One-Minute Messages and More

By Gerlinde Pugliaresi

The one-minute messages were written in response to the pastor's one-minute messages written on the back of the church bulletin every week. After saving all of them, the Sunday school outlines were added to the collection of writings and then, in 2013, the Lord gave instructions to add more of His teachings and arrange them into a manuscript format. Since it was His work, it was filed away for four years, except for parts of it given to individuals. His recent instructions were to submit the writings to Christian Faith Publishing. Their approval came sooner than expected. Therefore, God will use it to His Glory in the way it was meant, revealing His heart toward mankind.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 14, 2018
• ISBN: 9781641910477

Book preview

cover.jpg

One-Minute Messages and More

Gerlinde Pugliaresi

Copyright © 2018 Gerlinde Pugliaresi

All rights reserved

First Edition

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc

New York, NY

First originally published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc 2018

ISBN 978-1-64191-046-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64191-047-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

This collection of insights, teachings, dreams, and nutritional reflections is entirely the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Ecclesiastes chapter 12 contains a word namely that our spirits return to God who gave them to us. Therefore, it is my firm belief that the Father looked into His heart before I was born and chose a spirit for me, enabling me to love Him with all of my heart, all of my soul, and all of my strength.

Even prior to my rebirth in 1974, He was there. Looking back, I can see Him throughout my entire life.

This booklet is my testimony of His unending love toward me. Therefore, it is a great privilege for me to share, according to His prompting, about His heart toward mankind.

All my praise and gratitude is toward Him.

Foreword

Everyone seems to be in a rush these days. We live in a world of fast food and quick fixes. We want our dinners cooked in less than two minutes, car maintenance in fewer than ten, and we hate standing in line. We even have a mountain named Rushmore. Time dominates everything, and we haste to get things done so we can do more things.

I never imagined growing up that you can fit three worship services in one Sunday morning. Today, it is a norm. You go in and you get out while the next batch of worshipers are ready to do the same. With our busy schedule and trying to meet deadlines, do we still have time to converse with God?

Gerlinde Pugliaresi is a woman who has dedicated her life to pursuing God’s will. She devoted herself to develop the gift of being able to discern what the Spirit says to the body of Christ, and her love for God and His people is unquestionable. A true disciple of the Word, she takes time to write down what she feels is God’s message for the people and sums it up into easy, readable, one-minute messages.

One-Minute Messages by Gerlinde is what the doctor orders. This is a book that is uncompromisingly written to people who feel like they don’t have the time to pause and listen to God. It is a book that enables us to discover what God is saying to us for the moment

Make no mistake about it, this is not a microwavable version of God’s Word. You know, the kind of heat-it-and-eat-it stuff. These are conversations from God, and He knows how much time we have made available for Him. You may find some of these messages uplifting and downright comforting, but some of it will make you feel uneasy because it will peel the layers off your spiritual skin and challenge your conventional thinking.

The writer of Hebrews said, For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12). The Word of God is powerful, and if we allow it to judge and expose our inner thoughts, then we will not fail to receive God’s blessings.

The Word of God is a sword that can penetrate the heart. It doesn’t matter whether it is long or, in such case, a one-minute message, God’s Word must be obeyed. Too many believers rob themselves of God’s blessings because they let the busyness of this world keep them from conversing with the Savior.

Thank you, Lord, for speaking to us even when we are too occupied with our vocations. Thank you, Gerlinde, for being obedient to God and for taking the time to write God’s messages for us today.

—Pastor Norman Doromal

Acknowledgments

After my rebirth at the end of 1974, I attended, at the recommendation of my pastor, my first Basic Youth Conflict seminar conducted by Bill Gothard in June 1975 at the Oakland Coliseum.

At the end of the weeklong seminar, Bill Gothard challenged the attendants to make a commitment to God to read the Bible every day for five minutes. He was careful to remind us that God takes commitments very seriously, and if we believed we could not do that, it would be better not to raise our hands. I decided to raise my hand and make that commitment, even though I was very young in Christ.

Bill Gothard became my standard for studying the scriptures. Those five minutes turned into long Bible study times. I meditated on God’s Word as he taught and began to think the way he did. Needless to say, God worked with me and began to reveal His heart to me from the pages of His written Word and by a work of Holy Spirit grace.

