Seize the Moment – Day 638
Tell God’s Story on the Holidays!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, December 15.
What are the stories that define you as a part of a larger group of people to which you belong? Within our American culture, we commemorate Thanksgiving and Memorial Day. Additionally, as Christians, we celebrate Christmas and Easter. We are shaped by the stories we tell on these days!
Deuteronomy, like Exodus and Numbers, teaches the importance of the feasts, with Deuteronomy 16 prescribing, once again, the three pilgrimage feasts. Listen to verses 16-17:
Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses, at the Feast of Unleavened Bread and at the Feast of Weeks and at the Feast of Booths, and they shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. Every man shall give as he is able, according to the blessing of the Lord your God which He has given you.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread, in conjunction with the Passover, commemorates the exodus when God delivered His people from Egyptian slavery. The Feast of Weeks, also known as the Feast of Harvest or Pentecost, happens seven weeks after Passover, and not only celebrates the grain harvest, but has come to remember the receiving of the Law at Mount Sinai and the people’s entrance into the Promised Land. The Feast of Booths, or Tabernacles, memorializes Israel’s forty years of wilderness wanderings.
These national festivals required the nation to come together, and for the men of each family to bring a tribute. Like Christmas and Easter are designed to do, these festivals anchored the Israelite people in their common heritage and shared faith. By retelling the miraculous stories of God’s direct activity in history, our corporate identity becomes deeply rooted in our shared faith.
Seize the moment and tell the God story in our holidays! Children, families, and communities are shaped by the stories we tell at the holidays we celebrate!
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Seize the Moment – Day 637
Care of the Poor!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, December 14.
When different congregations come together as the one Church of Jesus Christ it is usually for the sake of children or the elderly, or for the care of the poor and hungry. Until God completes all things on Earth as it is in Heaven, congregations agree that the poor will be amongst us (Matthew 26:11) and we must do something to care for them, even if we can’t agree on how to alleviate their plight in a more sustainable way.
Deuteronomy 15 is the retelling of the Law for the Sabbath Year, or Sabbatical, which was to occur every seventh year for the sake of the poor and hungry. It was not only a time to let the land rest (Exodus 23:10-11), but to also cancel debts (Deuteronomy 15:2-11), and free indentured servants and slaves (12-18). Just like the Sabbath, which occurred once per week, the Sabbatical was a proclamation of God’s rescue from slavery. This was to be a blessing to all, while overtly a benefit to the poor and hungry in their midst, as we see in verses 10-11:
You shall generously give to him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him, because for this thing the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in all your undertakings. For the poor will never cease to be in the land; therefore I command you, saying, “You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor in your land.”
God’s justice is deeply connected to the care of the widow and the orphan, the poor and the oppressed, the sick and the hungry. God loves you and wants to bless you; therefore, God wants you to join with Him in caring for those who can’t care for themselves.
Seize the moment and open your hand to the needy and the poor. Be God’s hands during this Christmas season.
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Seize the Moment – Day 636
A Parent’s Desire!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, December 13.
“If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?”
There is a good chance that you have said it, or it’s been said to you! This is a classic parenting question to teach your children to think for themselves and not go along with the crowd. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Bad company corrupts good morals.” Parents care about who influences their children!
God desires for His children to bring honor to the family name, so He set them apart! Verse 2 declares, “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God.” The struggle is that kids, so often, just want to fit in with their friends, and that is when parents step in and ask ridiculous questions about jumping off bridges!
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Advent 2021 Special Presentation – Week 3
From the Streets of Bethlehem
From the Streets of Bethlehem
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Seize the Moment – Day 634
Today’s Advent hymn focus will be
Go, Tell It on the Mountain
John W. Work II is accredited for helping to make this traditional spiritual become a Christmas favorite. He was leading the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a college vocal ensemble that was sent out to raise funds for the struggling Fisk University. At first, the college students were reluctant to sing this and many other spirituals because they represented slavery and the dark past that they wanted to forget. But they soon recognized them for their sacredness and the religious worship that was a part of their parents’ lives. Through the encouragement of the University’s treasurer, they began to sing the spirituals in their concerts.
Go, tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain, that Jesus Christ is born.
We need to wake up and realize that we need to recognize that our history is not what determines our future. When we accept Jesus into our lives and make Him Lord of all, we are new creations that are called to proclaim His message to a world in need of hope, love, joy and peace.
YOUTUBE:
Go, Tell it on the Mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born
O’er silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a Holy light
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born
When, lo! Above the Earth
Rang out the angel chorus
That hailed our Savior’s birth
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born
Our humble Christ was born
And brought us all salvation
Over the hills and everywhere
That Jesus Christ is born
That Jesus Christ is born
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Seize the Moment – Day 633
Life of Devotion!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, December 10.
As an athlete, I know what it is to live a life of devotion! As an All-American collegiate athlete, and when I was training for the 2000 Olympics, I was devoted to my sport! The danger with such a hyper-focus on sport, or anything, is that it shapes you. God designed us, on purpose, to be formed by that which we give our devotion, which was meant to be Him alone! Therefore, I echo John, known for his passionate exposition of God’s love, with these words from 1 John 5:21, “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.”
