Pray for Leaders!

Isaiah 3

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, December 15.

We must pray for our leaders. A nation is judged according to its leadership and the decisions they make for justice and righteousness. In Isaiah 3:13-15, God denounces Israel’s leadership for acting corruptly, which led the people out of the way of Yahweh:

The Lord arises to contend, and stands to judge the people. The Lord enters into judgment with the elders and princes of His people, “It is you who have devoured the vineyard; the plunder of the poor is in your houses. What do you mean by crushing My people and grinding the face of the poor?” Declares the Lord God of hosts.

As you read Isaiah 3 today, you will see how the pride and haughtiness of the people followed in the ways of their leaders. Jesus defined the way of godly leaders in Matthew 20:25-28, because churches, communities, and countries rise and fall on leadership:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.

Pray for leaders to be humbled, walking in the way of Jesus, as Paul testified of his own ministry in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

Seize the moment and pray for leaders at every level of influence in our culture and churches to live godly lifestyles and make wise decisions for God’s glory.

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.

Hope for the Final Victory!

Isaiah 2

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, December 14.

Before there was international conflict, national unrest, or community discord, there was a spiritual rebellion raging in the Heavenlies against God and His rightful rule over the elohim (translated “gods” in Psalm 95:3-4, and “rulers” in Psalm 82:1). In the ancient Near East cosmology, mountains were places of habitation for the gods, from which they ruled over the affairs of humanity. Mount Zion, where the temple was built by King Solomon, was considered the place of Yahweh’s habitation. The Israelites did not view Yahweh as another territorial god, but as the Creator, who is supreme over all gods, sovereign over all nations, and the only Savior of humanity. This is proclaimed in the prophetic imagery of Isaiah 2:1-3:

The word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem. Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths.”

God chose Zion to be His dwelling place, as Psalm 132:13-14 describes, “For the Lord has chosen Zion; He has desired it for His habitation. ‘This is My resting place forever; Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.’” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus referenced Zion as “the city of the great King” (quoting Psalm 48:2 in Matthew 5:35). Don’t discount ancient cosmology as mythology; there is significance to geographical locations – Jerusalem is at the center of God’s plan for His final victory.

Seize the moment and hope for the final victory – “Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion” (Revelation 14:1). Pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6-9).

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 Heart of the Father!

Isaiah 1

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, December 13.

Today, we begin a 250-day journey through the seventeen books of the Old Testament prophets. Just like in the New Testament, where you can find the historical context of each of Paul’s thirteen letters in the early church history book of Acts, the backdrop of each of these prophet’s ministries can be found in the history books of the Old Testament. The prophetic books should not be read as stand-alone works, to be taken out of their historical context, but as companion accounts of God’s salvific history. As you go on this journey with the ancient prophets of Israel, may you hear the heart of God the Father anew, for yourself, as He called out to His beloved children, “Come Home – Return to Me!”

A prophet is a person inspired to proclaim or reveal divine will or purpose. They are real people, with real faith, in real history, who, at great personal cost, gave the message as God gave it to them. Isaiah was called the Prince of Prophets, and his book is the largest, covering sixty-six chapters. According to Isaiah 1:1, his ministry was set during dangerous days of destruction, specifically, “during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah” (ref. 2 Kings 15-20 and 2 Chronicles 26-32). In this historical context of religious rebellion, national decline, and international instability, God’s heart was put on center stage, as He cried out to Israel in Isaiah 1:18, “‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool.’”

Seize the moment and may your life proclaim the heart of the Father – “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).

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 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.