To this day, I have attended about six basic seminars, one advanced seminar, and two Anger Resolution seminars.

Bill Gothard truly is my spiritual father, and I am not shy to tell people so. Only once I stood in the break time line to speak to him. Otherwise, I only have a Word-of-God connection to him.

It is with a very thankful heart that I give credit to this man of God for having taught me. I praise God for raising up Christians that are such as Bill Gothard.

Introduction

During the late 1990s and early 2000s, we had a pastor who wrote a one-minute message on the back of the bulletin every Sunday. I enjoyed reading them, and one day, I asked him if I could write a one-minute message for him on a weekly basis. He agreed, and I would sit every week and write for him, realizing that the Lord supported me amazingly in this. After a while, we had a new pastor. I no longer wrote my weekly letters, but I had saved all of the previous ones.

Then, after John passed, I began teaching Sunday school again after many years. Beginning to write the outlines myself every week, I realized more than once that it was often as if the Lord God Holy Spirit was dictating the words to write, and He would show me new truths from the scriptures as I was writing. It was exciting because God’s Word is my most precious possession, and many times, I would simply hug my Bible saying that it was the one thing here on earth I could physically touch as if I touched God Himself.

God placed a love for His Word into me before I was born. My mother insisted that I was named Gerlinde, Norwegian in origin. The name has an interesting meaning. Ger is the word for a weapon that is lancelike. It comes up in German crossword puzzles rather frequently as Nordic weapon. Linde, in that language, is a soldier or warrior, giving the name the meaning of an armed soldier, fierce warrior, or a fighter with a weapon. Therefore, the name is totally appropriate for someone who is bound to God’s Word by a sovereign act of His will.

All those writings rested in my files until, a few months ago, the Lord began saying that I was to begin putting all of them into readable order and write a few more things down as He would give instructions.

After I first stayed home in 1983, I asked the Lord to let me go to Bible college, and He said no. Sometime later, I asked again whether I could go to Bible college, and the answer was still no.

So I told the Lord that I wanted to speak like Pastor Jack Hayford did and learn all that fancy theological language. The Lord’s answer was the following: I don’t want you to speak like Jack Hayford, but I want you to speak like the people on the streets so that they can understand what you are saying. I will teach you myself by my Spirit and my Word. Therefore, my language is simple and, hopefully, easy to understand. The purpose of this book is to give God center stage entirely; to communicate His greatness, His love, and who He is according to my ability to understand. The praise reports in this booklet are few in comparison to all He has taught me throughout the thirty-seven years since the Father drew me to the Lord God Jesus. Many times, I would tell people to pay attention to the miracles God does in our lives every day. If we really want to see them, He will open our eyes. He works in our circumstances every minute, because He is totally involved in our daily lives. The question remains: are we totally involved with Him, able to see His care for us, day after day after day?

Hi Gerlinde,

I just wanted to write you and tell you how much I appreciate your One-Minute Messages for me. I sometimes get busy and don’t read them weekly, but when I do read them, I am blessed and thought-provoked. They always cause me to think and ponder on your thoughts, insights, and wisdom concerning what the Holy Spirit has revealed to you.

The six observations you had concerning the temptation and God’s Word was really awesome. I will definitely steal it and develop a message (or series of messages) on it (but don’t tell anyone…ha-ha!).

I see throughout your walk, the Lord has spoken consistently and clearly to you. Thanks for sharing some of your journey with me. I am encouraged and blessed and really appreciate you. Thanks.

In His name,

Pastor Ed

One-Minute Messages

One-Minute Message

Friday, January 11, 2002

Matthew Chapter 4

In March of 1979, John and I were in Jerusalem at our hotel. It was the day of our return home, and we still had some time in the morning before we were to assemble for departure. I sensed a strong urging from God to go outside and spend some time alone to read my Bible. I sat down in the grass at the edge of a ditch, and the Lord said, loud and clear, to read Matthew chapter 4. Here are the insights He gave me:

The Lord God Holy Spirit, for the purpose of the temptation, summoned both into the desert—Jesus as well as the devil. It wasn’t that the devil saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. No, I believe that he knew very well that he would be defeated.

After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the son of God…’

God