H _ _ _ _: H is for Hope!

PSALM 25:5 (NLT)                         

“Lead me by your truth and teach me,
for you are the God who saves me.
All day long I put my hope in you.”

One of my favorite hymns has the line “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.” Hope is more than just wishful thinking. It is a demonstration of our faith and trust  that it will be done. Doubt and fear are the nemesis of hope and are the tools that the devil uses to cause us to stumble or even waiver in in our Christian faith.

But hope has a name, and that name is Jesus. As I told the church yesterday in the message, we are to cast all those cares, doubts and fears at Jesus’ feet and KNOW that He will be taking care of it. When we pray, we ask and place our hope, faith and trust in the God who is able to all things.

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Today’s hymn focus will be

“I Will Serve Thee”

Psalm 100:2(NASV95)

“Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before Him with joyful singing.

Today’s song has been published in several different hymnals but is truly a gospel song written by Bill & Gloria Gaither in 1969. They wrote it during a time in their lives where they had to make a decision to either keep teaching in the public school system or step out in faith to travel full time as a gospel trio with Bill’s brother, Danny, known as the Gaither Trio. The beautiful harmonies of this song help you to hear their hearts as they placed their full trust in Jesus. While they knew it would never be easy, they knew that He was their source of life!

I will serve Thee, because I love Thee You have given life to me

I was nothing before You found me, You have given life to me

We need to wake up with this same attitude. We are serving Jesus, not because of what He will do for us, but rather because of what He has done! He gave His all for us, and all He asks in return is that we love Him and serve Him with everything we’ve got.

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I Will Serve Thee

You have given life to me

I was nothing before You found me

You have given life to me

Heartaches, broken pieces

Ruined lives are why You died on Calvary

Your touch was what I longed for

You have given life to me

S E R V E: E is for Encourage

The next letter for the acrostic is E for Encourage. 

1 Thessalonians 5:11 (NLT)          

“ So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing.”

Let’s face it. In this day and age, we all could use some encouragement! We are discouraged by the economy, the political atmosphere, and even by how quickly we get our food either in the drive-thru or in the restaurant. It just sets our mood and our outlook on everything.

But then we see a video of a young boy singing “O, How I Love Jesus” with such joy that we are encouraged to see there is hope out there. Paul was writing to the people of Thessalonica, telling them they are doing all the right things and they need to stay focused on the truth and be clearheaded. They need to encourage one another until Jesus returns.

Seize the day and be encouragers of one another, sharing the HOPE, JOY and LOVE of the Lord with our fellow believers, and with a world that is desperately looking for that!

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S E R V _ : V is for Vow!

The next letter for the acrostic is V for VOW. 

Matthew 5:37(NLT)           

Just say a simple, ‘Yes, I will,’ or ‘No, I won’t.’ 

— Anything beyond this is from the evil one.

A vow is defined as a noun to be “a solemn promise” and as a verb to be “a solemn promise to a specific thing”. At a wedding, a couple does both the noun and the verb when they repeat their vows of commitment to each other. All throughout the Old Testament, we are told that a vow is not to be broken. And then in the New Testament, Jesus spoke to the crowd in His sermon on the mount to not make a vow, but rather let your yes be yes or your no be no.

Is this a contradiction? NO! The concept of the vow, a solemn promise, had been stretched, muddied, modified so much that it had become a contradiction to itself. When someone makes you a promise to do something, then they should show up. When they don’t, the response you normally will hear is “Oh, sorry. I forgot” or “Something else came up and I couldn’t make it.” This is not who we are to be as Christians.

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S E R _ _ : R is for Respect!

The next letter for the acrostic is R for Respect. 

“Respect everyone, and love the family of believers.

 Fear God, and respect the king.”

RESPECT! The soulful voice of Aretha Franklin cried out that she just wanted a little bit! The world tells you that you have to earn it by doing things for them. But the Bible is very clear for the believer…we are to respect everyone, or as the NASB version says “Honor all people”,  including those in authority over us.

WHAT?!? Have you seen the way they treated me or heard what they said to me? I know it doesn’t sound fair, but look at what Peter went on to say…

“You who are slaves must submit to your masters with all respect.  Do what they tell you—not only if they are kind and reasonable, but even if they are cruel.  For God is pleased when, conscious of his will, you patiently endure unjust treatment.” (vs 18-19).

As a believer, we are called to be servants of the Lord. If we measure everything with love and respect before we speak, we may find that our world will be a place filled with joy and peace.

