Seize the Moment – Day 356
The Call of Evangelism in a “Glocal” World!
Revelation 7
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 8.
Does your faith have borders? Do you restrict the love of God? Who is your neighbor?
Listen to a glimpse of God’s Heavenly Kingdom from Revelation 7:9-10,
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
The Kingdom of God goes beyond borders!
What borders need to come down in your mind, heart, and lifestyle so that you are not limiting the gospel of Jesus Christ?
Here are just a few of the common borders that people have:
- National Citizenship
- Political Ideology
- Socioeconomic Status
- Education Level
- Religion
- Language
- Gender
- Marital Status
- Age
- Racial Identity
- Ethnic Background
- Music Preferences
- Generational Preferences
- Theological Orientation
- Denominational Affiliation
- Attire
- Technology Access, Use & Preference
Seize the moment as a citizen of Heaven and cross the borders so that you can reach the very people God is calling out to with the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the call of evangelism and as the world comes closer though technology, the global mission field is now local—it is “glocal”!
Let’s recite this week’s memory verse from Romans 12:3 (NAS95), “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
YOUTUBE:
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Live Like a Champion – Week 10
“The Promise of Faith!”
Romans 12:3 (NAS95)
In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl. Never forget, the victory is ours in Christ Jesus and we are invited to play like a championship team, today. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!
The play of the week is the “Promise of Faith!” Let’s walk through the 4 steps of living like a champion by learning how to live according to the Victory of the promises of God.
STEP #1: Know God’s playbook! The memory verse for this promise is Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
Step #1 Faith is a gift!
Hebrews 11:1-3 defines faith as “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Hebrews 11 illustrates faith in people’s lives through stories of real people in real history with real faith. Mark it now and read it later.
Historically, the church has defined faith as, “an aptitude (not a one-off, but a gift by which to live)… In faith is God, ‘communicating Himself to the soul’” (Iain Matthews, The Impact of God, 103-4).
Faith is not only God’s gift of communicating Himself to humanity, but it is also His gift of our aptitude to grasp and interact with Him and His invitations to us, thus allowing for a relationship, now and eternally. Remember, relationships require the ability to communicate with one another—faith makes this possible.
The good seed of faith has been sown into the field of your soul! What are you supposed to do with your allotment of seed? Cultivate it into your “heart, soul, and mind” so that you love God with all of who you are and are becoming; hence, obeying Jesus’ Greatest Commandment (Matthew 22:37-38).
STEP #2: Faith is a gift that must be grown.
A friend commented to me about this process of cultivating the soil,
Cultivating the soil “looks like” having sound judgment. We cannot take for granted the gift of faith, assuming it will grow simply because we made a profession of faith. That would be “thinking more highly” than we ought of ourselves. In using sound judgment, we create an environment full of people, habits, and disciplines that becomes our “trellis.” We weed out (pun intended) that which does not strengthen the trellis.
We develop faith habits by building a trellis for our allotment of seeds to grow on! Because we don’t want our faith to be hidden in the field, but to mature and bear fruit, we build a trellis which is a framework by which a fruit tree or vine is supported so that it bears much fruit.
From John 15:5, Jesus promised us about our Christian life, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”
Faith is a gift of God intended to be grown through relationship with Jesus so that we can bear much fruit!
The trellis is the image of the ancient church practice of having a “rule of life”—not “rules for life”, but a “rule” or as the ancients would have heard that word: a trellis of life. The trellis support a loving relationship that already exists; it flows from love. Just like the rhythms of love in friendship or marriage or parenting.
Here are two practical applications of the trellis that I am building in my life. Each of these is what is called a keystone habit, which means it is a habit that shapes/holds together all other habits:
- Fasting from media when I first get up and before I go to bed! More simply, this is the trellis of “scripture before phone.” This means that when I first wake up I pick up an old fashioned paper Bible and read it before I turn on my phone or look at any other version of media. At night, this means that my phone and all other versions of media are off at least thirty minutes to an hour before I go to bed. My goal is to sleep from 10-6, which means I am free of technology & media from approximately 9/9:30 PM to 7 AM. I don’t do this perfectly, but because I have been working on this, my sleep patterns are healthy and I wake up rested and ready for the day, wanting to spend time with Jesus first. This shapes my day!
- Protect a sabbath day! First off, let me say that this is not selfish, this is obedience to God’s creative design and redemptive work. Obeying the sabbath as God’s creative design for humanity and as part of God’s redemptive strategy means intentionally planning for one day a week to cease striving and know that He is God. For many of us this includes prioritizing gathering with your church family, eating a meal with others, resting in grace, trusting God’s provision by stopping, and delighting in God. I take my personal sabbath day Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. I go for a long run or take a long hike, I enjoy a big late breakfast afterwards, I leisurely play with my kids, spend time with my wife, enjoy some quality time with Jesus, and have fun resting and delighting in the Lord of the Sabbath. I not only look forward to this day, but I also bring the refreshment from it to Sunday services. This shapes my week!
