Seize the Moment – Day 1110
Today’s modern-day hymn focus will be
Hosanna!
Matthew 21:9(NASB95)
“The crowds going ahead of Him, and those who followed, were shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!”
As we look forward to Palm Sunday tomorrow, we need to prepare our hearts in worship. This hymn was written in 2006 by Brooke Fraser Ligertwood, painting a picture with words of how she saw people worshiping Jesus. Each verse starts as a proclamation of “I see…”, depicting what could be if people allowed God to work in their lives. Just as important, it goes on to demonstrate a heartfelt desire for revival, having the singers cry out for us to be shown how to love and to do everything for the kingdom of God.
Heal my heart and make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me.
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.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
If you would like to listen to this song, click on this link:
Hosanna!
I see the King of glory
Coming on the clouds with fire
The whole earth shakes
The whole earth shakes
I see His love and mercy
Washing over all our sin
The people sing
The people sing
Hosanna Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
Hosanna Hosanna
Hosanna in the highest
I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith
I see a near revival
Stirring as we pray and seek
We’re on our knees
We’re on our knees
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love
Like You have loved me
Everything I am
For Your kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
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Seize the Moment – Day 1109
A Prayer of Acceptance!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, March 31.
God has revealed Himself to His people through both His creation (Psalm 19:1-6) and His Word (Psalm 19:7-11). The heavens proclaim God’s glory, whereas His Word reveals the way to be acceptable in His sight (salvation). Psalm 19:12-14 explains why God has made Himself and His ways known to His people:
Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Your servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I will be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
God desires for His people to respond to the mercy and grace He has extended toward them. He wants to redeem you back to a personal relationship with Himself, so He made a way for you to come to Him. God had to prescribe a way that allows you, a sinful person, to “be acceptable in [His] sight” because He is holy, and you are not – He cannot have anything unholy in His presence. Isaiah 56:7b demonstrates how He did this through sacrifices, “Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”
While God no longer requires animal sacrifices for you to be acceptable in His sight, He has invited “all the peoples” to put their faith in the final atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for their acceptance. Paul explains in Romans 12:1, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 19, meditating upon God’s means of grace given to you through the shed blood of Jesus Christ – offer yourself as a sacrifice to God and you will be accepted (Galatians 2:20).
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.
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Seize the Moment – Day 1108
Thank God for Salvation!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, March 30.
Psalm 18 is a song of thanksgiving, from which we learn how to thank God for our salvation. Psalm 18:1-3 begins with David’s celebration of God’s victory over his enemies:
I love You, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 18, meditating upon your thankfulness to God for sending His Son Jesus Christ to save you – “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5).
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 1107
The Call for Divine Protection!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, March 29.
Who do you turn to when you come under attack? David needed God’s protection from his enemies. In Psalm 17:12, he made this familiar comparison, “[My enemy] is like a lion that is eager to tear, and as a young lion lurking in hiding places.” Peter made a similar comparison to the true enemy of our souls, in 1 Peter 5:8, “Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” How did David respond to the enemy? He called to God for divine protection in Psalm 17:7-8 and 15:
Wondrously show Your lovingkindness, O Savior of those who take refuge at Your right hand from those who rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings. … As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness; I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake.
You can follow David’s example by calling to God according to James 4:7, “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” People want the authority to rebuke the devil, or the power to defeat their enemies – they want the benefits of God, but are they willing to meet the requirements of God for His divine protection? You must submit to God before you will find refuge at His right hand. The surest protection you have from a prowling lion is to find a safe place where it can’t get to you. There is no safer place than in a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ – take refuge from your enemies by submitting your life to God’s authority! God is your Savior, seek Him first (Matthew 6:33)!
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 17, meditating upon where you are finding your security in this life. Submit to God and find refuge at His right hand.
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 1106
Pray with Faith!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, March 28.
David was a man of great faith! Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Truly, this is what we see David exercising in Psalm 16, as evidenced by verses 8-11:
I have set the Lord continually before me; because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; my flesh also will dwell securely. For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.
The emphasis of David’s prayer is his faith in the power of God. He declared that the Lord is with him, and because of God’s presence, he will be shown the path of life, receive fullness of joy, and experience pleasures forever. David had confidence in God’s ability to keep His promise from 2 Samuel 7:16, “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be established forever.”
David trusted God for the resurrection! His faith proclamation was quoted by Paul in Acts 13:34-35, “As for the fact that He raised Him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, He has spoken in this way: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David.’ Therefore He also says in another Psalm, ‘You will not allow your Holy One to undergo decay.’” David believed in God’s power to raise the dead a thousand years before the resurrection of Jesus Christ!
