The Security of Marriage!

Song of Solomon 8

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, December 12.

Did you know that for a marriage certificate to be valid, it must be signed and sealed? But the real security of marriage is through the presence of God being in the couple’s love, as highlighted in Song of Solomon 8:6-7:

Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol; its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it; if a man were to give all the riches of his house for love, it would be utterly despised.

This is the only reference to God within the Song of Solomon. The phrase, “the very flame of the LORD,” emphasizes the point of his book, as expressed by a commentator, “Love is represented here as a force which is able to overcome the negative forces that threaten the very existence of the world and mankind. In other words, Love gains the victory over chaos and creates wholesome order and life.”^[1] There is only one who can secure you in such an embrace of love, and it’s not your spouse. It’s God, and the very real experience of human love, between a man and a woman, for which this book poetically celebrates, is a mere reflection of God’s perfect love. God has secured your relationship with Him through Jesus’ sacrificial love, as John taught in 1 John 4:9, “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.” When you are finding marriage difficult, remember the security of God’s union with you, and love your spouse as Christ first loved you (Ephesians 5:25-27).

Seize the moment and trust God for His gift of love – “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (1 John 4:11).

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:

The Commitment of Marriage!

Song of Solomon 7

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, December 11.

There is a myth I am fond of busting when I officiate weddings. The myth is that the very act of getting married fulfills the participants and they live happily ever after. Life is not a fairy tale; the reality is that marriage is like an empty box that must be filled with the things each partner hopes to receive from the other, such as intimacy, friendship, and forgiveness. The key to a successful marriage is that each participant must make the daily commitment to put more into the box than they take out of it. If you want intimacy, you must demonstrate love and respect. If you want friendship, you must invest the time to be a friend. If you want forgiveness, you must show mercy and give grace.

Whereas marriage is a commitment you make, love is the fertile field that you must cultivate deeply and sow good seed, so that you may bear good fruit. Song of Solomon 7:10-13 describes a very intentional cultivation of love in the marriage of Solomon and the Shulammite:

I am my beloved’s, and his desire is for me. Come, my beloved, let us go out into the country, let us spend the night in the villages. Let us rise early and go to the vineyards; let us see whether the vine has budded and its blossoms have opened, and whether the pomegranates have bloomed. There I will give you my love. The mandrakes have given forth fragrance; and over our doors are all choice fruits, both new and old, which I have saved up for you, my beloved.

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.

Today’s song focus will be

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

 Luke 2:13-14 (NASB95).           

And suddenly there appeared with the angel

a multitude of the heavenly host

praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest,

And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King”

Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.

We need to wake up and join with the angels in proclaiming the first message of good news or the Gospel to those around us that are still in need of its powerful message. If you give no other gift this Christmas season, give the message of God’s love for all who will receive it.

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 Ken reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.

If you would like to listen to this song, click on this link:

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

The Exclusivity of Marriage!

Song of Solomon 6

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, December 8.

Pastors often quote the words of Jesus, after the pronouncement of husband and wife, “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate” (Matthew 19:6). Exclusivity is the practice of excluding or not admitting other things. Unique to our marital vows is the promise of exclusivity – I choose you! In saying yes to the one, you are saying no to every other person. In the beautiful words of the Shulammite about Solomon in Song of Solomon 6:3a, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” (cf. 2:16).

The husband-wife relationship is intended to be an exclusive embrace, which provides a firm foundation on which to build their future. Even children must be taught this, as I have instructed my children throughout their developmental years, “You can have anything that is mine, except the one thing I will not give.” My message has been consistent and clear to my children, marriage is a life-long, exclusive commitment to love your spouse, and nothing, including the beloved children, can be allowed to compromise the integrity of that commitment. The best gift you can give your children is a strong marriage.

This exclusive embrace leads to a profound mutuality because no other person is allowed to meet the needs of the other. While the husband and wife become one flesh on their wedding day, they must learn how to belong to one another, as Paul counsels in 1 Corinthians 7:3-4, “The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”

Seize the moment and trust God for His gift of love – “be subject to one another in the fear of Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

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.

The Mutuality of Marriage!

Song of Solomon 5

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, December 7.

The mutuality of marriage is a beautiful sharing that happens between a husband and a wife when they begin to satisfy one another’s needs. It is this open sharing of one another that leads to a mutual dependence for the satisfaction of one another’s needs. This especially happens within a couple’s sexuality, which blossomed between Solomon and the Shulammite in Song of Solomon 5:1, which continues the garden imagery of the previous chapter, “I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, friends; drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.”

