latest GOOD NEWS DAILY

“Whatever you want with this,” I prayed to the Lord, “Thank you.” I looked at my laptop computer screen as I prayed. Specifically at this very page I’m writing on now. Where I have a template to fill in my Good News Daily writing.

Why did I pray this? I wanted the Lord to lead me in my writing. I wanted Him to give me everything I needed for this. I wanted to put my trust in Him not in myself. I wanted the writing not to be for me but instead for Him and others. I wanted the writing not to bring praise to me but to bring praise, honor, and glory to Him. I wanted His will not mine. Most of all, I wanted to please Him. To worship Him in my writing.

Imagine if we looked at our lives this way – each and every day. That we would surrender our days wholly to Christ. That He would lead us, and that He would be loved, honored, praised, glorified, and pleased.

Isn’t this exactly how we are to live?

So what if we prayed this as I did with my writing?

“Whatever you want with this,” we would pray. “Thank you.”

Let us surrender this day – and all days – to Jesus. Truly.

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

I had just started to pray briefly on my knees as best I recall with my hands either folded or raised upward, I don’t remember, when I looked out my window and saw a bunch of construction workers too close for comfort. I honestly don’t like having construction workers working just a few feet outside the window in New York City when they can see right inside and I work by the window, but I felt especially uncomfortable when I realized they could see me praying.

My first reaction? I started to stop. Then the Spirit of Christ brought strong conviction. Was I ashamed of praying? Was I ashamed of Jesus? Was I ashamed He is the love of my life? My first love? My forever love? My Savior? My Lord?

It is a sin against the Lord to be ashamed of Him. I knew what to do. I went back to praying. I talk constantly to people about the Lord Jesus Christ, and I love doing so no matter their response. I am not ashamed to tell people about Jesus. I can’t think of a greater privilege in my life’s work than to talk and write about the Lord and to help people find and follow Him.

But there was something about the intimacy of praying what I thought was privately only to find a bunch of construction workers might be watching.

I kept on. Praying to the Lord.

Let us not be ashamed of the greatest one in the universe. The Lord Jesus Christ! AMEN!

365 BLESSINGS is a devotional book the Lord has led me to publish piece by piece even as I’m writing it rather than waiting until it’s in print to share it. Please join me & be blessed as I write my latest book…!

Blessing #127

“And they have turned to Me the back, and not the face; though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not listened to receive instruction.” Jeremiah 32:33

How can there possibly be a blessing in a verse as hard and convicting as this one? The Lord is bringing conviction to the people of long ago. Telling them they have turned their backs to Him when they should have been facing toward Him not away from Him! Instead of listening and obeying Him, instead of hearing the instruction He gave them given how He rose up early to teach them, they turned away in rebellion! Isn’t this something to which so devastatingly we can relate – at least to a point? Whether we have finished rebelling and have turned to the Lord, or find ourselves even now rebelling at least in some areas of our lives, can’t we all admit we’ve struggled at one time or another with pridefully turning away from the Lord? How can there be a blessing in this? Ah, but there is! The Lord tells us when we are doing wrong to correct us so we will admit our wrong and turn to Him for forgiveness and commit to do right. He doesn’t want us to stay in our sin. He wants us to leave our sin behind and come into His sweet fellowship. Blessed be the Lord who blesses us with correction to bring us into His righteousness. Hard, yes, so very hard as we learn to die to self, humble ourselves before Him, and cry out to Him for the strength to obey Him. But oh so sweet to come into a place of bringing joy and pleasure to the Lord – Amen!

Do you know what this is? Oh, sure, on the surface it’s giving glory to the Lord to whom belongs all glory for everything good. And, oh, yes, telling the Lord I know grace is from Him, well of course that’s true.

But know what stands out to me more than anything besides that it shows my excitement and how humbled I am at the writing that is pouring through me these days in my little labor of love for Him? It’s this.

Intimacy with Jesus. A personal, deeply beautiful, deeply wonderful, deeply close relationship with Christ. That I am so, so, so, so, so close to the Lord! That my Father is the most wonderful Father in the universe. That He is my heart! My number one love! That I am so in love with Him that even as a writer and someone who preaches on the streets, I will never have words enough to describe my love for Him. That I feel His nearness, His closeness, His love, and receive daily His grace, His hope, His joy, His comfort, His compassion, His conviction, yes, His chastening too.

