LOVELY LIVES NEVER END!

Friends, the mission of Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES, is to provide men and women with words of Encouragement and Hope, as well as empower believers in Jesus Christ, around the world, to recognize, experience, and celebrate their oneness with all others who know Jesus as Saviour and Lord, regardless of denomination, church fellowship, or historic tradition.

By providing positive resources for daily Christian living!

Friends, Discovering A BETTER LIFE is an electronic publication for Christians that has been encouraging thousands of people since it launched in April of 1992.

Our resources include regular articles, devotionals, inspirational images, Bible Study and more. Many of our Discovering A BETTER LIFE resources are available via our email address, abl-alb@omninet.net.au

Our original site has grown into a network of sites covering several different topics, and focus on positive messages that will help you, (with the help of Jesus), live hope-filled and courageous lives today, wherever you are.

Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES is maintained by a small, committed team, and many content contributors:

The Discovering A BETTER LIFE Team

Ron Bainbridge — Coordinator & General Editor

Tom Reed — Chief Audio Technician

Moya Bainbridge — Secretary

Pat & Virginia Smith and Don Melville -- Computer Equipment

Daryl Edwards and Daniel Bainbridge -- Webmasters

Contributing Authors

Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES would not function without the tremendous efforts of many individuals. Perhaps most notable among these are the talented authors who have contributed their writings, gospel music, and devotional readings to our publication.

We also owe much to the many artists and designers who have provided Discovering A BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES with inspirational images and gospel music. You can find each author's contact information at the end of their respective articles. If an article is meaningful to you, please take a moment to let them know.

Among those mentioned above, have been,

Marvin Phillips

Landon Saunders

Randy Becton

Dr. Larry Crabb

World Video Bible School - https://www.wvbs.org/wvbs-splashpage.html

Roger E. Dickson - https://www.librarything.com/author/dicksonrogere

Joe Barnett - https://www.pathwayco.com/

Phil Ware - https://www.heartlight.org/contributors/philware.html

Max Lucado - https://maxlucado.com/ 

James Dobson - https://www.drjamesdobson.org/blogs 

Del Tackett - https://www.deltackett.com/?referrer=self   

Keith Lancaster - http://www.keithlancaster.com/keiths-bio.html 

Rubel Shelley - https://www.heartlight.org/contributors/rubelshelly.html 

Jim Clark - https://www.heartlight.org/contributors/jimclark.html 

Sherry Anne - https://www.facebook.com/SherryAnneMinistries/ 

Andie - https://andiesisle.com/ 

Today’s Message of Encouragement from Discovering a BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES

https://abl-alb.wixsite.com/discoverabetterlife

(Stories of: Real People, Real Events, Real Places)

And are dedicated to HELPING

PEOPLE FIND PEACE and HOPE

(John 10:10; 14:1-6)

LOVELY LIVES NEVER END!

Friends, some of you may have seen the old movie, "Angels with Dirty Faces", in which James Cagney took the starring role. Cagney played the part of Rocky, a ruthless criminal who was making a big impression with the youth of his old hometown. The kids followed Rocky’s escapades with smiles. In fact, they began to act and talk like him, and they began to sneer at the work and words of a long-trusted priest who was a boyhood friend of Rocky’s.

The priest (who was played by Pat O’Brien) loves the gangster but hates that the boys see him as a hero and are trying to model themselves after him. So, the priest pleads with Rocky to put an end to the bad influence he is having on the boys. Rocky just laughs it off. But finally, he’s arrested, tried, found guilty, and sentenced to die for killing some fellow criminals. However, the teenagers are thrilled with Rocky’s defiant attitude and become even more set against goodness and uprightness.

Consequently, the priest goes to the gangster on death row and pleads with him to kill his image in the eyes of the boys. His old friend tells him, that his evil influence will be even stronger after his death if he dies defiant and heroic. The result of that conversation was that Rocky pretends to be a coward as he is taken to the electric chair. He begs and screams for mercy even while the guards are jeering at him for being “all sizzle and no steak.”

Perhaps "Angels with Dirty Faces" was a silly old movie. And yet, isn’t it interesting, how a lovely deed in an otherwise shabby life can take on a life of its own?

Friends, a thousand stories from fiction and daily living can illustrate the power of a lovely human life. For instance, Frank Boreham, in his book The Three Half-Moons, tells of an incident one evening, when he and a group of friends were walking home. They happened to pass an older man called Douglas, who had been nicknamed “Groggy” because he had been a hard drinker in his youth.

