Jesus

What’s Right with Contemporary Worship – Remembering the Blood

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments 
The Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it.”
1 Corinthians 11:23b-25 NLT

Every hymn has an audience in mind. For example, “Holy Holy Holy” sings to God, while “Amazing Grace” addresses the church. Some hymns invite us to the altar, others offer comfort. Some rejoice in the promises of God while others teach us to weep over sins. God loves to use different expressions of worship to reveal Himself at different times, in different ways to different people. The most important aspect of our worship is that God should be glorified. In today’s song, “Thank You Jesus for The Blood” by Charity Gayle, her lyrics remind us of the primary focus of the Gospel: The Blood of Jesus Christ.

No one loves singing the old hymns more than I do. Some weeks I get to sing them for several small meetings at various nursing homes in our community. Some of their favorites are, Love Lifted Me”, “Mansion Over the Hilltop” and “In the Garden.’ While all of those are wonderful songs, none of them is more Biblically focused than today’s song. Even, “Amazing Grace” doesn’t mention God till verse four and “Holy Holy Holy” gives no mention of the cross. In His final meal on earth, Jesus commanded us to remember His coming sacrifice by breaking bread and drinking from the cup, which represent His Body and Blood given for us. What greater words can we sing than those of today’s song that tell of God’s greatest gift of love to us!

Thank you Jesus for the blood applied
Thank you Jesus it has washed me white
Thank You Jesus You have saved my life
Brought me from the darkness
Into glorious light!

The Second Mile

/ pastorpete51 / 4 Comments


And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Matthew 5:41 ESV

After the first mile that He traveled
He rested on the hay
Where Mary gently laid Him
At the ending of the day

As a carpenter of Nazareth
Ordinary like them all
No one knew that He was waiting
On His Holy Father’s call

To walk a second mile
Ending nothing like the first
Where nails and thorns would pierce Him
While soldiers did their worst

Till His suffering would finish
And friends laid Him in a cave
Not knowing His second mile would start
When He rose up from the grave!

The Second Mile by Peter Caligiuri
Copyright © 2025 All rights reserved



The Most Important Person in the Room

/ pastorpete51 / 3 Comments 
 But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her.” 
Luke 10:40-42

This well-loved passage has many of us chuckling, as we consider ourselves a bit more like a Martha than a Mary. But our fondness for the story may cause us to miss the reason Luke included it. He alone could have recalled from firsthand experience as he accompanied Paul, how a life of service could be thrown off track by busyness. Martha was in many ways a lot like Paul. She loved Jesus with all her heart and didn’t care what anyone else thought about her faith. Remember it was Martha who invited Jesus over in the first place. Yet somewhere in the middle of her determination to serve Jesus, Martha began to lose focus. With her house filled with disciples, servants and even a few curious neighbors, she forgot that the whole occasion was supposed to be about Jesus. In the midst of our serving, sometimes you and I, like Martha, also forget who the most important person in the house is!

There are other times we get caught in the “service trap”, because of the expectations of others. As Pastor Rick Warren once famously said, “God loves you, and everyone else has a wonderful plan for your life!” We mean to take time for prayer and reading God’s word, but the phone rings, a text message grabs our attention, or we decide to check our Facebook page, just one more time. Little by little our day is eaten away by distractions, and the Holy Spirit’s voice is drowned out by the banging of our own pots and pans. With our hours consumed by serving, it is easy to miss out on taking time for the only one who really knows what we should do.

Last of all, while Martha asked for Jesus to pay attention to her needs and feelings, Mary just sat at HIs feet, with her eyes on Him. When we allow our serving to overwhelm us, we may elicit sympathy from others or even cause them to jump in to give us a hand, but we lose our chance to point to Jesus. But when, like Mary we give our complete attention to Him, then we can begin again to draw others to look to Him, because He is the most important person in the room!