Seize the moment today by looking for opportunities to show respect…for God in how you live your life; through your love for you family, both flesh and blood and the church, as you care for them; and others as you love them as God first loved you, even when they don’t deserve it. This is what keeps the joy of the Lord flowing in your lives.

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S E — — —: E is for Effort

The Christian walk requires an effort on our behalf. While there is nothing that we can do to earn our salvation, we must make the effort to do our best to be our best by allowing the Holy Spirit to lead and guide our lives. We make the choice to accept or reject His leading, thus it demonstrates our level of effort.

Effort is defined as the “the conscious exertion of power; a serious attempt; the total work done to achieve a particular end.”* We make the choice and the effort to surrender. We make the choice and the effort to follow God. We know that love is an action verb, and we are told to “Love the Lord with all our heart, mind and strength, and to Love our neighbors as ourselves.” So we must make the choice and apply the effort to love God and others, even those that make it difficult for us to do so. And Peter reminds us that we are to make every effort to be right with God.

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S _ _ _ _ : “S” is for Surrender

I Corinthians 13:3 (NASV95)

“And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”

Many time, the word surrender carries a negative connotation. When in a battle, when you surrender you have given up and declared defeat. 

But for a Christian, it carries a positive connotation. When we surrender our lives to Christ, we trade in all the strife, cares and worries of how we are going to make it, to find the promise of peace, joy and contentment in this life, knowing that He is taking care of everything. 

We are not promised that we will not be faced with difficult times, but He did promise that He would be with us every step of the way. This past year has had some difficult situations in my life, but I found that when I fully surrendered those things into His very capable hands, that the joy came through the tears, knowing that He was at work.

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Are You Washed in the Blood?

First published in 1878, this hymn was written by Elisha Hoffman. He was a minister in the Evangelical Church. He is also known for writing “I Must Tell Jesus”, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”, and “Glory to His Name”. It is both a call for salvation and a song that enumerates some of the many blessings of being washed in the blood.

​Are you washed in the blood, in the soul cleansing blood of the Lamb

​Are your garments spotless, are they white as snow

​Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb

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Pray at the Crossroads!

2 Kings 18

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, July 28. 

Have you ever come to a crossroads and didn’t know what to do?

Every nation will come to the crossroads of their own history, and we need leaders who know what to do. God raises up leaders “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). King Hezekiah of Judah was such a leader, as we read in 2 Kings 18:5-7:

He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel; so that after him there was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor among those who were before him. For he clung to the Lord; he did not depart from following Him, but kept His commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses. And the Lord was with him; wherever he went he prospered. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him.

Hezekiah was a political leader who secured independence from Assyria, and he was a religious reformer who rescued the people of Judah from the false worship of his predecessors. His story is expanded in 2 Chronicles 29-32 and Isaiah 36-39. Hezekiah is one of the most celebrated kings in the Bible because he stood firm in his faith at the crossroads of Israel’s history with the Assyrian Empire rampaging the region, including destroying the northern ten tribes. Hezekiah preserved Jerusalem for future generations, while also calling the people back to covenant faithfulness. 

I am praying for God to raise up leaders for such a time as this, today. We need political leaders who will secure our independence against evil, and we need religious reformers who will rescue the Church from the false worship of our predecessors. God did that for Judah in the one man of Hezekiah, He will do it again in our land when we cry out to Him in repentance (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Seize the moment and pray that God will raise up leaders in today’s crossroads of history (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

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Heed God’s Warnings!

2 Kings 17

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, July 27.

What is God warning you about in your own life? Are you listening?

The sons of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them until the Lord removed Israel from His sight, as He spoke through all His servants the prophets. So Israel was carried away into exile from their own land to Assyria until this day.

God had been actively working to bring His people to repentance for generations. God was “slow to anger,” but they would not listen. They were stubborn and stiff-necked people. They were reminded of these warnings in 2 Kings 17:13-14:

Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah through all His prophets and every seer, saying, “Turn from your evil ways and keep My commandments, My statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you through My servants the prophets.” However, they did not listen, but stiffened their neck like their fathers, who did not believe in the Lord their God.

God is still speaking to His people today through His Word and through faithful men and women who teach and preach God’s Word. He speaks to get our attention and to return us to Him in covenant faithfulness. Are you listening?

Seize the moment and respond to God’s grace by repenting of your sin while there is still time (Hebrews 12:12-17).

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