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 16, meditating upon the security of God’s covenant promise of the resurrection – “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” (John 11:25-26). Pray with faith!
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 1105
A Prayer of Abiding!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 27.
It is important to spend time with the people you love. Relationships require an investment of time together, that includes your relationship with God. My morning coffee time with Jesus is my favorite, and most important, time of the day; it’s when I hear the invitation to be with Him, just as He invited His disciples in Mark 6:31, “Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while.” I need this time with Jesus every day!
David began Psalm 15 with a question, “O Lord, who may abide in Your tent? Who may dwell on Your holy hill?” (1). David answered his own question with six couplets that demonstrate how abiding in a relationship with God positively impacts a person’s character, in speech, conduct, values, integrity, and finances. He concluded in Psalm 15:5, “He who does these things will never be shaken.” When you abide with God, spend time with Him, then you will be like a wise man who built his house on a rock (Matthew 7:24-27).
This psalm gets to the heart of our relationship with God. We are justified by the finished work of Jesus Christ, through faith in His life, death, and resurrection. Apart from faith, we cannot abide in God, nevertheless be able to bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). Yet, once we believe, the regenerative presence of the Holy Spirit causes us to become more than we could have been apart from Him, and He manifests the good fruit of righteousness in our lives, just as David taught in Psalm 15.
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 15, meditating upon the invitation of Jesus Christ to spend time with Him – “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” (John 15:5).
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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Grow Strong in God’s Grace Wk 7
Learning How to be a Faithful Farmer for God’s Harvest!
Reap a Harvest: The Fourth Step of the Farmer’s Strategy!
Matthew 9:37-38; John 4:34-38; 1 Corinthians 9:7-11; Galatians 6:7-9 (NAS95)
We are learning that the strategy of a hard-working farmer has four steps, each of which the faithful farmer must diligently work, if the farmer hopes to harvest a large crop yield:
- Cultivate the soil.
- Sow the good seed.
- Care for the maturing plant.
- Reap a harvest.
The fourth step of the faithful farmer’s strategy is the heart’s desire of all hardworking farmers – the reaping of the harvest! As farmer’s cultivate the soil, they do so in preparation of sowing good seed. They sow good seed into the ground so that it will grow into the intended plant they have planted. Their expectation is the same as that of Jesus’ claim from Matthew 7:16, “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?” Farmers cultivate the soil and plant good seeds in expectation of having good crop yields of that which they planted.
To bring about the harvest, the farmers care for the maturing plant as it buds out of the ground. A farmer that uses the wrong kind of fertilizers, or provides too much or too little water, or doesn’t protect their crops from animals or insects, will find an otherwise healthy crop not producing as the farmer expected. Never forget that farming doesn’t feed just the farmer’s family, it feeds the whole world! We all would be concerned by a farmer that would feed the world with a crop he wouldn’t first feed to his own family. As 2 Timothy 2:6, our theme verse for this sermon series demonstrates, “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.” Paul communicated to the church in Corinth a similar message, in 1 Corinthians 9:7-11:
Who at any time serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat the fruit of it? Or who tends a flock and does not use the milk of the flock? I am not speaking these things according to human judgment, am I? Or does not the Law also say these things? For it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle the ox while he is threshing.” God is not concerned about oxen, is He? Or is He speaking altogether for our sake? Yes, for our sake it was written, because the plowman ought to plow in hope, and the thresher to thresh in hope of sharing the crops. If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?
There was a man who went out to change the world. After years of travel and great effort, he came to the realization that if he wanted to change the world, then he needed to start with his own nation. Upon seeking the welfare of his nation, he came to realize that if he wanted to change his nation he had to return to his own state. After great effort, he understood that if he wanted to change his state he had to start in his own community. Then after many years, he had the clarity that if he was to change the community he needed to start with his family. Finally, in his advanced years, with great wisdom and life experience, he had the epiphany that if you are going to change anything, then you first must be transformed yourself. The problem he saw with the world, with the nation, with his community, with his family, was his own and he could not bring thriving to the community until he was first transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ Himself.
This story captures our church’s mission and vision statements: We exist to transform stories through the gospel of Jesus Christ (mission). As the Spirit does this work in us through the good seed of God’s Word, we will see our communities thriving to the glory of God (vision). In other words, when you are blessed, you will become a blessing to others and that will bring flourishing (thriving) to our communities then to the region, nation, and nations. It is the Spirit of God who catches the good seed that is multiplied through the harvest of fruit bearing in your life which spreads it to the ends of the world as you go wherever and whenever God calls. This is the mission of God, and this is how we participate in the harvest work of God – it is the work of the Spirit to first transform us through the renewal of the mind so that others will come to life through the passing on of the good seed, from field to field, worker to worker.
