life of obedience to Christ. Praise and adore and worship Him. Serve Him. LIVE FOR HIM!

And know the beauty and rawness and sometimes so very much hardness and incredibly indescribably wonderful blessedness of being in intimate fellowship with Jesus – now and forevermore, AMEN!

Some people believe the Lord calls His followers in the New Testament to tithe. To give 1/10 of their income toward the Kingdom of God. Some believe the tithe goes to a church. Some believe it needs to go to a church, ministry, missionary, etc., in other words to some aspect of the building of the Lord’s forever Kingdom. Some believe followers of Christ are to simply give an offering rather than necessarily a definitive tithe. Regardless of how people understand the Lord’s Word regarding giving, it is undoubtedly clear we are to give. Period. End of conversation. But is it? No, it’s not!

For isn’t the most important thing of all not the amount we give but the heart behind it? Does the Lord not tell us He desires we give CHEERFULLY? Does He not honor the widow with the tiny bit of money who gave essentially everything while the prideful Pharisees gave a tiny bit out of their wealth with uncharitable arrogant hearts? Is it possible what matters most of all is that we yield ourselves and our possessions utterly to the Lord and to His will and that we give however He desires whenever He desires wherever He desires to whomever He desires with hearts filled with love, humility, joy, and thanksgiving?

And is it not possible that the idea of giving and generosity extends far beyond giving from our wallets, pocketbooks, and bank accounts?

I believe so! And I believe we would all be wise to examine our hearts before the Lord to make sure we are giving of everything with which He blesses us exactly how He desires. Not to get anything in return. But to honor and obey and serve and glorify the Lord God almighty. AMEN!