by John Carpenter | Feb 16, 2017 | Ministry News
Well, dear friends, at this particular time we are only 7 weeks from our first work Saturday to prepare for our 2017 Del-Haven Camp season. We are embarking on our 65th year of bringing the gospel to children! All glory and thanks be unto God our Savior!
Our 2017 Camp Schedule is as follows:
Staff Training – June 5-7
Session 1- 6 to 8 Boys and Girls – June 19-22
Session 2 – 9 to 12 Girls – June 26-29
Session 3 – 9 to 12 Boys – July 10-13
Session 4 – 6 to 8 Boys and Girls – July 17-20
Session 5 – 9 to 12 Girls – July 24-July 27
Session 6 – 9 to 12 Boys – July 31 – Aug. 3
Please use this as a guide as you continue to faithfully lift up in prayer everything that is involved in this pure gospel announcing endeavor. Pray for all the children whom our Lord will send to us to hear the gospel and pray for all the staff – the soldiers that He will have recruited to engage in all the rigors of meeting the enemy head-on every day throughout the camp season. Pray for the Lord to be our strength, our patience (endurance), our shield and our buckler – just as His Word says. Finally, pray that He will be eternally glorified through it all. Thank you, dear ones for being there.
by John Carpenter | Feb 16, 2017 | Devotional
“I will direct their work in truth and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.” “Lead me in thy truth and teach me; for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.” “For this is good and acceptable unto God our Savior, who will have all men to be saved and come unto a knowledge of the truth.” [Is.61:8; Ps.25:5; 1Ti.2:3-4]
Our Lord and Savior, who is the incarnated eternal Son of God, proclaimed of Himself that He is, “the Way, the Truth and the Life, and that “no man can come unto the Father, but through Him”. When the Spirit of Christ, Himself, speaks this truth to your heart, then, and only then, do you know without a doubt that it is indeed the truth! This marks our beginning in true Christianity. From this point forward – do we then realize in our lives what the above texts are descriptively declaring.
God first reveals us to ourselves and allows us to see the awful plight we are in as being the sinners that we truly are. We come to the end of ourselves in that bright all penetrating light. We see that we have no hope in ourselves to be able to save ourselves. We come to desperately see that we need another! This is the grace of repentance that the Spirit of God bestowes upon us. Then the Spirit of the Father reveals to our hearts the wonderful person and work of His beloved eternal Son. And, through His Spirit — and through His Word – He teaches us that He, and He alone, is our Savior. We wholeheartedly put all our trust in Him for our eternal salvation. This is the grace of faith that the Spirit of God works in us and through us. Praise His Name! We see by His Spirit of grace that we need another, and we see, by His grace that there is no other – but our sovereign Savior, Jesus Christ! He, indeed, is the only Way – He, indeed, is the only Truth – and He, indeed, is the only Way to the eternal Life that He, alone, is. “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”– all glory to Him! The only Way to eternal Life is through the Truth concerning Him as being the only sovereign Savior substitute that there ever was, is, or ever will be!
The “Everlasting Covenant” that is mentioned in the Is.61 text above is the covenant that God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit cut among themselves in eternity. This is what is commonly called, “The Covenant of Grace”; and this is what’s known as “The New Covenant.” It is in the fulfillment of this covenant when God the Father divinely purposed and decreed to send God the Son to become incarnated into the likeness of our sinful flesh and be our Savior and Messiah. It is in the fulfillment of this covenant that the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to quicken us by a revelation of the reality of our having been placed in Christ from eternity. He then seals us to Christ and directs and leads through this fallen world and on into heaven – the eternal abiding place of the full effulgence of His glory!
This same covenant is also mentioned in Ps.25:10,14: “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and His testimonies.” “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him – and He will show them His covenant.” It is revealing texts like these that form the context for that which 2Tim.2:19 descriptively declares when it says that: “…the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal: The Lord knoweth them that are His! And, let everyone that nameth the name of Christ – depart from iniquity!” All three persons of the eternal Godhead are here mentioned. This comes forward as a profound credal statement of saving truth.
It is from this Truth (which is Christ, Himself) that we are taught and directed; by which we are led and guided; in which we are rooted and established. We grow in God’s grace given knowledge and understanding – according to His good pleasure – unto the glory, only, of Christ Jesus.
