FBC Church Picnic
Sin, God’s Divine Mercy and Our Answer To It
By Grace Through Faith
2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— 3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Outline of Message:
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Seize the Moment – Day 1224
Faithful to All Generations!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, July 24.
God is faithful to all generations! As I care for the older members of the congregation I serve, I do so with thanksgiving in my heart for the legacy of faith they have passed down to the next generation. From my perspective, apart from God’s faithfulness through them there would be no church for me to pastor. God uses people in every generation to demonstrate His faithfulness. We need to stop our incessant busyness and take time to thank the people from our families, churches, and communities who have been faithful in their generation to pass on their legacy of faith, hope, and love.
I have been on pastoral staff at two churches, and both times I helped the church celebrate their centennial. Both times, the theme verse came from today’s psalm, specifically Psalm 100:4-5, which proclaims, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations.” When a congregation looks back over a hundred years of gospel ministry, there is only one right emotion – thankfulness to the God who is faithful to all generations! How does a church make it to their centennial? From my experience, it takes faithfulness – His and ours! Who are the faithful people who have come before you? Thank them! Who are the faithful people in your generation? Be one of them and pass it on to the next generation of faithful followers of Jesus (2 Timothy 2:2)!
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 100, meditating upon the faithfulness of God to all generations, giving thanks for all He has done in your family, church, and community. Take time today to reach out to an older person and tell them thank you for being faithful. Send a card. Make a phone call. Go and visit. Be faithful!
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
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Seize the Moment – Day 1203
Where Righteousness and Peace Kiss!
Psalm 85
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, July 3.
When we speak of mercy and truth as well as righteousness and peace being reconciled in God because of the work of Jesus Christ, we imply that somehow they are in conflict. But the qualities in God are never in conflict, and the psalm is certainly not speaking of a conflict. On the contrary, love and faithfulness, righteousness and peace are always at home in God, and it is from this divine harmony that all other harmonies come. We have peace only when we rest in him.[1]
You can trust that the same God who sent His only begotten Son to save you from your sins will show up in your circumstances today. Whatever you are going through, don’t let doubt or fear cause you to become double-minded about God’s salvation. James 4:8 invites you, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Rest in God by trusting Jesus and His atoning sacrifice where righteousness and peace kiss in your life.
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 85, meditating upon the perfection of God’s salvation on the Cross of Calvary.
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] James Montgomery Boice, Psalms 42–106: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 700.
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Seize the Moment – Day 1161
The Deep Pain of a Friend’s Betrayal
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, May 22.
When I was in the military, we trained hard to protect against friendly fire. To avoid shooting at their comrades or allies, we instilled into the soldiers the importance of situational awareness, fire discipline, and target acquisition. It is demoralizing to soldiers to learn that their own army was responsible for the damage and death. David experienced friendly fire at a very personal level, as attested in Psalm 55:12-14:
For it is not an enemy who reproaches me, then I could bear it; nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me, then I could hide myself from him. But it is you, a man my equal, my companion and my familiar friend; we who had sweet fellowship together walked in the house of God in the throng.
David was experiencing the attacks of a close friend, the deep pain of a friend’s betrayal. David expressed how the friendly fire affected him personally in today’s psalm:
- Verse 2, “I am restless in my complaint and am surely distracted.”
- Verse 4, “My heart is in anguish within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me.”
- Verse 5, “Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me.”
How did David respond to the deep pain of a friend’s betrayal? He passed on his response in Psalm 55:22, “Cast your burden upon the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken.” The final words of today’s psalm give us the victory, “But I will trust in You.” (vs 23) When those closest to you cause you the most pain, turn to God, the One who will never betray you (Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5-6)!
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 55, meditating upon God as your safe place in times of conflict – “casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
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Seize the Moment – Day 1151
Praise God for Paying the Price!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, May 12.
What is the price tag of your soul? When Voltaire was on his death bed, he reportedly said to his doctor, “I will give you half of all I possess if you will give me six months more of life.”[1] Even though he was rich and powerful, one of the most influential minds of the European enlightenment, Voltaire died in despair. He was not the first person, nor, unfortunately, will he be the last, to put his hope in his riches. Psalm 49:7-12 teaches us that only a fool puts his hope in wealth because it will ultimately fail you when you need it the most:
No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him – For the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever – That he should live on eternally, that he should not undergo decay. For he sees that even wise men die; the stupid and the senseless alike perish and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is that their houses are forever and their dwelling places to all generations; they have called their lands after their own names. But man in his pomp will not endure; he is like the beasts that perish.
Jesus cautioned from such pompousness in Mark 8:36-37, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Jesus paid the price of redemption – the price tag of your soul was His precious blood, shed on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins (1 Peter 1:18-19; Ephesians 1:7-8a; Acts 20:28). You are free from sin to live for Christ, apart from the fear of death and its ensuing judgment (Hebrews 9:27-28).
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 49, meditating upon the cost of your redemption – “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:20).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
FOOTNOTE:
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Seize the Moment – Day 1150
Pray for Your Community!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, May 11.
Are you praying for the community in which you live? Are you asking God to use you to shine His light and share His love to your community?