The truth of step #2 is that faith is a gift that must be grown. The reason for doing this is step #3.
STEP #3: Faith is a gift that must be grown for the purpose of loving your neighbor.
Remember, that earlier in the sermon I referenced the Greatest Commandment, but listen to all of Jesus’ words from Matthew 22:37-39 because it’s really the Greatest Commandments: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Jim Elliot, modern martyr of the faith, said it this way, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.” Just as in Jim Elliot’s life where his very blood became the necessary seed in the ground by which an entire lost people group would come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ, so our gifts of faith are to love people with the love of God and provide for them the means of receiving faith themselves!
To learn more about the Jim Elliot story, you can watch the 2005 movie End of the Spear or you can watch the 2013 Voice of the Martyrs Torchlighters video on RightNow Media called “The Jim Elliot Story”. FBC provides this vast library of Christian resources to you for free. Talk to Pastor Ken if you need help.
Jesus taught us this about faith in His parable from Matthew 13:31-32, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”
How can your faith bring refreshment to others, just as the mustard seed became a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches?
Here are three practical applications in real and relevant situations that you may face in your daily life:
- Friendship: Your trellis provides boundaries for you to have the emotional health and mental energy to be a good listener to your friend. Imagine making space for a daily conversation with a loved one or a weekly meal with a friend where you have both the time and energy to help them.
- Focus: Your trellis builds structure to your life so that you have the focus to say “no” to things that will distract you from what is most important. Without the trellis you may try to do everything and in doing so, do nothing. Without focus, we never arrive at where we need to go. We are caught in the tyranny of the urgent without a trellis to frame our growth in loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves.
- Freedom: Faith brings freedom from anything that binds us! Specifically and relevant to many, your trellis teaches you how to put your smart phone or computer in its place—those are helpful tools, but tyrannical masters. This frees up your time and energy. It helps you to be proactive with people and to know who you are in a world that is trying to define you so they can then market to you and keep you in slavery to consumerism and materialism, and blind to your true identity as a beloved Imager Bearer.
Take a step of faith and return to the sound wisdom of Romans 12:3, “For through the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment [sober, sincere, lens of humility], as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”
You cannot think soberly about yourself when you are intoxicated by everything that is clamoring for your attention (time and money) and, ultimately, your identity. To return to a right view of God, yourself, and others you need to remember that faith is a gift that must be cultivated, so that love of God may grow and bear the fruit of love of neighbor.
STEP #4: Faith is witnessed through our fellowship!
Paul teaches from Romans 12:4-5, “For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.”
As the seed grows, it sends out roots! Our roots are intertwined so that we are better together! You are not a single tree, facing the world and all of its problems alone. You are part of something much bigger, from which God is growing us to bear the fruit of the tree of life, so that many may come and find rest in Jesus.
How will the watching world know we are growing in our faith? Jesus taught us this important truth of why we gather as the people of God in John 13:34-35, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is the good fruit of our faith—this is the promise of God!
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Seize the Moment – Day 354
Today’s hymn focus: “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing”
Brothers John & Charles Wesley upon graduation from Oxford, set sail to America, the new world, to try and minister to the colonists and to evangelize the Indians. However, they quickly became disillusioned and returned to England. On the trip, they were impressed by a group of devout Moravians, sensing their spiritual depth and vitality. In May of 1738 at Aldersgate Hall, John & Charles had a spiritual heart-warming experience, and their ministry displayed a new dimension of spiritual power.
On the one-year anniversary of his conversion experience, Charles wrote the eighteen stanza hymn “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing”, inspired by a remark from his friend Peter Bohler… “the Lord has done so much for my life. Had I a thousand tongues, I would praise Christ Jesus with every one of them!” Let this hymn be the desire of your heart as we sing:
O for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King, the triumphs of His grace!
We need to wake up and remember that if we are breathing, we are to worship God. If we don’t praise Him, then the rocks will cry out and worship Him and the trees of the fields will clap their hands. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a rock and a tree doing my job!
YOUTUBE:
O for a thousand tongues to sing
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of His grace.
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad,
The honors of Thy name.
Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
That bids our sorrows cease;
’Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
’Tis life, and health, and peace.
His love my heart has captive made,
His captive would I be,
For He was bound, and scourged and died,
My captive soul to free.
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean;
His blood availed for me.
So now Thy blessed Name I love,
Thy will would e’er be mine.
Had I a thousand hearts to give,
My Lord, they all were Thine!
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Seize the Moment – Day 353
God’s Patience Leads to Repentance!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, March 5.
What do the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Scroll’s Seven Seals of Justice have to do with your life today? That is a good question as we look at Revelation 6.