-For Christ’s Glory Only!
John Carpenter
by John Carpenter | Jan 19, 2017 | Camp News
Well, dear friends and family in Christ, Del-Haven is officially embarking on its 65th year of camp ministry to needy children. We were founded by prayer — and we have been sustained by prayer. We thank the Lord for all of you who have faithfully and prayerfully supported us over all these past decades. And, we also thank all of you who have more recently been led of the Lord to take up the blessed habit and practice of praying for us on a regular basis. It is through these Spirit led prayers that we have been sustained all these years. Praise to the Lord for His great grace!
by John Carpenter | Jan 19, 2017 | Camp News
To inform you all of just where we are financially — we ended 2016 and have begun 2017 in arrears $53,444.72. Our present arrangement with the bank is one of having to make at least an interest payment on the outstanding balance each month. That is an amount of around 200 to 250 dollars a month. We were able reduce our loan principle by $100 last month. This goes slowly because this expense is over and above our regular expenses each and every month. Plus, we have two other very necessary projects on our list that include a much needed renovation of our kitchen and rest room facilities. We have established a separate account with the bank just for the specific funds to meet the expenses of both these tasks. We feel that we need the rest room redone before the kick off of the 2017 camp season. The amount we need for the rest room renovation has not yet been nailed down, but it looks as if it will run about $4000. Please be in prayer with us about the meeting of this need.
As always, please be in prayer for all the children that we have already ministered to and, as well, the ones that the Lord will be sending new to us in 2017. We are already receiving applications for this summer’s camp sessions. And, please be praying for the Lord’s choice where our staff is concerned. We had a wonderful summer this last year and want the Lord’s leading again for this year.
Thank you for being there. We love you and we pray for our Lord’s blessing upon you all!
by John Carpenter | Jan 19, 2017 | Devotional
“Men ought always to pray and not to faint.” [Lk.18:1]
“Pray without ceasing.” “Brethren, pray for us.” [1Th.5:17,25]
“Continue in prayer; watch in the same with thanksgiving; (3) withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery of Christ… (4) that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.” [Col.4:2-4]
The Word of God contains many texts that contain descriptive phrases of the general way that things should be for any and every true Christian existing or living in this fallen and cursed world. The three texts above are examples of this.
The first of which comes to us directly from the lips of the person and being of the incarnated eternal Son of God, Himself. He issued this specifically to His disciples. The general plural term for man is not used. Therefore, He is really saying this unto any one of His true disciples that it behooves them to always be making the noun “prayer” into an active verb — and not to become weary of doing this in the troubled environment of this fallen and cursed world!
The second text comes to us from the Holy Spirit inspired pen of the apostle Paul. This phrase is included among a whole list of descriptive mandates and exhortations for true believers to follow in their daily walk by faith through this sinful world. And, it is important to also note that both of these texts are urging for prayer to be practiced in a broader way than when we worship in private. This text is not suggesting that we drop to our knees and pray at all times, but that when we walk in the Spirit, He will make us mindful of our sovereign Lord even when we find ourselves in the immediate presence of worldly trails and circumstances that we face in this world every day. We have a blood paved path via the eternally accomplished atonement of our Savior, Christ Jesus, that has consecrated for us access at any time into the very throne room of Almighty God! Praise and glory unto our Savior!
The third text is a more pointed and focused exhortation for us to ever be mindful that we need to be engaged in prayerfully seeking from our sovereign, all governing Savior and Lord that He ever be faithful to lead us into viable opportunities to proclaim the pure gospel unto this lost and perishing world all around us. This is the kind of praying that we here at Camp Del-Haven continually covet from all of you. This kind of praying — we hope and pray takes place when you gather together in church, or in groups of yourselves for genuine Christian fellowship. This is true even though in this Colossians context it is encouraged by the Holy Spirit inspired apostle (in regards to his particular ministry) to be performed, as he says, “withal”, or, “at the same time” that he commands them to earnestly persevere in the holy habit of prayer. The apostle, by the Holy Spirit, is seeking prayerful support for his continued perseverance in presenting the gospel of the glory, only, of Christ. And, this is what we desire from all of you — more than anything else.
For Christ’s Glory Only
-John Carpenter
