Holiness With Sleeves Rolled Up

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What We Believe | A Wesleyan Perspective | Week 4: A People Who Love and Serve.

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What does holiness look like on Monday?

On Sunday, we sing about surrendering our hearts to God. We pray for His Spirit to transform us. But what does that transformation look like when we leave the church building and return to our families, workplaces, classrooms, and neighborhoods?

It might look like listening when we would rather hurry. Preparing a meal for someone who is struggling. Welcoming a person others overlook. Giving our time when writing a check would be easier—or giving generously when we would rather hold tightly to what we have.

“Holiness is not just a heart surrendered to God. It is a life made available to others.”

Throughout this series, we have followed the movement of God’s grace. Grace finds us. Grace enables our response. Grace transforms our hearts. Now we discover that grace also moves us to action.

The holiness God produces within us becomes the love we demonstrate through our lives.

Saved by Grace, Created to Serve

Ephesians 2:8–10 gives us the proper order: we are saved by grace through faith, and we are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

Our service does not purchase God’s forgiveness. No amount of volunteering, generosity, or kindness can earn salvation. Salvation is His gift. Yet receiving that gift changes how we live.

“We are not saved by good works. We are saved for good works.”

James presses this truth into everyday life. Imagine meeting someone who lacks adequate clothing or daily food. We offer kind words and spiritual encouragement, but leave without helping when we have the ability to do so. What has our encouragement accomplished?

James writes, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17, NIV).

Paul explains the source of salvation; James challenges us to examine its fruit. A living faith produces a loving response.

“What will you do with what is in your hands?”

Prayer matters deeply. We should pray for one another. But have we sometimes said, “I’ll pray for you,” while overlooking an opportunity to become part of God’s answer?

Sometimes prayer leads us to make a phone call, deliver groceries, provide transportation, offer a gift, or sit beside someone in their grief.

Love Allows Itself to Be Interrupted

In Luke 10:25–37, the Good Samaritan encounters a wounded stranger beside the road. He sees the suffering, feels compassion, and becomes involved. His response costs time, resources, and convenience.

That is where many of us struggle. We care, but our calendars are full. We intend to help, but assume someone else will. We recognize a need, but hesitate because responding might become complicated.

The Samaritan’s example asks us whether we are willing to let another person’s need interrupt our plans.

Jesus also connects service with devotion to Him in Matthew 25:34–40. Feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing those in need, and visiting the sick or imprisoned carry deep spiritual significance. People we might pass by matter to Him.

“When we see people through the eyes of Jesus, we begin to see opportunities for ministry that we might otherwise walk past.”

Our Wesleyan understanding of holy living calls us to take such love seriously. A heart being transformed by God should grow increasingly responsive to suffering, injustice, loneliness, and human need. Micah 6:8 calls us to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.

This is holiness with sleeves rolled up.

What Is Already in Your Hands?

Here is a question worth carrying into this week: What will you do with what you have in your hands?

Your home could become a place of welcome. Your car could provide a ride. Your skills could solve a problem. Your influence could open a door for someone who needs an opportunity. Your time could reassure a lonely person that they have not been forgotten.

Through foster parenting and ministry with young people in the juvenile justice system, I have seen the importance of people willing to walk alongside others. Compassion, accountability, encouragement, and patient presence can belong together.

Sometimes holiness looks like a family opening its home, a mentor offering another chance, or a church refusing to give up on someone.

At Lancaster Wesleyan Church, we express this through three simple words: Care. Pray. Share.

We care because people matter to God. We pray because we depend on Him. We share because the hope of Christ is too important to keep to ourselves. Practical compassion and sharing the gospel belong together.

Put Love Into Practice This Week

You do not need a church program or a special title to serve Christ. Begin where you already are.

