the Wind that IS
by melody green
When things don’t turn out the way we thought they would
When we are not in the place we hoped we’d be
Or with those we long to be with
There is One who understands
When circumstances are not what we anticipated
Our life is still guided by a purposeful God
When He breathes, clouds move, trees rustle, boats sail
He is the One who clears our way with His Wind
When the Wind is fierce the move is swift and frenzied
When a gentle breeze blows an easy glide is enjoyed
In still waters we may simply bobble along, often feeling forgotten
But the One who measures velocity, knows our times and our seasons
When things are not what we hoped or prayed for
We must shift our heart into the Wind that IS
We must bend our will into the reality of God’s leading
He is the only One who can see the big picture
After yielding and cooperating and doing our part
We will find ourselves at that next place of new beginnings
We will also understand both the swiftness and the delays
And the timing and wisdom of the One who carried us there
"You are my God. My times are in your hands..." Psalm 31:14
We need your help to share hope and
salvation around the world.
Every gift of any amount is appreciated and used wisely.
an LDM Classic! ZEAL - Love Ablaze! by Leonard Ravenhill 
Enoch had prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones." If Jesus had entered history like that, or had come on a dark night over Jerusalem in a blazing chariot of fire (like Elijah went up to heaven), then the clamoring crowds would have accepted and adored Him. But as the poet once said, "They were looking for a king, to bring salvation nigh, He came a little infant thing, that made a woman cry." Cleansing the Temple The local folk knew Jesus well, He was the best carpenter in the nation. But now He had stepped out of bounds, He accepted the nomination of that wild preacher John the Baptist as the Lamb of God. He had agreed to let the people mount Him on an ass and enter the city amid cries of "Hosanna." Now He had stirred the city by routing the moneychangers and cattle dealers from the temple. For almost thirty years He had watched men desecrate the place. He was outraged at their insolence and greed. He was disgusted that they had carpeted the temple courts with animal excrement, and polluted the place with the stench of urine.
Each of the Gospels tells of the whipping Christ. But Luke makes a very valuable difference as he records the events in the life of Jesus. He says that before Jesus had entered the temple, while He was still entering Jerusalem, He had stopped to weep over the great city. So we have the weeping Christ before we had the whipping Christ. Since He was about His Father's business at twelve years of age, Jesus had trod the temple courts and had always been grieved and outraged that they were defiled not just with animal dung, but with red-eyed extortioners, cheating moneychangers, and cattle dealers. For thirty years He had been growing in grace and in the knowledge of His Father - now He knew His mission! And His explanation for this one-man attack on the sacrilege and defilement of the house of God is summed up in these words: "Zeal for Thy house will consume me." READ MORE
 LDM Offers Life Changing Articles Online...Did you know that we have about 150 Discipleship Articles to read online for free? Many by Keith and Melody Green, as well as classic authors like, AW Tozer, David Wilkerson, Winkie Pratney, John Dawson, Leonard Ravenhill and more. You can also order most of them in pamphlet form for friends and tract distribution. They are real treasures to grow by!
| | Ray and Lisa are my friends. Their testimony of being delivered from drugs and criminal activity brought me to tears. God is so incredibly good. -- Melody Green
THE DEVIL
THE DOPE MAN True Story of Lisa and Ray Stribling 
It was the year 1975. I was up on a hill in a roach-infested, filthy, rundown house; I was in a bathroom and the smell of stale alcohol, and musty soiled laundry was enough to make you sick. I was with some older people. We tied a belt around my arm and slammed a needle full of PCP (THC) into my veins. I was only twelve years old.
I was the last born in a large family. We had just come out of a year where tragedies had visited us. I had no father. I had an absent mother, and my destiny was the streets.
I wandered the neighborhoods and the streets and hung with people that were older, harder, and who were all too ready to educate me in what I needed to know to survive. I stayed high on THC everyday; and when I was 13 years old, I overdosed in the back seat of a car.
We stole cars, burglarized houses, and took anything that wasn’t nailed down. We were 14 year old drug dealers: dealing THC, weed, speed, and cocaine. We drank any kind of alcohol we could steal.
I had my first baby when I was 15, and by the time I was 16, I was a full-on drug addict. I was a junkie. At 17 years old, I was kicked out on the street, and was living in my car with a one year old son. The more pain I felt the more drugs I used and the higher I became. That same year I caught my first felony forgery case.
I started running with a whole different crowd and met a dude who showed me how to “hit myself”. I learned quickly if you were going to be a dope shooter, you couldn’t depend on anyone else in the game to do it for you. This was the element that helped seal my fate.
Over the next 12 years, the hole got deeper and darker. We were thieves. We were robbers, and we didn’t care who got hurt along the way. We lived in a world where women were beaten into submission and gunfights were a regular occurrence.
We were drug dealers and ran several dope houses in the city. We were not only selling large quantities of meth and cocaine, we were addicted and using large quantities. We stayed awake for weeks at a time, only to black out, wake up and start over. We had access to any kind of pharmaceuticals that we wanted.
Our doors got kicked in by the police more times than can be counted, often leaving our children completely traumatized. The Narcotic and Burglary Unit were always putting out warrants on us, and we were on a first name basis with the bail bondsman.
Many of our comrades were lost to the streets. They were in car wrecks and motorcycle wrecks. They overdosed. They hung themselves. They were stabbed to death. They were beaten to death. They were shot and killed. The ones that were fortunate enough to live are now living a life behind bars.
In 1983, I married that dude who taught me how to “hit myself”. We went on to have three more children. Our children were raised up in the dope house. They saw people shooting drugs, and they saw people smoking crack. They were abandoned. They were neglected, and saw more than any little set of eyes should ever be responsible for seeing. READ MORE
Register online to download the PDF of this powerful testimony. You can make free copies for your city streets -- or for anyone you know who is suffering from addiction or other life threatening habits.
Lisa and Ray Today ...
Taking Jesus into the Streets!  Lisa and Ray Stribling are the founders of Hope City KC, a prayer-based ministry to the poor, homeless, prostituted, and addicted. They have many years of experience in jail, prayer, and street ministry, and are faithfully preaching the gospel and feeding the poor in Kansas City’s toughest neighborhoods. Read More about the work they are doing and how you can help.
AMAZING PRICE
on Keith Green Music! LIMITED TIME!
Greatest Hits or Live Experience CD
On Sale - $9.99 EACH! (Retails for $13.99)
Or GET BOTH for ONLY $19! |
No comments:
Post a Comment