What is it I hope to reap from this sermon series as I pray in the Spirit over each of these messages and over you who will receive the good seed of God’s Word? C. H. Spurgeon preached in 1871, “Preaching is sowing, prayer is watering, but praise is the harvest.”[1] It is my desire to see First Baptist Church of New Castle, Indiana witness a large crop yield of praise to the glory of God! That we will be an epicenter of revival throughout our region, into our nation, and to the nations. Until all worship, let us continue to be faithful to the Lord of the Harvest and respond to His call upon our lives to be hard-working farmers!
Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 9:37-38, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.” Again, in John 4:34-38, Jesus said to them:
My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, “There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest”? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true, “One sows and another reaps.” I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.
Like last week, I want to pull from a farmer’s experience to help us understand how we are to respond to the call of Jesus from these two passages because there is a very important concept here that is the whole point of this sermon series, which is called, “Grow Strong in God’s Grace.” Penny shared with me, “farmers need to maintain their equipment, faithfully. Otherwise, their work is doubled, their harvest reduced.” If you are going to answer Jesus’ call, then you must “maintain” the spiritual equipment of a hardworking farmer who seeks to produce a larger crop yield. As I have already taught you in a previous sermon, this is done by abiding in the vine (John 15:1-8) and taking on the easy yoke of Jesus (Matthew 11:28-30). Growing strong in God’s grace is all about absolute submission to Jesus Christ so that the Holy Spirit can flow into our lives. I’ve already taught you this in one of the earlier messages of this new sermon series, but like it has been pointed out to me after last week’s sermon, I need to remind you of this every week, so that no one thinks they can do this by their own power.
Harvest workers must “go” in God’s grace through prayer and by the power of the Holy Spirit. As we learn from Jesus about the harvest from Acts 1:7-8, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” Missionary Elizabeth Elliot said, “Don’t dig up in doubt what you planted in faith.”[2] As you go into the harvest fields, go with faith in God and trust His Holy Spirit to do the work in and through you. Never forget how Jesus called His disciples in Mark 1:17, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men.” Jesus promised that if they followed Him, the Spirit would transform them into Harvest workers. It is the same thing He promised using vineyard imagery in John 15:5, “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.” This is the language of growing strong in God’s grace! We are to go as Paul went – by the power of God’s Spirit! Just as Paul exhorted us and testified to in Ephesians 6:18-20:
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.
Furthermore, Paul testified to this truth in 1 Corinthians 15:1-10:
Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.
There are so many more passages to support this harvest reality; Reaping a harvest is dependent on God’s grace – the work of the Spirit. Here’s one more, Paul said in Galatians 6:7-9:
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.
Jim G. told me a story after service that illustrates this point. He used to work in a farm store and one day a man came in with a problem. He had accidently used a ground sterilizer instead of a ground fertilizer. [cue the audible groan] The biggest problem was that he had good intentions when he did so, because he not only sprayed his own property, but he sprayed his neighbor property, too. [cue an even louder audible groan] He was trying to be a good neighbor, following the words of Jesus to love your neighbor as yourself. I believe this a metaphor for our fleshly efforts, when we use worldly wisdom, to try to reap a harvest. As you’ve heard me say before if this is how you are going to love yourself then please don’t love me – I would hate for someone to hurt me when they thought they were loving me well. Can you imagine how that neighbor reacted to his neighbor’s love? I the same way that the world has reacted to an infighting, backbiting, fleshly church. They see us, then hear that we are followers of Jesus and say things like, “If this is the Jesus you represent, then no thank you!” To finish the story, Jim told me that to make things right with his neighbor the man had to remove 3 inches of earth from under the sod line because the ground sterilizer he thought was ground fertilizer got into the roots. Church, let’s not do damage to the soil and make the work of harvesting harder for future workers.
Unfortunately, this is a modern-day parable of the work the church of Jesus Christ needs to do in America today. Our witness to Christ, so often done in the flesh and motivated by a spirit of religion, motivated by ambition and ego, and not through prayer empowered by the Holy Spirit for the glory of God, has done more damage than good. Now we must do what the well-meaning man in the above story had to do. We must patiently, lovingly, and prayerfully cultivate the soil, removing the poison from the ground caused by worship wars and denominational wars so that the good seed can bear fruit in its time. We must not grow weary in doing good!