The answer to today’s opening question is two big words: Patience and Repentance.
The first big word describes God: God is patient!
Listen to Revelation 6:10-11 as the martyrs of the faith cry out to God in a loud voice,
“How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.
The Bible explains God’s patience in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
There is our second big word: God’s patience leads us to repentance!
The purpose of Revelation is not to put on display God’s destructive power, but rather God’s saving power—it’s not about wrath, it’s about love! God is patiently calling people back to a relationship with Him!
Seize the moment and respond to God’s saving power today by trusting Jesus with your past successes and failures, your present hopes and dreams, and your future questions and unknowns.
Let’s recite this week’s memory verse from 2 Corinthians 12:9a (NAS95), “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
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Seize the Moment – Day 352
The Witnesses of Jesus’ Worthiness!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday March 4.
How many witnesses are needed to determine if a matter is true?
Revelation 5 is a powerful witness to the worthiness of Jesus Christ. I pulled out of this one chapter, three quotes that attest to who Jesus Christ is and how worthy He is of our worship.
First, the four living creatures and twenty-four elders sang a new song, saying in verses 9-10, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
Second, the angels, numbering beyond count (“myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands”) said with a loud voice in verse 12, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”
Third, we hear the final testimony in verse 13, “And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, ‘To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.’”
Jesus is worthy to be worshipped! That is beyond a reasonable doubt.
How are you responding to these eye-witness testimonials?
Seize the moment and worship Jesus. Trust Him as your Lord and Savior. He is worthy!
Let’s recite this week’s memory verse from 2 Corinthians 12:9a (NAS95), “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
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Seize the Moment – Day 351
The Fear of the Lord!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, March 3. You are invited to join us tonight from 6:15-7, in person or online, for our mid-week prayer service, which is intended to be an island of serenity in your week.
The fear of the Lord is the reverence and awe of God that happens when we see God for who He is and not for who we make Him out to be.
When is the last time you received a fresh revelation of God?
Revelation 4 moves me to a place of reverence and awe of God. Listen to verses 2-3, 5a,
Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting on the throne. And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, like an emerald in appearance. Out from the throne come flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder.
As the description continues it continues to invite us deeper. From verses 8-9, the scene unfolds around the throne with “four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.’”
What an exalted view of God as He sits on His throne with the four living beings in continual worship and twenty-four elders casting their crowns in absolute surrender to God because of who He is and what He has done. They proclaim in verse 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.” Amen!
Seize the moment and worship Jesus Christ alone with your life. Only He is worthy!
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Seize the Moment – Day 350
Overcomers!
Do you ever get discouraged by your circumstances?
No matter what you are going through, you can rest in the Lord and walk in His promises. You are an overcomer!
Listen to Jesus’ promises in His messages to the Seven Churches of Revelation, today focusing on the last three churches in chapter 3:
- To Sardis, Jesus says in verse 5, “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels.”
- To Philadelphia, Jesus says in verse 12, “He who overcomes, I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God, and he will not go out from it anymore; and I will write on him the name of My God, and the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down out of heaven from My God, and My new name.”
- To Laodicea, Jesus says in verse 21, “He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”
Do you trust that Jesus is who He says He is and can do what He says He’ll do? Then, don’t bail before the blessing!
Seize the moment and get to know Him and to learn for yourself that He is trustworthy and true.
Let’s recite this week’s memory verse from 2 Corinthians 12:9a (NAS95), “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
It is important to review all the memory verses. Remember, we are not memorizing words to pass a test, we are creating habits of grace to live a victorious life by hiding God’s Word in our hearts and meditating upon them day and night. God bless you as you walk with Him in the way!
God Bless you!
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Seize the Moment – Day 349
Unveiling Jesus Christ!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 1.
Listen to how Jesus is described to the first four of the seven churches of Revelation:
- To Ephesus in 2:1, Jesus is “the One who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lampstands.”
- To Smyrna in 2:8, Jesus is “the first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life.”
- To Pergamum in 2:12, Jesus is, “the One who has the sharp two-edged sword.”
- To Thyatira in 2:18, Jesus is, “the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze.”
Don’t skip to the later chapters of Revelation and miss out on the Revelation we receive about Jesus Christ in the first three chapters.
God has not hidden Himself from humanity, but rather He unveiled Himself to us through Jesus Christ. We found Jesus in the Gospel accounts, the early church history book of Acts, the 13 letters of Paul, and in every book of the New Testament.
Do you know Jesus? He has made Himself known; He desires for you to know Him personally.
Seize the moment and know Jesus. He is still revealing Himself to people today. Read your Bible, memorize God’s Word, and pray without ceasing.