The emphasis of Deuteronomy 13 is to protect the next generation from the dangers of idol worship! Three times, God commanded His people to put to death any person that tried to “seduce” their hearts away from Him:
1) A prophet or a dreamer of dreams (1-5).
2) A close family member, such as parent, child, or spouse (6-11).
3) The inhabitants of one of their cities (12-18).
God’s solution to idolatry is a life of devotion to Him! That which seeks to seduce you from God needs to be removed, whether or a person or a thing. God takes idolatry, and the false worship that arises from it, seriously because we are all susceptible to it. John Calvin explained, “The human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.”[1]
God bless you!
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997), I.11.8.
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Seize the Moment – Day 632
Worship Habits!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, December 9.
Have you ever had to change a long-established habit?
For athletes, it’s one thing to learn a new skill, it is all together another thing to break a bad habit.
In Deuteronomy 12:4-5, 8, Moses made it clear that God was going to be breaking some bad habits of worship, by establishing one central place of worship in the Promised Land:
You shall not act like this toward the Lord your God. But you shall seek the Lord at the place which the Lord your God will choose from all your tribes, to establish His name there for His dwelling, and there you shall come. … You shall not do at all what we are doing here today, every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes.
I can almost hear the people’s response to Moses, “But we’ve always done it this way!”
The people of God were surrounded by the Canaanites who worshipped God in high places and on altars set about wherever they wanted. These were the worship practices of the ancient near eastern civilizations. God, like a good coach, was announcing to His athletes that it was time to break some bad habits!
Did you know that Jesus made the same kind of announcement when He came to bring all the nations back to God?
In response to a Samaritan woman’s direct question about worship practices, Jesus replied in John 4:23-24 that it was no longer about being at a right location, but about having a sincere heart: “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
Seize the moment and worship God with a sincere heart! Wherever and whenever you worship God, do so full of spirit and truth!
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Seize the Moment – Day 631
The Choice!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, December 8.
The Bible calls every person who reads it to make the choice!
Moses introduced a phrase in Deuteronomy 11, which we will hear again in chapter 30 of his “second giving” of the Law: “I am setting before you a blessing and a curse.” This is the choice that every single person must make after being confronted with the Word of God—to believe or not to believe, to submit or not to submit, to live by faith or by sight. Moses contrasted the choice in verses 26-28:
See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.
Every generation must be confronted with the choice! Moses’ successor, Joshua, had to do the same thing with the Israelites near the end of his life before he transitioned leadership to the elders. Listen to Joshua’s famous words in Joshua 24:15:
If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
In the same way that Moses and Joshua called for the choice, so did Jesus Christ in His ministry, as in Luke 11:28, “blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (cf. Matthew 7:24-27; John 14:15).
Seize the moment and build your life upon the rock of faith in Jesus Christ. Choose this day whom you will serve!
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Seize the Moment – Day 630
From the Inside Out!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, December 7.
A way to rebel against a leader is to do exactly what they tell you to do. There is a significant difference between following the letter of the law and walking in the heart and intent of the commandments of God. A great rebellion is already happening if we are following with our actions but aren’t trusting in our hearts!
God desires to have your whole heart—the transformation of your life through the renewal of your mind. God wants His people to follow Him with all their heart, mind, body, and soul. Moses began the conclusion of his first sermon in the “second giving” of the Law with these words in Deuteronomy 10:12-16:
Now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require from you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the Lord’s commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good? … So circumcise your heart and stiffen your neck no longer.
Circumcision was the outward sign of the covenant, as commanded to Abraham in Genesis 17:9-14. Moses’ words “circumcise your heart” is a call for inward conformity to God’s ways and not just outward obedience! Paul prays this for us in Ephesians 3:16, “that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man.” The circumcision of your heart is only possible through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit! It is God’s work in you, from the inside-out!
Seize the moment and walk in a daily intimate relationship with Jesus that conforms you to His character and submits you to His will.
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Seize the Moment – Day 629
Faithful in Rebellion!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, December 6.
As a parent of three children, I care deeply that my children develop the character quality of faithfulness. I model faithfulness to my children by the way I love Jesus and serve His Church, as well as by the way I love and serve my wife and family. When I see rebellion in my children, I don’t reject them for it; rather, in love, I discipline them! Rebellion will fester in their hearts and destroy their lives if I don’t address it directly.
Moses’ greatest fear for Israel was that they would rebel against God after His death, and this motivated his “second giving” of the Law as given to us in Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 31:26-27). For over forty years, Moses had to deal constantly with the people’s rebellion against God. He used the Hebrew word for rebelling eight times in Deuteronomy, with three of those times in this chapter. Listen to Deuteronomy 9:23-24 as Moses addresses the people’s rebellion directly:
When the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, “Go up and possess the land which I have given you,” then you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God; you neither believed Him nor listened to His voice. You have been rebellious against the Lord from the day I knew you (cf. 9:7-8).
Seize the moment and be faithful to God in the face of rebellion. It can feel very lonely to be faithful, but have faith, you are never alone—God is with you! Your faithfulness is the evidence of Jesus’ victory!
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