We need to learn from the example of the first great missionary of the church, the Apostle Paul, how we are to do the harvest work. In 1 Corinthians 3:5-7 Paul explained:
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth.
Amen! It is like the modern-day parable I shared last week. We are to share our award-winning corn with our neighbors because the wind (the Spirit) will take the good seed from our harvest field and pollinate our neighbor’s field. We are in this together as the body of Christ – we are many members working together as one body to the glory of God. May the Spirt of God empower us to the glory of God!
You can listen to the message by clicking below:
You can watch the message by clicking HERE.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] C. H. Spurgeon, “The Joy of the Lord, the Strength of His People,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 17 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1871), 717.
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Seize the Moment – Day 1103
Today’s hymn focus will be
Lead Me To Calvary
1 Corinthians 2:2 (NASB95)
“For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”
Many of the gospel songs of the nineteenth century were focused upon the cross and specifically Calvary, which remained central to the evangelicals even into the mid-twentieth century. Today’s hymn was written by New England Quaker Jennie Evelyn Hussey and was published in 1921. She created a compelling and memorable refrain with direct and evocative language and had a singable and easily learned melody to help solidify the theme in the singer’s mind and heart.
Lest I forget Gethsemane; Lest I forget Thine agony.
Lest I forget Thy love for me, lead me to Calvary
Jennie lived a selfless life, caring for an invalid sister, never complaining while serving her with love as Christ would have done.
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.
Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.
You can listen to this hymn by clicking on the link below:
Lead Me to Calvary
King of my life I crown thee now —
Thine shall the glory be;
Lest I forget thy thorn-crowned brow,
Lead me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget thine agony,
Lest I forget thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.
Show me the tomb where thou wast laid,
Tenderly mourned and wept;
Angels in robes of light arrayed
Guarded thee whilst thou slept.
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget thine agony,
Lest I forget thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.
Let me like Mary, thru the gloom,
Come with a gift to thee;
Show to me now the empty tomb —
Lead me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget thine agony,
Lest I forget thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.
May I be willing, Lord, to bear
Daily my cross for thee;
Even thy cup of grief to share —
Thou hast borne all for me.
Lest I forget Gethsemane,
Lest I forget thine agony,
Lest I forget thy love for me,
Lead me to Calvary.
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Seize the Moment – Day 1102
Change the Altitude of your Attitude!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, March 24.
Perspective matters! The vista from which you are looking at life shapes your attitude. You will either see life from the perspective of Earth and what has already happened to you, and you will be chained to your past. Or you will see life from the viewpoint of Heaven and what has been promised to you by God, and you will “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).
Live in the hope of your salvation, and not out of the regrets of your depravation. Psalm 14:2-3 provides a sobering perspective on our shared humanity, “The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.” Every person has the same starting point in life – an earthly one! It doesn’t matter to what family or in what country you were born, whether you are male or female, or if you are rich or poor. Paul explained in Romans 3:22-23, “for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (cf. Philippians 2:1-3).
But God! There is hope through the free gift of God in Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23)! We live as more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus when we change the altitude of our attitude! David concluded his prayer in Psalm 14:7, focusing on the hope of God’s promise, “When the Lord restores His captive people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.” He kept his eyes on what was to come, not on what lay behind.
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 14, meditating upon the victory of Jesus Christ! Pray with perspective. Change the altitude of your attitude and you will persevere unto the end.
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 1101
Praying for the Presence!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, March 23.
When someone is going through a difficult time in their lives, whether it is an extended illness, a discouraging work situation, a challenging family crisis, or even their own dark night of the soul, I point them to the promise of Jesus in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” I then pray for the presence of God to be manifested in the person’s life, that God would reveal Himself in a tangible way, so that the person can know God is there. God does not abandon His people in their time of need.
Feelings of abandonment are a deep reality for many people in times of struggle. David experienced these real human emotions, and expressed his angst to God in Psalm 13:1-2, “How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?”
David was expressing the deepest longing of every human heart – to experience unceasing union with God. The critical moment of Psalm 13 happens in verse 3, when David asked God to turn towards him, “Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death.” See me. Help me. I need You. David was asking God to make His face to shine upon Him and to lift His countenance upon Him (Numbers 6:24-26). When you find yourself struggling, cry out to Jesus who promises in John 14:18 to give you God’s unceasing presence through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
Seize the moment and pray Psalm 13, meditating upon the miracle of Jesus’ promised presence in your life. You are never alone because God is “with you always”!
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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