• At home: Take responsibility for a task someone else usually carries. Put away your phone and listen. Encourage a family member, pray together, or begin repairing a strained relationship with a sincere apology.
• In your community: Check on someone who lives alone. Deliver a meal, help with yardwork, volunteer with a local ministry, or offer a ride to an appointment. Ask what would actually help before assuming you know.
• At school: Include someone who is being left out. Encourage a teacher, help a classmate understand an assignment, and speak up when someone is mistreated.
• At work: Give credit generously, treat every person with dignity, and offer practical help to an overwhelmed coworker. Let your honesty, patience, and willingness to serve make your faith visible.
• During leisure time: Notice the people at the ballfield, campground, gym, restaurant, or fishing spot. Learn names. Welcome newcomers. Listen for needs. Recreation can become an opportunity for friendship and ministry.
• With your resources: Choose one possession, ability, or portion of your budget that you can make available to God’s purposes. Consider whom you could mentor, encourage, or invite into your life.

Choose one person and one concrete action. Then follow through.

We do not serve to earn God’s love. We serve because His love has already reached us.

Holiness becomes visible through our hands, our feet, our words, and our willingness to become involved.

Lord Jesus, give us eyes to notice, hearts willing to love, and hands ready to serve. Help us use what You have placed in our care so that others may experience Your compassion and discover Your hope. Amen.

Faith Today in History - October 22

TRUE STORIES • ENDURING HOPE

Faith Today in History

October 22

October 22 reminds us that the gospel meets people in very different places: around a family’s table in Manila, inside a freezing prison cell in Manchuria, and in the heart of a young university student who finally realized that knowing about Christianity was not the same as knowing Christ.

These three true stories call us to confess Christ openly, remain faithful under pressure, and receive salvation personally.

OCTOBER 22, 1899 • MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Nine believers publicly entered a new Christian fellowship

In the home of Paulino Zamora at 50 Calle Beaterio in Intramuros, Presbyterian missionary James B. Rodgers baptized and received nine Filipinos into church communion. The group included Zamora, members of his family, Benigno Dayao, Jesus Bautista, and others. It was an early landmark in organized Protestant witness among Filipinos.

Their faith did not remain confined to that room. Dayao became an early Presbyterian evangelist in the Tagalog region. Nicolas Zamora became a leading Methodist evangelist, while Paulino opened his home and relationships to further gospel work. New preaching places soon appeared in other districts of Manila.

Faith connection: Baptism is both personal confession and public witness. Nine believers gathered in one home became part of a widening testimony that crossed households, neighborhoods, and denominational lines.

Verification: Historical event date: October 22, 1899. Several Springs, One Stream, Volume 1: Heritage and Origins, 1898–1948, by T. Valentino Sitoy Jr., published in 1992 and hosted by the United Church of Christ in the Philippines; digital copy posted in 2017; accessed October 22, 2026.

OCTOBER 22, 1941 • MANCHURIA

Bruce Hunt was imprisoned but would not surrender his witness

Japanese occupying authorities arrested Presbyterian missionary Bruce Hunt. During forty-five days of imprisonment, the thirty-eight-year-old father of five endured solitary confinement, scarce food and water, a freezing floor, and only a cloak for a blanket.

The larger conflict centered on pressure upon Hunt and Korean Christians to submit to state-sponsored Shinto shrine worship. Hunt was released on December 5, then arrested again after Pearl Harbor and held until a prisoner exchange in 1942. After the war, he returned to Korea and served there with his wife, Kathy, for another thirty years.

Faith connection: Christian courage is not the absence of suffering. It is the settled conviction that worship belongs to God alone—and that hardship cannot cancel our calling.

Verification: Historical event date: October 22, 1941. Orthodox Presbyterian Church, “Today in OPC History”, entry dated 2023; accessed October 22, 2026. Corroborating archive: Hunt Family Collection, Westminster Theological Seminary’s Montgomery Library, collection guide undated; accessed October 22, 2026.

OCTOBER 22, 1944 • OXFORD, ENGLAND

J. I. Packer discovered that religion was not salvation

Eighteen-year-old James Packer arrived at Oxford University serious, intelligent, and already confirmed in the Church of England. Yet he later said he had never truly understood conversion or saving faith.

At an evangelistic service at St Aldate’s Church, the preacher described being challenged over whether he personally knew Christ. Packer recognized himself in the story: he understood Christian ideas, but he did not yet know the Savior. When the invitation was given, he entrusted his life to Christ. The young convert would become one of the most influential evangelical theologians of the twentieth century and the author of Knowing God.