The mutuality of marriage is a deep level of experience that intertwines their lives and sense of well-being – the two become one and life is not the same, ever again, without the other person. While this is a beautiful gift, it has some unintended consequences as people have expressed in the idiom, “You can’t live with him, and you can’t live without him!” This is quite the paradox, as a wife can be annoyed by her husband’s habits at home but miss him so much when he is away on a business trip that she can’t sleep. For a reason that is not explained in the book, verse 8 captures such a moment when the Shulammite goes looking for Solomon, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, as to what you will tell him: for I am lovesick.” She felt incomplete apart from him. Just as we feel incomplete when we live our lives apart from God.

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.

The Wedding Night!

Song of Solomon 4

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, December 6.

In America, marital conflict often arises in two primary places – money and sex. The key to success is to be generous with whatever is in your power to give to your spouse. Sex in the marriage is God’s precious gift of intimacy, intended to be the consummation of the marital vows on their wedding night, twining their souls and making them one flesh. Utilizing imagery from nature, the consummation of Solomon’s marriage to the Shulammite is poetically shared in the call and response of husband and wife, starting with Solomon’s description of his new wife in Song of Solomon 4:12-15:

A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed up. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, henna with nard plants, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, along with all the finest spices. You are a garden spring, a well of fresh water, and streams flowing from Lebanon.

Solomon’s poetic wooing of his wife on their wedding night is followed by her response to him in verse 16, “Awake, O north wind, and come, wind of the south; make my garden breathe out fragrance, let its spices be wafted abroad. May my beloved come into his garden and eat its choice fruits!” This garden imagery is powerful, as it reminds us of the generous nature of God – the Sower of Matthew 13, who abundantly sows the good seed with the intent of growing the Kingdom of Heaven in humanity, so that we will bear the good fruit of the Spirit in and through our lives.

Seize the moment and trust God for His gift of love – “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Corinthians 9:6-7).

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.

The Wedding Day!

Song of Solomon 3

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, December 5.

The wedding day is a significant event in any person’s life. Regardless of the logistical details of the events surrounding the wedding ceremony, a couple must never lose sight of the fact that their most important investments of time and energy must go into preparing themselves for their life together.

Solomon’s wedding day was approaching quickly, and the desire to be with one another was growing in intensity. The Shulammite was experiencing the natural insecurities that happen to a person right before their wedding day, so she went searching for her beloved, yearning to make him her own (1-4). This was a precarious moment, where patience and self-control were warranted. As a lady in waiting, she cried out in Song of Solomon 3:5, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, that you will not arouse or awaken my love until she pleases” (cf. 2:7). She knew that the integrity of her vow, which would be consummated on their wedding night, must be proven by her character leading up to it. She desired to present herself to her husband as a “holy and blameless” bride, just as we desire to do the same for our Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 5:25-27).

The wedding day finally arrived with the procession of Solomon in all his grandeur as the king (6-11). This was the moment she had yearned for, and she was rewarded by her beloved’s “gladness of heart” on their wedding day (11). We, too, yearn for when we will be presented to the King “as a bride adorned for her husband” (Revelation 19:7-8; 21:2). May you be found holy and blameless on the day of Christ Jesus.

Seize the moment and trust God for His gift of love – “And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3).

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.

The Anticipation of Love!

Song of Solomon 2

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, December 4.

Do you remember anticipating your wedding day? Maybe you’re still waiting for such a love to come into your life. If so, be wise in how you wait because love is a powerful source of energy. Solomon’s fiancée, the Shulammite, expressed her eagerness to marry Solomon in Song of Solomon 2:3-6:

Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He has brought me to his banquet hall, and his banner over me is love. Sustain me with raisin cakes, refresh me with apples, because I am lovesick. Let his left hand be under my head and his right hand embrace me.

Kimberly and I wed in 1999, at Fayetteville Christian Church, outside of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We met at the church when we were both serving in the 82^nd Airborne Division. In anticipation of our wedding day, Kimberly turned down a promotion, sacrificially making the decision to end her time in the US Army so that we could get married without the complication of both of us being in the service. With this significant gesture of love and hopefulness, Kimberly allowed me to raise my banner of love over her, trusting that I would provide for her well-being in the future. In response, I eagerly wrapped my arms around her and pledged myself to her as we anticipated our wedding day. Decades later, I am in awe of the gift of God’s love to sustain us in the radical decisions we made for one another, which set us on the path we still walk today.

Seize the moment and trust God for His gift of love – “walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us” (Ephesians 5:2).

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.