Sunday is a special day at Belmont.
Brian Busbee from Calvary Children’s Home will share the ministry of the Home and preach a powerful message from God’s Word.
He is such a dear brother that loves Jesus and loves kids.
Please pray for him as he prepares.
Sunday is about 2 things.
First, it is a time where we as the body of Christ reevaluate our help for the 42 missionaries around the world that we support.
New members are asked to join us in giving by faith to reach the world for Christ.
Previous givers will reevaluate their Faith Promise Giving and obey what God shows them.
There is a place online or on your offering envelope where you may indicate what God has shown you to trust Him for by faith.
We currently give close to $100,000 each year to missions.
We can add new missionaries and increase the support for current missionaries if everyone does his or her share.
Secondly, we receive our Joash Offering which enables us to do special projects throughout the year for needs that arise on the mission field that we can help with.
This offering enables us to not take special offerings during the year.
Each year for the past 11 years during the month of March, we have celebrated The Chest Of Joash.
This experience is a time of exciting “oneness” when families come together to give a very “special” offering as a family unit.
People sacrificially give in this offering and in doing so have captured the heart and attention of God!
Let me share the Biblical context of The Chest of Joash Offering:
The Chest of Joash is a Biblical illustration of a group of people bringing contributions together to repair The House of God.
It is best described in 2 Chronicles 24:1-14.
Joash was a faithful servant of God and reigned in Jerusalem for 40 years, starting at the age of 7.
In an attempt to restore and preserve the House of God in Jerusalem, he placed a treasure chest outside the Temple.
The people of the town gladly brought contributions to the chest regularly.
When full, the chest would be emptied and set back outside the temple.
This was done continually until there was enough money to repair the temple.
This year is our 11th year of celebrating The Chest of Joash at the end of our Mission’s Emphasis Month.
Our prayer is that we would place our hearts on the altar.
God wants to do something for us that cannot be explained any other way but that He did it.
For this to happen we must learn to obey His promptings in our lives.
Thru this process of obedience, the Lord will take us to new levels of freedom.
When we know how to listen and obey, God knows how to bless us with miracles that are far above anything that we can ask or think.
We have asked that everyone seek the Lord in the matter of The Joash Offering.
It is not your Tithe.
It is not your Faith Promise.
This is a sacrificial offering to the Lord that we “sacrifice” for others.
It is the most exhilarating feeling in the world when you place your offering into this chest, knowing that you have obeyed what the Lord told you to give.
Again, every penny goes to help our missionaries with specials projects during the year.
If you are not prepared to give this morning, you may do so any time in the future.
The time has come for the Lord to reveal what He has directed you to do to reach the world through giving.
No pressure
Daily Beats from your Pastor’s Heart:
The message of the Cross is a powerful truth that changed my life incredibly.
For many, many years I sang and meant the old hymn, SEARCH, ME OH GOD.
- Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free. - I praise Thee, Lord, for cleansing me from sin;
Fulfill Thy word and make me pure within;
Fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame;
Grant my desire to magnify Thy name. - Lord, take my life, and make it wholly Thine;
Fill my poor heart with Thy great love divine;
Take all my will, my passion, self and pride;
I now surrender, Lord, in me abide. - O Holy Ghost, revival comes from Thee;
Send a revival, start the work in me;
Thy Word declares Thou wilt supply our need;
For blessings now, O Lord, I humbly plead.
So, imploring God to search me and make me like Christ led me to the understanding of living BY the Cross.
Psa. 91:1 points directly to the cross of Jesus Christ: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
U cannot draw closer to the shadow of God Almighty than when u are hugging the cross.
The Cross’s shadow is the Saint’s home.
The cross is the safest place on earth.
It is the place where the most violent winds will whip ur soul, but also where u will enjoy the greatest immunity from Satan’s devices.
By embracing the cross, u are dying to every mechanism in ur soul that Satan can use against u.
The highest pain produces the highest freedom.
There is no strategy against crucified saints because they do not love their lives even unto death.
We must return to the cross intentionally and continually.
We know that we are crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), but self has an uncanny way of crawling off the cross and asserting itself.
The crucifixion of the self-life is not an achievement but a process: We die daily (1 Cor. 15:31).
As Gethsemane’s garden of prayer prepared Jesus to embrace His cross, the secret place is where we reiterate ur “yes” to the Father to suffer according to His will.
In your daily pilgrimage to the secret place, we wrap ourselves around His rugged tree, gaze upon His wounds, and once again die to ourselves.
We accept the nails in our hands that curtail our freedoms, and we surrender to the nails in our feet that immobilize us and restrict our options.
We allow the suffering of the flesh to cleanse us from sin (1 Peter 4:1).
With dignity, we bear the honor of filling us in our flesh what is yet lacking with regard to the afflictions of Christ (Colossian 1:24).
Many people see the cross as the place of pain and restriction, and that is true.
But it is so much more!
The cross is the place of absolute love.
The cross is the Father saying to the world, “This is how much I love u!”
The cross is the Son saying to the Father, “This is how much I love You!”
And the cross is the bride saying to her Bridegroom, “This is how much I love You!”
The cross is consummate passion poured forth.
When Christ calls us to share His cross, He invites us to the highest intimacy.
The wood that holds His hands now holds our hands.
The nail that binds His feet to the will of God criss-crosses the nail that impales our feet to that same will.
