Dear Friends in Christ,
I hope this newsletter finds you doing well, even though I am aware that many have been affected by the spread of airborne viruses and other illnesses across several states. Conversations over the past weeks, have shown that few have escaped these things. This year has blown in continuing from the previous year with a fury of different storms, illnesses, and catastrophic events. It does seem as if everything has escalated to another level.
I don’t know about you, but something about voicing ‘2025’ sounds futuristic. However, it is not the future; it is here, and so are we. For this reason, it brings about multiple opportunities for the gospel. We, who know Him as our Lord and Savior, have been left here to be on a mission with Him.
With this Great Mission in mind, I am pleased to announce that the first run of the book, ‘The Surpassing of the Gospel, Christ-Centered Evangelism’ is being printed as I write this newsletter. We are awaiting the first shipment. We had hoped it would be available by the end of last year. Due to circumstances beyond our control, there was a delay in the process. However, I fully trust in God’s timing in this matter. He has faithfully moved me along in this endeavor, so I know I can trust Him with the release of this work. I pray that the Lord will be glorified in this work and will be a source of encouragement and help to many, long past our time on this planet. To God be the glory! It will be a few more weeks, but it will then be available on Amazon, Barnes-Noble, Itunes and, of course through contacting Ed Lacy Ministries.
With everything transpiring across our globe, it vividly illustrates the need for the gospel to be front and center. It was alarming to watch the flood waters overtake entire towns and communities with no time to change their course. Then, the opposite coast, now burning to the ground, needs water. For anyone who is thinking about spiritual things, it does appear something indeed of biblical proportion is occurring in this world.
I could not help but think, just like others did, about the irony of the fires consuming homes while the ocean lay just feet away. The videos showed houses on the beach, one home after another burning to the ground. It was a vivid picture of the very thing they needed, which was water that was always right there. But they watched, enjoyed, and played in it, time after time, never using or understanding its original purpose. However, they could not use the water to save their possessions when the firestorm came. It was too late for them.
Then, amid all these storms, the valley of the adversities of everyday life continues to forge ahead. The joy of the arrival of new born babes, marriage vows are taken, birthdays and holidays are celebrated. Others are suffering enduring the loss of loved others, whether through sicknesses, unexpected accidents, or tragic life-altering situations. At the same time, others must face the heartaches of bad decisions of others, the antics of rebellious children, and the betrayal of trusted friends and leaders, to mention a few. This is one of the difficult
things to incur, life for others continues on even when your life has been shattered.
However, these storms are no respecter of persons. It doesn’t matter who you are, who you know, what you have or don’t have. The fire incinerates everything. This is what we witnessed from the floods. What does it matter how much money you possess if nothing is available to purchase? What does it matter who you know when they too are facing the same difficulties?
All these things remind me of the Lord’s invitation in Isaiah 55. “Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without a price. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages (labor) for what does not satisfy? Listen, carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, and your soul shall live.”
Friends, this is how important the gospel of the Lord is! The firestorms are approaching. Believers, we have the only message of power and life. Only the Lord can redeem by His life, work on the cross, death, and resurrection. He alone paid the price. No one can buy salvation. But the Lord, in His great mercy, offers it freely to all who cannot buy it or work for it, if and when they come to Him in repentance and faith. The Lord is the Bread of Life, the living waters. May 2025 find us faithfully telling of the only One who can save them from the wrath of God. Just as I challenged someone yesterday, warning them that no one can be wrong about eternal life. There is only one way. Today is the day of salvation. Tomorrow may bring about a firestorm that they will not escape. One does not know when, how, or where it may come. But it will one day come, and you must be ready before it arrives.
Excerpt from the Book
With these things in mind, please allow me to share an encouraging excerpt from chapter three. This teaching concerns 2 Corinthians 2:12-17.