Faith connection: Church familiarity, moral seriousness, and biblical knowledge are not substitutes for personal faith. The gospel asks each of us: Do you merely know about Christ—or have you trusted Him?

Verification: Historical event date: October 22, 1944. Christianity Today, published July 17, 2020; accessed October 22, 2026. Corroborating biography: The Gospel Coalition, published July 17, 2020; accessed October 22, 2026.

SCRIPTURE REFLECTION

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

— Romans 10:13 (KJV)

The gospel is more than heritage, ceremony, or information. Jesus Christ calls us to repent, believe, confess Him openly, and remain faithful when that confession costs us something. If you have known about Christ without personally trusting Him, call upon Him today. His promise of salvation still stands.

With hope,
Pastor Rick Carder

Faith Today in History • Verified stories of Christian witness and transformed lives
Forward this message to someone who needs the reminder that salvation must be personally received and courageously lived.

A People Made Holy: Saved for More Than Forgiveness

What We Believe — A Wesleyan Perspective, Week 3
Ephesians 2:8–10; 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

Watch here. 

I cannot tell you how many times I went to the altar because I wondered whether I had gotten it right the first time.

I wanted to belong to Jesus. I knew I needed forgiveness. But I kept wondering: Had I prayed the right words? Was I sincere enough? Had I changed enough? Maybe I needed to go back and try again.

I do not regret seeking God. The altar can be a wonderful place of prayer and surrender. But somewhere along the way, I had confused receiving salvation with proving I deserved it.

Eventually, I began to understand something that changed my perspective:

I do not do good works so God will save me. I do good works because God’s saving grace is changing me.

That is the order Paul gives us in Ephesians 2:8–10. We are saved by grace through faith. Salvation is God’s gift. Then, as people made new in Christ, we are created for good works.

Good works are the fruit of salvation, not the purchase price.

Grace Does Not Leave Us Where It Found Us

In the first message of this series, we said, “Grace found us first.” In the second, “Grace gives us a choice.” Now we take the next step: Grace does not leave us where it found us.

God’s grace not only forgives our sins; God’s grace transforms our hearts.

Paul’s prayer in 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24 is addressed to people who already belong to Jesus. Yet he asks God to sanctify them completely. Conversion is the beginning of God’s transforming work in us, and His purpose reaches into every part of life.

The word holiness sometimes brings to mind rules, appearances, or people who seem eager to judge everyone else. Scripture begins with God’s character and His call for us to reflect it.

Holiness is not about being better than other people. 

Holiness is about belonging completely to God.

That belonging should shape our homes, conversations, relationships, and choices—even when nobody is watching.

God Wants Our Whole Heart

We all know what it is to do the right thing outwardly while struggling inwardly. We can speak politely while nursing resentment. We can serve faithfully while craving recognition. We can avoid obvious wrongdoing while giving pride room to grow.

God sees beneath our behavior. He cares about what governs our hearts. David’s prayer in Psalm 51:10 becomes our prayer: asking God to create a pure heart within us.

God does not merely want to remove sin from our record. He wants to change what rules our hearts.

This is central to our Wesleyan understanding of entire sanctification. Sanctification begins with new birth, and we believe God also offers believers a decisive work of grace in which the Holy Spirit cleanses the heart from inward sin, perfects it in love, and empowers holy living and service. We receive this grace through faith as we yield ourselves fully to Him.

Simply put, God wants our whole heart.

We may gladly surrender our Sunday mornings while protecting an old grudge. We may offer Him our gifts while insisting on controlling our future. His invitation reaches into those places, too.

Our hope rests in the faithful God who calls us. We surrender, trust, and obey; the Holy Spirit does the cleansing and transforming work. And a decisive surrender opens into a lifetime of growing in grace.

Perfect Love, Everyday Life

When Wesleyans speak of perfect love, we do not mean that Christians become incapable of mistakes. We still need wisdom, correction, forgiveness, and growth.

We mean a heart given fully to God, with His love governing our motives and actions.

Holiness is not a claim that I never need correction. Holiness is a heart that belongs to God and wants His love to govern everything.

