Seize the Moment – Day 507
Friend of God!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, August 6.
Would you consider yourself a friend of God?
Friends know one another, listen to each other, and like one another. Friends share common interests and passions that keep them moving in the same direction.
Exodus 33:9-11a states that Moses related to God as a friend:
Whenever Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent; and the Lord would speak with Moses. When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent, all the people would arise and worship, each at the entrance of his tent. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.
Is such a lofty title and intimate relationship exclusive to these two rock stars of the faith?
I love God and I know He loves me! We spend a lot of time together and listen to one another. In the easy yoke of Jesus, I am partnering with Jesus in the work that God is passionate about!
That sounds like friendship to me!
Seize the moment and live your life as a friend of God!
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Seize the Moment – Day 506
Patience is Essential to Spiritual Growth!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, August 5.
Has your impatience ever caused problems?
Exodus 32 is a dumpster fire caused by impatience! The Israelites have been rescued from generations of slavery, but they have complained to Moses for most of the caravan out of Egypt to their current location at Mount Sinai. Moses has provided strong leadership along the way and now he was on the top of the mountain receiving the Law from God. The people, led by Aaron, had to wait for him to return, but as with most of us, waiting was not their strength!
Listen to how it all begins in Exodus 32:1, “Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
The devastation and death of this moment of impatience is horrifying! Their impatience led to a great act of covenant unfaithfulness, with Aaron making a golden calf and the people participating in idol worship. Because they were unable to wait with patience and trust God and Moses, they pressed upon one of their own, Aaron, to give them what they wanted.
Patience is essential to spiritual growth! When you don’t know what God is doing, fill the gap with trust and patience! This takes faith and courage!
Later in their history, King David wrote these words in Psalm 27:14, “Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.”
Seize the moment and wait with patience, remembering that God has promised to bring to completion that which He began! Wait on the Lord and trust His timing!
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Seize the Moment – Day 505
The Importance of Rest!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, August 4.
When you hear the word sabbath, what comes to your mind?
Listen to how God describes the importance of sabbath rest in His covenant code with Israel in Exodus 31:15-17:
For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever does any work on the sabbath day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel forever; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, but on the seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.
The word sabbath simply means to stop. In Genesis 2, God’s stopping on the seventh day of creation was the first thing in all His creative efforts that He declared holy; it was a time, not a thing or a place!
Taking a day of rest has always been an important rhythm of God’s creation. Our culture and the western church ignore this rhythm at great cost to our well-being: spiritually, physically, mentally, and relationally! Sabbath is not a work of salvation, but a gift for the saved. Delight in God’s grace and find rest for your soul (Matthew 11:28-30).
Seize the moment by taking out your personal calendar to prioritize one full day of sabbath each week to experience the rest of God.
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Seize the Moment – Day 504
The Sweet Aroma of Home!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, August 3.
How does it make you feel when you walk into a place where one of your favorite meals has been cooking?
Like you’ve come home! Smells are powerful and can invoke strong feelings of comfort and deep memories of association. God designed us this way on purpose!
Exodus 30 emphasizes the instructions for the altar of incense, the recipe for the incense, and the regulations for using it. Listen to verses 6-8 talk about the purpose of the altar of incense:
You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the ark of the testimony, in front of the mercy seat that is over the ark of the testimony, where I will meet with you. Aaron shall burn fragrant incense on it; he shall burn it every morning when he trims the lamps. When Aaron trims the lamps at twilight, he shall burn incense. There shall be perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations.
The tabernacle would have a unique smell as the specific recipe of incense was not to be used except to worship God at His mercy seat (verses 37-38). God intended our practices of worship to focus every part of our personhood on God.
Therefore, Paul commanded us in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 to “pray without ceasing” and in Ephesians 5:12 to “walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”
God’s desire is to make His home in our lives, and He has given us the recipe of heavenly home cooking that emanates the sweet aroma of our worship to the one true God!
Seize the moment and offer your life as a living sacrifice to God.
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Seize the Moment – Day 503
God’s Desire is to Dwell with His People!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, August 2.
Have you ever wandered what was God’s desire for your life?
In Exodus 29:43-46, God overtly stated His desire in establishing the tabernacle system, which included the priestly and sacrificial systems of the Old Covenant:
I will meet there with the sons of Israel, and it shall be consecrated by My glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar; I will also consecrate Aaron and his sons to minister as priests to Me. I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God. They shall know that I am the Lord their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them; I am the Lord their God.
God’s desire is to dwell among His people. While this desire has not changed, the way we have access to His presence has been transformed by Jesus, once and for all!
Exodus 29 details the consecration and ordination of the priests who would mediate God’s presence through the tabernacle system. This system was the only authorized way to the Father, and it was an elaborate and exacting process!
Then God sent His one and only Son and established a new authorized way for the will of the Father to be fulfilled. Jesus declared in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
Jesus’ death atoned for the sins of those God desires to dwell among and the infilling of the Holy Spirit causes His people to become His dwelling place. This is our salvation!
Seize the moment and thank Jesus for making a way for you to experience God’s desire for you and your life.
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Live Like a Champion – Week 31
The Promise of Peace!
John 16:33 (NAS95)
(This was presented at the FBC Picnic in the Memorial Park Shelter House.)
It is clear in God’s word that peace and joy are deeply intertwined! How can we experience the joy of the LORD if we don’t first have peace with God first?
Our memory verse can be applied to all three aspects of peace, but Jesus here is specifically talking about His saving work on the cross, which gives us peace with God! Jesus has defeated the power of death and the forces of evil to restore us back into right relationship with the Father; it is only “in Christ” that we can have “peace” or “access to” or relationship with God.
Listen to this peace that Jesus promises us:
- John 14:27 – “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.”