Let’s recite this week’s memory verse from 2 Corinthians 12:9a (NAS95), “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
It is important to review the first three memory verses as well. I keep my memory cards clipped to my prayer journal and have them typed into my Evernote workflow app so that I can review all of them throughout the day. Remember, we are not memorizing words to pass a test, we are creating habits of grace to live a victorious life by hiding God’s Word in our hearts and meditating upon them day and night. This is the way!
God Bless you!
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Live Like a Champion – Week 9
The Promise of Grace!
2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (NAS95)
In this sermon series, we are learning how to live like a champion by learning how to live according to the victory of the promises of God. Our guiding image for this series is being a member of an NFL team who wins the Superbowl.
Never forget, the victory is ours in Christ Jesus and we are invited to play like a championship team, today. We live like champions so that others will come to know the One who gave us His Victory—Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, and coming again!
The play of the week is the “Promise of Grace!” and the memory verse for this promise is 2 Corinthians 12:9a,
“My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”
STEP #1: Know God’s playbook—the Bible—by learning the promises of God. Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, the Bible passage from which our memory verse is found. It is important to keep it in context.
Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! [Paul is referencing verses 1-6 after describing and defending his ministry in chapters 10-11] Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. [Paul then continues to describe the authenticity of Christian ministry—the charis of God, not the charisma of man!]
Grace is the essential power source of the Christian life. Grace is the “divine power” referenced in the foundational scripture of this entire sermon series, listen again to 2 Peter 1:2-4,
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Just as we learned that covenant is the framework of the promises, so grace is the power of all the promises.
STEP #2: It is not enough to know this truth about God’s grace, we must experience it for ourselves and train it into our deepest places. If we don’t learn grace, we will simply live out of our own natural strengths and not out of our weakness. Listen again to 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and its counter-cultural reality.
From What’s So Amazing About Grace, Philip Yancey famously wrote, “There is nothing we can do to make God love us more and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.”
This is God’s perfect love expressed to us through grace. Listen to Paul in Ephesians 2:8-10, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
This teaches us that our status before a holy God is not dependent on our works, but because of God’s perfect love made visible to us in Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary and extended to us by grace through faith.
We see grace clearly in key elements of Paul’s gospel presentation in his letter to the Romans:
Romans 3:23-24,
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Do you see how God expresses His grace to us in these passages?
We move this from our head into our hearts when we learn to receive this free gift of God’s love and stop working for God’s approval. Get off the performance treadmill because there is nothing you can do to make God love you more and there is nothing you can do to make God love you less. It’s all grace!
STEP #3: Grace is not just a reality that we must move from our head to our hearts, it’s the play we are to play in both the private and public arenas of our lives. How would the Coach [Coach = God!] have us run the play of grace in our everyday lives?
Grace is often pigeonholed by Philip Yancey’s above definition, because as helpful as it is, it is not complete. Grace is more than a statement of our status before God (our positional holiness), grace is the means by which we live out and make visible our salvation (our personal holiness). Grace is the presence of God in us (through the indwelling Holy Spirit!) to walk in the good works of our salvation. Reference back to Ephesians 2:8-10 and highlight how verse 10 manifests through the same grace that saves in verse 8.
“to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power.”
“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (cf. Philippians 2:12-13).
Grace is the promise of God that determines both your position before Him and your power to live out your faith and make Him known. There are no Christians and there is no Christian life or witness without grace!
STEP #4: It is God’s grace that makes us members of His body, the family of God, the Church. Grace is how we experience God in union with Christ and how express God’s life to the world through our ministry!
I conclude with Paul’s teaching for the church about the promise of grace from Ephesians 3:14-19:
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
May you now receive and walk in the grace of God so freely lavished upon you for the glory of God. Amen.
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Seize the Moment – Day 347
Grace Greater Than All Our Sin
“ And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.”
The daughter of a Presbyterian minister born in 1849, Julia Harriette Johnston grew up to be faithful to the ministries of the church, serving as teacher, Sunday school superintendent, writing Sunday school lessons and several books for David C Cook Publishing. She was also prolific as a writer of 500 hymn texts, most known for “Grace Greater than Our Sin” with Daniel B. Towner composing the tune.
Grace is a key concept in our Christian faith. If it weren’t for grace, then none of us would qualify for heaven. She wanted to make sure that we knew that God’s grace would cover each and every sin.
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin!
Wake up and hold on to this promise of God! It is more than enough, for He will supply the power that we need in our times of weakness, for it is greater than ALL our sin!
YOUTUBE:
Grace Greater Than Our Sin
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!
Yonder on Calvary’s mount out-poured–
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within;
Grace, grace, God’s grace,
Grace that is greater than all our sin!
Threaten the soul with infinite loss;
Grace that is greater– yes, grace untold–
Points to the Refuge, the mighty Cross. [Refrain]
Freely bestowed on all who believe!
All who are longing to see His face,
Will you this moment His grace receive? [Refrain]
https://hymnary.org/text/marvelous_grace_of_our_loving_lord
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