What does that look like on a Tuesday afternoon?

Patience when someone tests our nerves. Integrity when dishonesty would be convenient. Compassion toward a hurting neighbor. Willingness to admit we were wrong. Forgiveness when we would rather keep score.

Galatians 5 calls these qualities the fruit of the Spirit. Fruit grows because life flows through the branch. As Jesus teaches in John 15, we bear fruit by remaining in Him.
A holy church becomes a church that cares, prays, and shares because Christ’s love is alive among His people.

An Invitation to Trust

Perhaps you recognize yourself in my story. You have prayed, tried harder, and wondered whether you have done enough for God to accept you.

Hear the good news: salvation is God’s gift through Jesus Christ. Turn from sin, trust Him, and receive His grace.

Or perhaps you know Christ as Savior but recognize something you have withheld—a resentment, a habit, a fear, or a need for control. Bring that to Him, too. Give Him your whole heart and trust His Spirit to do His sanctifying work.

I used to wonder whether I had gotten it right the first time. Today, my confidence rests in what Jesus has done for us and what His Spirit is able to do within us.

Grace found us first. Grace gave us a choice. And grace can make us holy.

Father, thank You that salvation is Your gift. Forgive us for trying to earn what Jesus freely offers. Search our hearts and show us what we have withheld. As we surrender to You, cleanse us and fill us with Your Holy Spirit. Teach us to love You wholeheartedly and our neighbors as ourselves. Let our good works be the fruit of Your life within us. You are faithful, and we trust You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Faith Today in History : October 15

 

TRUE STORIES • ENDURING HOPE Faith Today in History October 15

October 15 gives us three portraits of grace in motion: a man in Madagascar turning decisively from his old spiritual bondage, an evangelist whose own deliverance became a message to millions, and an ordinary working woman boarding a train because she believed God had called her to China. Their circumstances were different, but each life points to the same truth: when Christ changes a heart, He also gives that life a new direction.

OCTOBER 15, 1894 • MADAGASCAR Rainisoalambo became “a new man” Rainisoalambo was a respected healer and diviner whose identity and livelihood were bound to charms and traditional spiritual practices. Ill, impoverished, and abandoned by friends, he called upon the God proclaimed by Christian missionaries. At dawn on October 15, he discarded his amulets and instruments of divination, repented, and testified that Jesus had freed him from his former bondage. He immersed himself in the New Testament, began telling his family and neighbors about Christ, and helped form the Disciples of the Lord. Their movement emphasized repentance, humility, prayer, mutual help, Bible reading, and sharing the gospel. It became the beginning of an influential indigenous revival in Madagascar. Faith connection: Real repentance is more than regret. It turns from old masters, clings to Jesus, and produces a visibly different way of living. Verification: Historical event date: October 15, 1894. Dictionary of African Christian Biography, article received in 2008; site last updated October 7, 2026; accessed October 15, 2026. The author, Berthe Raminosoa Rasoanalimanga, formerly directed the FJKM National Center for Archives, and the article cites Malagasy historical and mission sources.

OCTOBER 15, 1906 • UNITED STATES Sam Jones finished the journey a changed man Sam Jones’s early law career collapsed under the weight of alcohol. In 1872, while struggling to quit drinking, he experienced a spiritual turning point and entered Methodist ministry. His plainspoken call to “quit your meanness” eventually filled revival meetings across the country. He preached against the very addiction that had nearly destroyed him and urged hearers toward changed lives. On October 15, 1906—one day before his fifty-ninth birthday—Jones died suddenly while returning from a revival in Oklahoma City. The former alcoholic had completed his life as one of America’s most widely known evangelists, and his ministry had helped lead others, including riverboat businessman Thomas Ryman, toward dramatic change. Faith connection: Grace does not erase the truth about our past; it transforms what the past means. The wound that once enslaved Jones became part of the testimony through which he warned and invited others. Verification: Historical event date: October 15, 1906. New Georgia Encyclopedia, written by David B. Parker of Kennesaw State University; originally published February 18, 2005; last edited September 20, 2018; accessed October 15, 2026.