- Colossians 1:20a – “Through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross…”
- Romans 5:1-2 – “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.”
This requires God’s peace to come from above from God, into us, and then flow through us to others. We are conduits of God’s love because His peace is a cord of three strands: vertical, internal, and then external.
Paul practically teaches us about how to walk in this peace. Mental health comes from this internal peace of God, by which we learn to live in God’s grace, from upon high and inside!
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.
Learning how to walk in the promise of peace as daily mental health practices is a key spiritual discipline to our living out the Greatest Commandments. We represent Jesus best (external peace to others!) when we are both holy (vertical peace with God!) and whole (internal peace!).
We need to realize that the Bible teaches us good mental hygiene practices that are just as fundamental to our well-being as the many good dental hygiene habits that are ingrained in our daily lives. As this becomes more normalized and less stigmatized in the church, then mental health practices and check-ups will be as common as dental health practices and check-ups.
Peace with God that guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus means that the promise of peace is not just a vertical and internal reality, it is our greatest witness as it brings external peace between us and other people. Listen to Paul explain this in Ephesians 2:13-16:
This is the Church’s mission! Experiencing the peace of God in both our holiness and wholeness allows us to give God’s love and grace towards others because we have received and internalized it in our own lives. By the Spirit we are to build bridges with people to unite them in Christ alone—our peace!
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Seize the Moment – Day 501
Today’s hymn focus will be “I’ll Fly Away”
2 Corinthians 5:8 (NLT)
“Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord.”
I’ll fly away, o glory, I’ll fly away. When I die, hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away
Wake up with this song in your heart and on your lips as you prepare for your day!
YOUTUBE:
I’ll Fly Away
I’ll fly away
To a home on God’s celestial shore
I’ll fly away
I’ll fly away
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by
I’ll fly away
I’ll fly away
To a land where joy shall never end
I’ll fly away
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Seize the Moment – Day 500
Holy to the Lord!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, July 30.
Believers in Jesus have been clothed in righteousness; we have taken off the soiled clothing of sin and put on the new garments of salvation. This kind of language is anchored in today’s chapter of Bible reading.
Exodus 28 is all about the ornate garments the priests of the old covenant were required to wear to be a minister of God! As verse 4 summarizes, “These are the garments which they shall make: a breastpiece and an ephod and a robe and a tunic of checkered work, a turban and a sash, and they shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons, that he may minister as priest to Me.”
The entire chapter is packed with intricate details that seem cumbersome, if not comical, by today’s informal and relaxed standards in nearly every area of culture, including church life. An important detail is captured in Exodus 28:36-38: “You shall also make a plate of pure gold and shall engrave on it, like the engravings of a seal, ‘Holy to the Lord.’ You shall fasten it on a blue cord, and it shall be on the turban; it shall be at the front of the turban. It shall be on Aaron’s forehead.”
Just as Aaron and his sons had to have “Holy to the Lord” visibly located on their foreheads to minister to the LORD, we, too, must have the presence of the Holy One visibly in us.
Only that which is holy from the inside-out will bear the fruit of the Spirit for the world to see! One day, all of God’s people “will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4). Until that Day…
Seize the moment and live knowing that God will write His name on your forehead for all the world to see that you are “Holy to the Lord.”
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Seize the Moment – Day 499
Form Follows Function!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, July 29.
Have you ever noticed when something is different than before, it jumps out at you?
In Exodus 27, we learn that there is more than one way to build an altar. Listen to verse 1: “And you shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits wide; the altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits.”
This is different than the last time God gave instructions on how to build an altar. Listen to God command Moses in Exodus 20:24-25, right after Moses had received the Ten Commandments:
You shall make an altar of earth for Me, and you shall sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be remembered, I will come to you and bless you. ‘If you make an altar of stone for Me, you shall not build it of cut stones, for if you wield your tool on it, you will profane it.
Do we make the altar out of acacia wood or out of uncut fieldstone?
Both! For the altar in today’s chapter, its functionality required it to be easily carried around as it was a portable altar. Its function determined its form!
The same is true in our lives! We are now the temple of the Holy Spirit and we, too, are to offer right sacrifices to God upon the altar of our lives. But each of us has been uniquely shaped for God’s glory based upon the function God had in mind for our lives. We are different by design—coming in unique shapes and sizes, all intended by God for good works that bring Him glory!
Seize the moment and discover how God designed you. Find true freedom, peace, and contentment by walking in the good works that God intended for you for His glory.
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Seize the Moment – Day 498
Designed by God for Good Works!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, July 28.
Did you know that you are uniquely designed by God for good works?
Exodus 26 is a very detailed chapter as it lays out the instructions for the building of the tabernacle, which was Israel’s approved house of worship until the temple was built by King Solomon much later in their history. The tabernacle was Israel’s portable sanctuary during their wanderings in the desert and throughout their conquest of the Promised Land.
This is important to know because the tabernacle had to be assembled and reassembled every time Israel would make or break camp, which turned out to be quite often. The tabernacle was an ornate sacred place, and it was a well-built sturdy place.
This required skilled workers—master craftsmen and craftswomen! Listen to an example of this from Exodus 26:1, “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine twisted linen and blue and purple and scarlet material; you shall make them with cherubim, the work of a skillful workman.”
Again, we read from Exodus 35:25, “All the skilled women spun with their hands, and brought what they had spun, in blue and purple and scarlet material and in fine linen.”
Paul speaks this over every new covenant believer’s life in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
When we use what we have for God’s glory, there is no insignificant work! Even the smallest job is for the glory of God and that makes it of great importance!
Seize the moment and use all that you have—your education and vocational training, your athletic abilities and hobbies, your good looks and charming personality for the glory of God! You have been designed by God for this very purpose!
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