Paul’s heart was churning with turbulence over these straying sheep whom he deeply loved. Knowing the enemy’s schemes, he could be tempted to imagine the worst scenario concerning their response. Being so distracted with Corinth, he became debilitated in Troas. For this reason, this was a dangerous time in the life and ministry of this mighty man of God. It is always a potentially perilous time when a follower of Jesus is disheartened, distressed, and discouraged. Remember, this great saint of God willingly exposes his inner struggles amid this fiery trial.
We cannot forget that even though Paul is a man who has been called to be an apostle, he is still incarcerated in the unredeemed flesh in which dwells no good thing. With a broken and burdened heart, his mind distracted and disturbed, his will could easily be tempted to make a wrong turn at this moment of trouble. If his focus remained on the adverse circumstances, Paul could become deeply discouraged.
Notice what Paul chose to focus on in his heart and mind. He looked away from his troubled spirit and focused beyond the adverse circumstances. The apostle did not become paralyzed by the pessimistic possibilities that could lie ahead. He did not allow himself to become overly consumed with doubt and discouragement. Instead, Paul focused on his position in union with Christ.
The humble apostle shifts his attention from his trouble to Jesus’s triumph. Like an anthem swelling up within, he exclaims, “Now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ” (verse 14a). Friend, something remarkable happened within Paul between verses 13 and 14. The circumstances did not change. Titus still had not arrived. Yet the tenor of the text thoroughly changes. In verse 13, Paul writes, “I had no rest in my spirit.” Then in verse 14, he says, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ.”
What occurred to produce this sudden change in the disciple? Paul stepped out of distress and discouragement and locked his gaze on his conquering Commander. He fixed the eyes of his heart on the conquest that his exalted Lord had already accomplished through His sinless life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection and ascension. Paul was purposefully preaching the gospel to himself. Then as he focused on the triumphant love that had changed his life, his outlook on the circumstances was altered. This change of focus led to Paul rejoicing in the triumph that belonged to him by being in a living union with the King of kings and Lord of lords. He began to glory in the cross of Christ.
When you find yourself in a distressing situation or an evangelistic outreach where the gospel is resisted, refused, and rejected, you must focus on your position in Christ. When you realize that you are in the midst of a desert of disappointment or a valley of adversity because of adverse circumstances or negative responses to your gospel witness, like Paul, you must get your eyes off the troubling reactions and back on to God’s truth. You must center the eyes of your faith on the triumph that belongs to Jesus’s followers. You can find joy and purpose because of your great salvation through Christ. Learn to preach the gospel to yourself.
Then, along with the great apostle, you can know the victory of trusting in the Lord with all of your heart and leaning not on your own understanding. In all of your ways, acknowledge Jesus, for He shall direct your paths. The paths where He leads will be paths of triumph, no matter the circumstances. Born-again believers are more than conquerors through Christ who loves them. His supernatural and sacrificial love for His children gives great confidence and power, enabling them to walk through any pressure, persecution, peril, or perplexity in overcoming grace and truth.
Christ’s eternal, immutable, and immeasurable love compels authentic believers down the triumph procession of life. God always leads genuine disciples in the pathways of triumph because of the saving knowledge of Him and your intimate union with your conquering King. This victory is a grace gift from our Lord! “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57).
When you find yourself in a distressing season of antagonism from the enemies of the gospel, you must not focus outwardly on the adverse circumstances. You must refuse to focus inwardly on your weaknesses. You must reject placing your focus downward on the devil. Instead, you must choose rather to cast your focus upward on your glorious position of conquest in union with your Sovereign Master.
Moreover, by focusing upward on the victorious Lord, you can experience and enjoy this triumph, no matter your outward circumstances. You may find yourself strolling along on a clear day enjoying a time when the wind is at your back. Or you may be in a season where you are walking through a threatening storm with winds of adversity howling. Remember, in both circumstances, God is sovereignly leading His children in triumph in union with Christ. The follower of Jesus enjoys victory in Christ Jesus the Lord, no matter the way things may appear on the surface. You may be experiencing a time of great liberty and spiritual success in ministry. Perhaps, as did Peter, you may proclaim the gospel and see three thousand souls soundly converted. Or you may be like Stephen, proclaiming the glorious gospel and suffering loss. Yet in both situations, God will providentially lead you in triumph in Christ.
