latest GOOD NEWS DAILY - Sept 19 | Lara Love's Good News Daily Devotional

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TODAY’S LITTLE LETTER FROM LARA

Dear friend,

Years ago, someone dear to me told me maybe I needed to consider giving up my dog rescue work because of how emotionally overwhelming it was for me especially with my extra sensitive heart to deal with neglected, abused, abandoned, sick, disabled, and dying dogs in need of rescue. I pressed on anyway feeling the benefit of helping the dogs far outweighed the toll the work took on me emotionally.

I am sitting at my computer with tears yet to dry on my face that are part of the past 24 hours of my life on the road for Jesus for about 2.5 years now catching up with me. I was called out of dog rescue work and into my life’s calling. Streets ministry and writing & publishing Gospel tracts, devotionals, and books with the Spirit of God leading the way and my handicapped streets ministry doggies alongside me.

I could never describe in words the heights and depths of the emotions of my own personal story of decades-long trials coupled with continually seeing the brokenness and heartache and devastation of a world in dire need of the Lord Jesus Christ – a world most of which right now is hanging onto sin and evil and darkness for dear life headed for hell and the lake of fire in eternal torment instead of repenting and turning to Christ as Lord and Savior and receiving forgiveness and everlasting life with Him.

The stories people pour out of their hearts to me as I minister to them on the streets, by phone, and by email, at one extreme, then seeing the love and awesomeness of the Lord Jesus Christ at the other extreme, all combined with the challenges I personally face day by day because of my own hard but beautiful story, every once in a while I just cry from exhaustion and from being overwhelmed by it all. And, most of all, from grieving for the Lord because of how so much of humanity He created is rejecting Him and grieving for humanity which is in such desperate need of turning itself over to God and His ways through Jesus who died on the cross to pay our sin penalty and was raised from the dead.

Friend, no number of tears, no amount of heartache, no degree of feeling overwhelmed, no level of tough emotions, none of this could possibly stop me from pressing on in loving and worshiping and serving the Lord Jesus Christ forevermore! The reward of belonging to Jesus forever, and of having a life’s calling to help others to do the same, nothing could possibly compare. I am living the life God set me on this earth to live – tears and joy and everything in between.

Are you living the life the Lord created you to live? Live for Jesus, please. No matter the cost. There is no greater reward than Jesus, than forever with Him, and than living to love and please and honor and glorify the Lord forever! Please, oh please, live utterly for 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

“Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”” Luke 15:10

TODAY’S DAILY INSPIRATION

“If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor.” John 12:26

“Keep doing what the Lord has called you to do sis,” a brother-in-Christ wrote me one day.

I had written him first. To thank him for his kindness, for showing me the love of Christ, for welcoming me into fellowship with him and others despite the fact my life and calling don’t look exactly like everyone else’s. Despite the fact there are things about me that don’t make me a good fit for some places and some people. I’m a bit off-the-beaten-track given the way the Lord has made me and given the life to which He has called me.

My brother didn’t judge me or condemn me when he realized this about me. Instead, he showed me the love of Jesus and ENCOURAGED ME.

To do what? To try to be like everyone else? To try to follow people? No! He encouraged me to KEEP FOLLOWING JESUS. And to FULFILL THE CALLING JESUS HAS FOR MY LIFE.

Friend, I want to encourage you to do the same. No matter what others say, think, or do regarding your heart and life, please don’t change who God has created you to be to please others. Please Christ. Be the man or woman of God He has created you to be. Do what He has called you to do. Follow Him faithfully, humbly, lovingly, devotedly. Live for the Lord – the one who died on the cross and was raised from the dead to give you the opportunity through Him to have everlasting life.

If you’re doing what the Lord has called you to do, friend, listen to the words of my brother-in-Christ.

“Keep doing what the Lord has called you to do…”

For Christ’s sake, yes! AMEN!

TODAY’S 365 BLESSINGS

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…!