That evening, as they came closer to him, Douglas seemed to be stumbling, and one of those in the group thought he might have been drinking.

Another who knew him better, however, said that was highly unlikely. After some discreet and well-meaning inquiries, Frank Boreham drew the conclusion that the old man had just come from the cemetery, which is where Boreham headed. And there on a corner was a grave adorned with fresh pink flowers. It was the grave and the birthday of Jessie Glencairn.

Following his visit to the cemetery, Frank Boreham dropped by to see Douglas. He found him in his garden and noted the clumps of pink carnations but said nothing.

A couple of years later, as if he were continuing a conversation, Douglas confessed that Jessie was the only woman he had ever loved. He went on to say that it was almost blasphemy for him to say he loved her, because she was so far above him. He confessed that he had been a terrible drunk, but he went on to say, that from the day he looked straight into Jessie’s eyes, “I never touched the drink again.”

Douglas told Frank that he knew it wasn’t for the likes of him to love her, but he would love to have seen Jessie marry a good man, even though it would have made him envious enough to have bitten his tongue off.

Jessie never knew how Douglas felt about her, but one day, when they happened to be walking in the same direction, he told her that people were saying he would soon be back on the drink. -- “She gave me a look I’ll never forget to my dying day,” he said, “and told me she was certain I never would.”

Then he went on to tell Frank that sometimes when the craving raged, he seemed to see Jessie with that look on her face and those words on her lips, and he felt he hated the stuff. And then he said, however difficult it was, “I knew I’d be safe as long as I felt the same toward her.”

“That, I fancied, “was the end of it,” Frank Boreham said. And then he went on to say, “I forgot that a lovely life never ends!”

Thirty years later, when old Jamie McBride died, one of his personal effects was a love letter written to him by Jessie Glencairn. She wrote of her grief that their sweet dreams of life together would have to be set aside because she had tuberculosis, which would soon kill her.

She went on to say in her letter, that while she couldn’t allow Jamie to marry her, “I shall be proud, even on my deathbed, to think that you loved me and would have me as your wife. . . . I shall go down to my grave praying that the best things in this life may be always yours; and, if the dead can bless the living, I shall breathe constant benedictions on you and those who are dear to you.”

Frank Boreham immediately made this letter known to Douglas, who, after having thought about it for a while, went to his garden, gathered an armful of pink carnations, and divided them into two large bunches. One bunch he placed on the lonely grave in the corner, the second bunch he placed on the fresh mound over Jamie McBride, who had died unmarried.

As he observed these tender actions of Douglas, Frank Boreham said, “It is a luxury to be living in a world in which it is possible for a girl to die of tuberculosis in her thirties and yet to go on sweetening and brightening the lives of two lonely men, until blessing her memory, each of them, full of years and honour, goes down to his quiet grave.”

As you think about what I’ve shared with you today, I hope you’ll never forget that lovely lives never end!

“Every act of kindness is

An expression of love, and

Everyone deserves to be loved.”

(Richard Carlson,Ph.D.)

Friend, I’m so glad you took the time to read this message. However, if you would like help in obtaining a fresh look at God’s incredible love for you, we invite you to write to Discovering A BETTER LIFE, BETHANIE on the PARK, Apartment 49/2 Plantation Street, Menora, Western Australia 6050 and request our FREE booklet titled “THE RELENTLESS LOVE of GOD!”

This booklet, we freely offer, has a beautiful message that provides Hope for Those Who Do Not Feel Loved by God.

Email us at: abl-alb@omninet.net.au Or Phone your request for “THE RELENTLESS LOVE of GOD!” on 0456 538 006

Friend, if you find anything in today's message that brings you, or those with whom you may share this message with, into a closer relationship with Jesus, we praise God and thank Him for permitting our paths to cross.

Thank you for taking the time to read today’s message. We hope you will visit us again.

Ron Bainbridge

Co-ordinator of:

Discovering a BETTER LIFE MINISTRIES

https://abl-alb.wixsite.com/discoverabetterlife

"Arms Of Your Love" To hear and View this ~Video~ Please click on the Link below https://www.andiesisle.com/arms.of.your.love.html “No matter how many steps we may take away from God, it only takes one step to get back!”