But you may think, “Wait just a minute! Are you implying Stephen’s evangelistic ministry was triumphant? Stephen was seized in bitter violence, cast out of the city, and put to death! The crowd resisted the Holy Spirit, rejected the message, and martyred the messenger. There were no positive responses to his powerful witness that day.” On the contrary, dear friend. There was one gloriously positive response that day—the response given by the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ stood to welcome this believer home. I call that the ultimate victory! Moreover, Paul heard the gospel that day as he held the garments of those who stoned Stephen. With his last dying breath, Stephen faithfully planted the seed of the gospel, which would later produce the fruit of the conversion of Paul. This apostle reminds us at all times, in all ways, and in all situations, God always leads His children in triumph in Christ.
How could Paul testify to the spiritual reality of this continual triumph with such confidence and conviction? Because he had gained the spiritual perception that his reigning Lord had a certain purpose in every circumstance of his life and ministry. Paul had the settled assurance that his Lord was in control of every paragraph and every chapter in the book of his life. This man of God had solidly embraced the reality that the sovereign King was leading his life and ministry. In the depths of his heart, he knew that he had been supernaturally called with a mighty call of grace. He had been called out of darkness and into His marvelous light. He had been called with a holy calling that had radically separated him from his former life and gloriously set him apart unto a new life with a new purpose.
Paul knew and trusted in the precious promise that God was orchestrating all things together for good. He was acutely aware that the good that God was working toward was conforming him into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, when Paul found himself amid these various storms, he knew that Jesus was sovereign over every one of those storms. When surrounded by problems, perplexities, perils, and persecutions, there was a knowing assurance that the Lord Jesus was Prince over them all. When Paul faced a crisis, he had the assured confidence that the Lord Jesus was King over the situation.
If you have been born from above, you too must grasp the biblical reality that your Lord has allowed each storm of affliction and every valley of adversity that enters your life. May I also infer that your all-wise Father orchestrates each fiery trial. He has placed a limit on every calamity and has a sovereign purpose in each one of them. He works in the mountaintops and the valleys for your spiritual good. Once again, I remind you, just as it was with Paul, the situation is to make you more like your Lord and Savior and less like the person you were before your conversion. The Surpassing Power of the Gospel pp 39-43
Thank You
I hope these words are an encouragement to you today. No matter what challenges comes into our paths, every born-again believer must remember and rest in the Lord Jesus who is sovereignly ruling and reigning. I also have a prayer request to share. The January Ladies Conference in Birmingham was postponed due to winter weather. It has been rescheduled for February 7-8. Please be in prayer for this conference, that it may be a time of spiritual growth and renewal.
Thank you, precious friends, for your faithfulness to stand with this ministry. I cannot begin to express what a source of encouragement you are to me. Please know that because of your love, prayers and generosity, we forge ahead with the gospel. Ed’s Christ-centered work continues to bear much fruit in many countries. One inspiring example was sent to us this week. It comes from one of the training centers in Kenya. In their year-end review, Bro. John Machuka, reports of 642 pastors who gained instruction in their ministry training. Three of Ed’s studies are used as part of their ongoing teaching curriculum: CHRIST-CENTERED EVANGELISM, CHRIST-CENTERED DISCIPLESHIP, AND REDEEMED TO WORSHIP.
Friends, this is just a tiny sampling of how the Lord continues to use your supportive hands and compassionate giving toward the furtherance of the Gospel globally. Please join me in praying that 2025 will be the year that the wind of salvation will blow on our family, friends, and others whom we have been asking the Lord to save. Our God is mighty to save!
Because He Lives,
Dianne Lacy