Friend, do you think the Lord of the universe who died on the cross and was raised from the dead to pave the way for all of us to repent and believe in Him as Lord and give our lives over to Him for the promise of His forgiveness and a forever relationship with Him now and in heaven wants to have a long distance relationship with us – with Him all the way in heaven and us so very far away? He wants us to be near to Him and Him to us! He wants us to have an intimate relationship with Him as Lord, Savior, King, Father, master, teacher, comforter, healer, redeemer, and friend!

I used to think of the Lord as far, far away up in heaven with me far, far, far away down here with a long, long distance between us. But the Spirit of God lives inside His followers, and we can draw ever closer to Him and Him to us.

Where do you stand in your relationship with the Lord? Do you have one? Are you close? Do you spend time alone in His presence with the Bible? Do you pray to Him? Do you listen for His voice speaking to your heart? Do you praise and worship Him in a real, tangible way?

Need help in starting a forever relationship with God? Need help in growing in a relationship you already have with Him?

Feel free to reach out!

I walked right by a young woman on the street as I hurried along with two of my handicapped streets ministry doggies when she called out to me. Let me take that back. I was not hurrying along. My 14-year-old Abigail walks so slowly it’s a wonder I can call it a walk at all. Anyway, the woman called out to ask if she could pet my dogs. Within minutes, she was pouring out her heart to me. She had a terrible addiction, was in huge need of help and hope, did not seem to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ that I could tell anyway, and had a boyfriend who is Jewish like I am. Though, of course, I’m a Jewish follower of the Lord Jesus Christ now, hallelujah.

When the woman walked away, she had been given love, hope, encouragement, and a Gospel tract explaining that Jesus Christ is the only way to a forever relationship with God and that we must turn from our sins, believe in Him as Lord who died for us and was raised from the dead, and hand our hearts and lives over to Him and His ways.

It all begia with a little walk with two sweet dogs on a warm fall afternoon in New York City. One of the most beautiful blessings I have discovered when it comes to serving Jesus in our everyday lives isn’t that we need to have a plan, an agenda, a manual, a workbook, a seminar, etc. to serve Christ. More than anything at all, we need faith in Him, love for Him, devotion to Him, to be filled with His Spirit and His Word, and to be willing to go where He sends us to do what He sends us to do with whomever He desires all for His glory, AMEN!

Please don’t miss your opportunities, friend!

LATEST MINISTRY UPDATE & PRAYER REQUEST

Tons of Jesus, the Bible, chicken, chocolate, water, and writing. Perhaps to you it seems like an odd array of ingredients in a day. But that’s where I am right now. Oh, please don’t get me wrong. I’m spending tons of time with my precious special needs streets ministry doggies. How could I not? They’re assembled around me as I write. And as much as I LOVE LOVE LOVE doing streets ministry in New York City, I’ve been doing tons of writing as I fly forward in writing my latest book.

Suffice it to say the Lord is my number one love, and recently I have found myself eating chicken to make sure I get protein, tons of chocolate (I know, please don’t lecture me, I’m enjoying it and it’s nice to be free from years of anorexia), keeping myself hydrated, getting wonderful exercise walking as I pray to the Lord and keep my heart open to streets ministry work, and writing, writing, writing.

Hoping to soon be finished with this latest book, and so excited the Lord has already placed on my heart where He is leading me next in writing.

For someone whose life was broken beyond any human hope for decades, it still astonishes me what an amazing life I have now loving and serving the Lord and telling the world about Him.

Life in my latest season of streets ministry work on the road for Jesus full-time – this time in New York City – is raw, beautiful, wonderful, hard, challenging, just the right mix to keep me on my toes and to keep me continually seeking the Lord and learning to trust Him step by step, breath by breath, now – and forever, yes!

Please keep praying for me, the ministry, my sweet special needs doggies, and all the lives the Lord is reaching near and far through this little ministry of His!

love & blessings,

lara