Here we hang, two lovers on opposite sides of one cross, our hearts almost touching except for the separating wood.
This is our marriage bed. “Here I give to Thee my love.”
As you hang with Him here, even though your vision is clouded and you cannot see His face, yet if you listen you will hear His voice.
With seven words He would guide you through this dark night of your soul.
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do” (Luke 23:34).
Jesus begins by showing you the way of forgiveness toward those who have wronged you.
This will be the first great hurdle you must cross, for you have truly been violated.
You have been wounded in the house of your friends (Zechariah 13:6).
But forgiveness is the only way you will move forward into God’s purposes.
“Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).
While your agony is fresh and raw, the Lord assures you that your name is written in heaven, and for this alone you can rejoice.
The assurance of His eternal companionship carries you in this moment.
When Jesus therefore saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing by, He said to His mother, “Woman, behold your son!”
Then He said to the disciple, “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27).
The church (represented by the woman) is actually told by Jesus to look at you in your suffering.
“Behold your son!”
Other believers will look upon you with reproach, misunderstanding, perplexity, and inner judgments.
And then He says to you, “Behold your mother, the church.”
This is a time for you to look at the church and see her as you’ve never seen her before.
You will gain great wisdom in this season if you will behold the church without any root of bitterness in your heart.
What you see now will help you to serve her in times to come.
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matt. 27:46).
You have just endured Jesus’ three hours of silence on the cross, in the darkness.
Now, Jesus directs you to this prayer of dereliction.
You find yourself crying to God from the honest depths of your soul.
You ask all the “why” questions.
Even though you know He is so very close to you, it seems that God has forsaken you.
The highest intimacy is mixed with the deepest abandonment.
You do not understand why the crucible seems interminable.
“I thirst!” (John 19:28).
Rather than cursing God in your darkness, you thirst for Him and long for Him more than ever!
You have come through the crucifixion and you stand at the end of it and say, “I still want You, Lord! You are my very life!”
“It is finished!” (John 19:30).
This is the moment you’ve been longing for, that time when Jesus would indicate that the trial is completed, finished.
The work of God intended in the crucible is finally complete.
“Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit’” (Luke 23:46).
Jesus gently coaches you to abandon yourself completely to the hands of your beloved Father.
As you lay down your life, He takes the profound death that has worked itself in you and transforms it into resurrection life.
You are joined to Christ in His death, His burial, and His resurrection!
Unparalleled affection is reserved for those who share this cross with their Beloved.
This is the secret place.
Here exchanged are the fathomless passions of the Eternal God with His select partner.
“‘Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends’” (John 15:13).
We share in His life, His death, and His resurrection.
“For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection” (Romans 6:5).
They do it all, together.
Nothing can separate these two—neither death nor life nor height nor depth.
Their hearts are forever entwined in the passion story of the universe.
He is hers, and she is His (Song of Solomon 6:3).
This is extravagant love—no length spared, no part withheld—for the cross empowers total abandonment.
Every “yes” of this secret place fuels renewed exchange of exclusive devotion.
Anything for love! Come aside to the desolate hill of crucifixion.
Say “yes” once more.
Feel the cramping; sigh and groan.
Join your suffering Savior.
Drink of His cup, all of it.
And discover the secret of everlasting love in the shadow of the Almighty.
I take, O cross, thy shadow
For my abiding place
I ask no other sunshine than
The sunshine of His face
Content to let the world go by
To know no gain nor loss
My sinful self my only shame
My glory all the cross.
(Elizabeth C. Clephane, Public Domain)
Until Tomorrow,
With A Shepherd’s Love
Pastor
TODAY’S ? LIST:
Amy Garner’s Mother – better – ?
Andria Carter -Ashley’s Sister – ?
Barbara Shed’s Family – ?
Bill Lawhead – ?
Bill Moody -?
Brandy Dean – Ashley’s Sister – ?
Brian Swofford Family -?
Charlie Sessom -Waiting – ?
Cheri/Barry Hill -?
Colby/Connor – Allison’s G’sons-?
Debra Roberts – Please Please ?
Denise Stubbs – Kim Allison’s Mom ?
Don Slate – Angela Bryan’s Dad ?
Doug Fritzel – ?
Emily/Daniel Ford – ?
Hanna Hall ?
James Parsons – Mae’s Brother ?
Joyceann – James Garner’s Daughter ?
Kimberly- Dustin’s Sister- ?
Larry Barker ?
Linda Breedlove’s Sister – Sarah ?
Lisa Land”s Family – ?
Lynn -Nancy Brown’s Daughter – ?
Mary Sims – ?
Michael Stanley – ?
Nancy Brown’s G’Daughter – ?
Nora Allison – Dustin’s Mom
Pastor Stucke- Nikki’s Dad?
Paula Ferus’ Missionary friend ?
Ricky Stubbs – ?
Roseleigh Osborn – ?
Sarah Parker – ?
Sharon Blalock- ?
Shaelyn – Jill’s friend?
Shannon Golden – ?
Sheila Simmons Cousin – ?
Susan Bryan – Mike’s Mom – ?
Susie Grant & Family – ?
Su Rocker – Shingles – ?
Terrell Loyd – ?
Tim McCollum – ?
Todd Bailey – ?
Todd Roberts -?
Tom Witcher -?
Tommy/Gayle Harris- ?
Tracie Ballard -?
Wanda Galanti – ?