OCTOBER 15, 1932 • LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND Gladys Aylward boarded the train for China Gladys Aylward was a domestic servant with little formal education. A missionary training program had judged her unlikely to master Chinese, but she remained convinced that God had called her to serve there. She saved her wages and, on October 15, boarded a train in Liverpool to begin a difficult overland journey across Europe and Siberia. In China she joined Jeannie Lawson, welcomed mule drivers at an inn where they shared Bible stories, served vulnerable children, and used public work to oppose foot-binding and carry the gospel into new communities. During wartime she later guided roughly one hundred children toward safety. Faith connection: A closed door is not always the end of a calling. Aylward’s story honors steady obedience—the willingness to take the next faithful step even when recognized authorities do not see our potential. Verification: Historical event date: October 15, 1932. Christian History Institute, article undated; accessed October 15, 2026. The exact date is independently listed by Howard Culbertson’s global missions timeline at Southern Nazarene University, undated; accessed October 15, 2026.

SCRIPTURE REFLECTION “Ye shall be witnesses unto me … unto the uttermost part of the earth.” — Acts 1:8 (KJV) The witness of Christ begins in a surrendered heart and then travels—across a household, across a nation, or across the world. If you have never entrusted your life to Jesus, turn from sin and receive His mercy today. If you already know Him, ask where His grace is calling you to take the next faithful step.

With hope, Pastor Rick Carder

Faith Today in History • Verified stories of Christian witness and transformed lives.

Grace Gives Us a Choice

What We Believe: A Wesleyan Perspective — Week 2

Scripture: Joshua 24:14–15 || Watch here. 

As a boy, I remember standing with the neighborhood kids while two captains chose teams for baseball. The best athletes were picked first. I usually waited a little longer.

Eventually, someone called my name: “Rick.”
My assignment was catcher. It wasn’t glamorous, but I discovered that the catcher participates in virtually every pitch. I had a place on the team and a part to play.
Yet being chosen didn’t force me to participate. I still had to walk onto the field, put on the equipment, and take my place.

That memory helps me think about our response to God’s grace. God loves us, pursues us, and invites us into a relationship with Him. His grace makes our response possible, but He does not force us to receive Him.

In Joshua 24, the invitation to choose follows a reminder of God’s faithfulness. God had called Abraham, delivered Israel from Egypt, protected His people in the wilderness, and brought them into the Promised Land. Before Joshua asked for their commitment, he reminded them of what God had already done.

The choice came after grace.

Joshua then declared, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,” adding, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).

Our Wesleyan understanding calls God’s work before our response prevenient grace—grace that goes before. Sin has damaged us, and we cannot save ourselves. But through Jesus Christ, God reaches toward us and enables us to turn to Him.

Before we recognized our need, God was working. Before we reached toward Him, He had already reached toward us.
God initiates. Grace enables. We respond. Christ saves. The Spirit transforms.

Responding to grace involves repentance and faith. 

Repentance means turning from sin. Faith means trusting Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Our response does not earn salvation; we receive what Christ has done for us.

We can know Bible stories, sing familiar hymns, and attend church for years. But Joshua’s question remains personal: Whom will you serve?

When we receive Christ, God does more than add our names to a membership list. He forgives our guilt, makes us spiritually alive, adopts us into His family, and assures us through the Holy Spirit that we belong to Him.

Joshua’s declaration also challenges those who already follow Jesus. We cannot make our children or grandchildren believe, but we can show them what faith looks like. We can pray, share our testimony, and tell the next generation how God has been faithful. Our example becomes an invitation for them to respond.

Perhaps you have wondered whether God would want someone like you. You know your failures and feel unworthy of His attention.

The cross reveals His love for you. You do not have to make yourself worthy before coming to Him. His grace is already reaching toward you.

Joshua said, “This day.” The invitation calls for a response today: trust Christ, turn toward Him, and let His grace shape your life.

Listen to this melody as you meditate on the goodness of God.

God pursues us.
Grace comes before us.
Christ died for us.
The Spirit calls us.
Grace enables us.
We are given a genuine choice.
And when we respond through repentance and faith—Christ saves us.

God has extended His grace to me—how am I choosing to respond?

“As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.”