Psalm 48 is the Song of Zion. Zion is the temple mount in Jerusalem and is used synonymously with Jerusalem itself. The first three verses demonstrate how intertwined Jerusalem was with the Jewish people’s worship of God and their thankfulness for His presence in their city, “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, in the city of our God, His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great King. God, in her palaces, has made Himself known as a stronghold.”
James Montgomery Boice explained how we don’t have the same theology of city that the Jewish people had, while also opening Christians to the reality that we have something better as New Covenant believers:
The ancient devout Jew was conscious of the presence of God in Jerusalem, symbolized by the ark of the covenant that rested within the Most Holy Place of the temple. It is why he could say, “God is in her citadels” (v. 3). We cannot say that God is in our cities in the same way, or even in our churches. But we have something better: God in us, in the person of his Holy Spirit … (John 14:16-17). … To have the Holy Spirit within us is a very great bulwark against the world, the flesh, and the devil, against all sin and temptation.[1]
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
FOOTNOTE:
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Seize the Moment – Day 1149
Practice the Promise of Praise!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, May 10.
In the same way that Psalm 46:10 taught us to be silent and see God’s exaltation in the earth, Psalm 47:1-2 calls us to be loud in our worship of the Lord’s supremacy over the nations, “O clap your hands, all peoples; shout to God with the voice of joy. For the Lord Most High is to be feared, a great King over all the earth.” There is an appointed time for everything, just as Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 3:7, there is “a time to be silent and a time to speak.”
Just as important as incorporating times of silence and solitude into our lives, so is building in times of personal and corporate praise to God, as Psalm 47:6-8 commands, “Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with a skillful psalm. God reigns over the nations, God sits on His holy throne.” Five times in this short passage, we are told to “sing praises.” Our prayer life is to be a rhythm of human expression, from the silence of meditation to the loudness of celebration. There is an appointed time for everything!
In both expressions of your life of devotion – in silence and singing – you are declaring the reality of the Sovereign God. Whether in being still or by clapping your hands, whether in silence or with loud praise, you are centering your heart and mind on the truth of God’s supremacy over all creation and His preeminence over your life.
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 47, meditating upon the worthiness of God to receive all your praise – join in the prostrated praise of Revelation 4:11, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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Seize the Moment – Day 1148
Practice the Promise of Stillness!
Psalm 46
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, May 9.
Psalm 46:10-11 teaches us the promise of stillness, “Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.” It may sound more familiar to you when I read the KJV, “Be still, and know that I am God” (NIV & ESV). The Message explains it “Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.” However you translate it, the point is the same – God’s got this, so stop trying to do it by your own power!
Whatever it is you are going through, there is an action plan that involves stillness – setting apart a moment in time to be reminded by your inactivity of God’s activity to cause “all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). Prioritizing time for silence and solitude in your busy days is the spiritual discipline of the promise of stillness; it is the intending of your attention on the presence of God. It’s not passivity; stillness is the sacred activity of being “conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). As I explained about Jesus in Live Like a Champion Today:
Jesus intended His attention on the presence of God throughout His ministry. He prayed at His baptism (Luke 3:21) and then immediately went off for a prolonged forty days of silence and solitude in the wilderness (Luke 4:1-2). Jesus gave Himself to the Cross after a time of being still before the Lord, as was His custom, in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:39-42).[1]
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 46, meditating upon the presence of the Lord of hosts in your life, and His power to exalt Himself through every situation you will face.
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
FOOTNOTE:
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Seize the Moment – Day 1147
Pray with Anticipation!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, May 8.
Psalm 45 is a wedding song, but not for an ordinary wedding; it was written for a royal wedding. Its words are too lofty for even the most exalted of couples; therefore, we are left with only one conclusion: Psalm 45 is a Messianic Psalm. Spurgeon made that point clear in his classic work on the Psalms:
Some here see Solomon and Pharaoh’s daughter only – they are short-sighted; others see both Solomon and Christ – they are cross-eyed; well-focussed [sic] spiritual eyes see here Jesus only, … “The King,” the God whose throne is for ever and ever, is no mere mortal and his everlasting dominion is not bounded by Lebanon and Egypt’s river. This is no wedding song of earthly nuptials, but an Epithalamium [a poem celebrating a marriage] for the Heavenly Bridegroom and his elect spouse.[1]
To illustrate this point, Psalm 45:6-7 was quoted in Hebrews 1:8-9 to emphasize Jesus Christ as the One who fulfills this exalted psalm, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; a scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You with the oil of joy above Your fellows.” John the Baptist described Jesus as the bridegroom in John 3:29, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full.” Paul pointed out that the church is the betrothed of Christ in 2 Corinthians 11:2, “I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Christ I might present you as a pure virgin.”
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 45, meditating upon the joy of being the betrothed of Jesus Christ – “Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready” (Revelation 19:7). For the joy set before you, prepare yourself to be a holy and blameless bride (Ephesians 5:25-27).
God bless you!
If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.
YOUTUBE:
If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
FOOTNOTE:
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Seize the Moment – Day 1113
Pray for our Leaders!
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
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