Blessings 143-144

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” John 10:10

Such a well-known verse to those who read the Bible, and to those who hear preaching of it. The verse really has two levels, or layers, doesn’t it? First, we learn the only way to the abundant life of everlasting life with Jesus is through repentance and faith in Him as Lord who died on the cross to pay our sin punishment and was raised from the dead. This is the most abundant life of all, isn’t it? Forever life with Christ! But even this, as phenomenally fabulous as it is, is not all! Jesus also offers us abundant life on this earth when we follow Him. How so? Sure, life comes with its trials and tribulations. But the Lord gives us a relationship with Him NOW ON EARTH – and forever in heaven – when we become His. Oh, how abundant is life when it is in the hands of Jesus! How abundant is an intimate, personal, individual, ever-growing relationship with Christ Himself! And how abundant are His countless blessings we receive day by day as we learn to faithfully, humbly, lovingly, reverently follow Him. Abundant blessings, yes! Blessings in abundance! All because of Jesus. Glory to the Lord for abundance from Him to His blessed children!

TODAY’S THE CROSS DEVOTIONAL

“Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, considering yourself lest you also be tempted.” Galatians 6:1

“And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” Jude 1:22-23

One day I gave a STRONG WARNING to a loved one who was suffering terribly in part as the consequences of long-time sin from which he refused to turn away and for which he refused to get necessary help and about which he refused to get honest concerning his terrible struggle.

The easy and comfortable thing to do would have been to offer comfort, sweet, gentle compassion, pat him on the back, so to speak, and tell him everything would be okay. Instead, I told him I love the Lord Jesus Christ, I love him, and therefore needed to share my concern about his eternity and tell him he needed to repent and surrender all to the Lord Jesus Christ. I didn’t sugar coat the message. I issued the strong warning the Lord placed on my heart.

In the Lord’s unfathomable love for us, He tells us the truth, He warns us when we need warning, He chastens us when we need chastening, He convicts us when we need conviction, He lets us suffer the consequences of our sin against Him when we need to suffer in this way, and He lovingly, mercifully, blessedly forgives us and blesses us when we turn to Him with true sorrow over our sins and genuinely commit ourselves to Him and to His ways.

If we truly love the Lord, and truly love others, and the Lord by His Spirit compels us to deliver the message of a strong warning to someone, what should we do? We should love and obey the Lord, love the person, and deliver the message. In Christ’s love. For Christ’s glory.

TODAY’S SERVING JESUS IN YOUR EVERYDAY LIFE

FIVE MINUTES OF YOUR LIFE

I have a sweet homeless man in a wheelchair I consider to be a friend whose face lit up last night after I prayed for him and bent awkwardly over him in his wheelchair to give him a little light hug. He had been feeling discouraged because there had been a change concerning where he normally asked people for money. I didn’t give him money. Lots of people in New York City graciously and generously do that. The Lord sent me to the city to tell people about Him. I gave my gentle friend a little love, a little prayer, and a little hug. And, oh, that little kind smile of his as his face brightened for mere moments.

Friend, I spent no more than five minutes of my life ministering to him in this simple way. Do you realize five minutes when placed in the hands of the Lord can be an opportunity for His love to pour through us into the life of someone in need? Five minutes is enough to share the Gospel message. It’s enough to pray. It’s enough to hug someone. To smile. To offer encouragement. To hand a Bible to someone. To give someone a snack. To show the love of Jesus.

Oh, quite assuredly we should give more than five minutes of our time to the Lord and to a world in need. Truly, we should give our whole hearts and lives to Jesus and to others. But let us not miss the importance of five minutes. Or even one. Let’s make every moment matter in the lives we’ve been given. Let us use the hearts and lives and time Jesus has given us to bring glory to His name and to help others to find and follow Him and to know and experience and enjoy and pass along even further the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, AMEN!

LATEST MINISTRY UPDATE & PRAYER REQUEST

The Lord has blessedly brought some brothers in Christ into my life who are out on the streets of New York City like I am preaching the Gospel message and calling people to repentance and helping people to turn their lives over to the Lord Jesus Christ. They are preaching without compromise. They are not backing down or away from the Word of God. They are preaching repentance and that Jesus Christ is the only way to everlasting life. They are preaching about sin, hell, heaven, and everlasting life through the death and resurrection of Jesus and truly living our lives in obedience to Christ. In all my time following Jesus, I have met few who are living their lives in total surrender to Jesus and who are willing to forsake all to follow Jesus and to preach the Gospel.

Would you please pray for anyone and everyone around the world who is cleaving to Christ, cleaving to the Word of God, and cleaving to their calling and commitment to go out and preach the Gospel to a perishing world whose only hope is Jesus forever Lord?

Thank you!

love & blessings,

lara