May 25, 2018 Great Friday to you GCT:  We continue on in Ephesians 5, internalizing all the incredible implications of the command for “men to love their wives as Christ loved the Church” and this week we will begin to look into to call for “wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”  But lets stop for a while and ask, “Why are these commands even written to believers in the first place?  Are ...  Read More

May 18, 2018 Hey GCT:  We discussed last week and will continue to discover the implications of our call as husbands to love our wives as Christ loved the church.  This is the one and only relationship that God has assigned this responsibility.  Wow!  What a high calling!  The way husbands are to live and interact with their wives is to be a mirroring of the way Jesus loves us.  How are we able to...  Read More

May 5, 2018 Hey GCT:  What a life changing command in Ephesians 5:18!  As you know, whenever there is a command from Scripture it brings with it great responsibility for us to do something about that command - to be obedient to that command.  The greatness about this command, “Continually be filled with the Holy Spirit of God,” is that as we obey this command we get to experience God Himself in ou...  Read More

April 27, 2018 Hey GCT:  What a convicting verse, Ephesians 5:8  "...for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light."  In one verse we are reminded of how bad we were, “we were darkness” and how amazingly redeemed we are “you are now light in the Lord.”  Being light in the Lord brings power to overtake all spiritual darkness that we come in contact ...  Read More

April 13, 2018 Hey GCT:  Last week we looked at Ephesians 5:1-2 and the great sweet-smelling principles of the Christian life.  If we simply do 5:1-2, nothing can defeat us as a child of God.  We get total access to our Father in heaven with perfect protection as an heir having everything we will ever need.  As we live in 5:1-2, God looks on us as a sweet smelling aroma… and then here comes 5:3-7....  Read More

April 7, 2018 Good Morning GCT:  How often do you consider your God given role as a missionary in Hampstead, NC?  The late archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, said, “The Church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.”  Together, as we exist as GCT, we function together as salt of the earth and the light of the world to be strategically ...  Read More

March 30, 2018 Very Good Friday GCT:  Good Friday of Holy Week certainly is good but the results are very very good!  Romans 5:8 tells us,  "...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”  and 1 Peter 3:18 says, For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but ma...  Read More

March 24, 2018 Hey GCT:  This Sunday is the beginning of what Christians call “Holy Week” or "Passion Week."  Holy week is made up of the eight days from Palm Sunday to Resurrection Sunday.  We are not commanded in Scripture to celebrate Holy Week as the Church but wow - why don’t we!  Eight of the most important days in history for the believer and the Church.  We have such a great opportunity to...  Read More

March 16, 2018 Hey GCT:  As we learned last week, God is all about words - dialog - communication - discourse - chatting - heart to heart - connecting.  God loves words.  He created us to speak words.  He has great intentions for every word that comes from our heart.  Unfortunately, many times our own sinfulness takes hold of our hearts when our desires, wants, intentions and emotions have been cr...  Read More

March 9, 2018 Hey GCT:  Words seem so innocent don’t they?  We use words to love our family, direct our schedules, describe our experiences, accomplish our jobs, teach our children, order food, bring life to the ones we love and sometimes mame, destroy, wound, divide and threaten those that we love the most.  We say words without thinking about what they will do to the receiver.  Using words seems...  Read More

March 3, 2018 Hey GCT:  Why does God make such a big deal about Christians being free from any kind of stealing?  Because, God really dislikes stealing.  In fact He dislikes it so much He made it the subject of one of the Ten Commandments for every generation of all time - Commandment #8: Do Not Steal.  But why?  Because stealing is the absolute antithesis of the character and image of God.  Our H...  Read More

February 23, 2018 Hello GCT:  How often does anger hurt your family, your work relationships, your neighbor, you, God?  Usually, anger makes us do one of three things or maybe even all three.  Anger has a tendency to make us:1) Clam anger up and hold it all in2) Throw anger up on other people verbally and physically3) Talk anger up amongst our neighbors and not deal with the problemWe see clearly ...  Read More

February 17, 2018 Good Morning GCT:  A great life-changing reminder this morning is that we worship a God who is Truth.  Our Savior is the Truth.  We are in Him who is the Truth.The Spirit within us is the Spirit of Truth who leads us into all Truth.  We are heirs of Truth.  We are brothers and friends with Jesus Christ, the Truth.  We have been justified with Truth.Truth saves us.We have been mad...  Read More

February 9, 2018 Hey GCT:Can you list three areas in your life that you would really like to change for your own personal holiness and the Glory of God?1.2.3.Have you tried and tried to change but still you have not won the battle over these three areas?Have you become cynical that real lasting change can really happen?Have you given up changing?Ephesians 4:17-24 clearly describes that CHANGE IS A...  Read More

February 3, 2018 Hey GCT:  So, think with me… tomorrow if we have 60 believers present in worship, we will have 60 believers who have been given at least one gift from the Ascended Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit (Eph 4.7).  That means that there will be 60 unique but united manifestations of the power of Christ through his children.  What are these 60 manifestations of the power of C...  Read More

January 27, 2018 "Aren't you so excited to see what happens!" - One GCT brother proclaimed this week.  They were referring to all of GCT praying for God to reveal more clearly personal giftings of the Holy Spirit that we discussed last week from Ephesians 4:7.Each one of us has received a gift from the ascended Christ through the power of Holy Spirit for the purpose of "equipping the saints for th...  Read More

January 19, 2018 Hey GCT:  This Sunday we will be back in Ephesians 4:4-6 as we look at the SEVEN - "ONE" statements that Paul gives us to remind us of how to walk worthy to the calling we have been called IN CHRIST.  Because we have been made righteous, holy and blameless as sons through Jesus Christ we are to walk worthy of that calling and part of that walking is thinking correctly as the: ONE ...  Read More

January 12, 2018 Hello GCT:  Remember the two parts of Ephesians?1) Who we are in Christ! Ephesians 1:1-3:21.  Paul clearly tells us what our Father in Heaven has accomplished in Christ for us. It is truly amazing -   Please read this again before Sunday.2) The call of God for us to live a life WORTHY of the exceedingly great favor God has shown us in Chapters 1,2,3.  Chapters 4-6 are how we are t...  Read More

January 5, 2018 Good morning GCT:  This first Sunday of 2018, even though it is going to be a frigidly cold one, I want to answer some hot questions together to warm our hearts.  Did you know that we named our distinct local body of Christ, GRACE COMMUNITY OF TOPSAIL, for the purpose of communicating that we value greatly COMMUNITY?  But what does our heavenly Father expect us to share in this COM...  Read More

December 21, 2017 GCT:  I hope that your Christmas season is Joy-Filled.  I want to encourage you to look at the nativity today and let it fill you with JOY.We have Peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Romans 5:1Slavery to sin has ended.The devil confounded.Demons take flight.Paradise is unlocked.The curse is taken away.The power of death is broken.Sin is removed from us.Error is driven ...  Read More

December 15, 2017 Hey GCT:  I have been reading the book Hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller.  Yesterday I came across a section that reminded me how great the truth of Jesus is this Christmas. I could not cut this down any more than this.  Please take a moment to read and rejoice in our Savior!“The greatest person in the history of the world was born in a manger and came from Nazareth.  It’s throu...  Read More

December 1, 2017 GCT:  This Sunday we are seeking to comprehend a promise difficult to grasp in Ephesians 3:20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…  That means that it is impossible to ask for too much since the Father's giving exceeds our capacity for asking or even imagining.Paul's extravagant praise of God refl...  Read More

November 23, 2017 GCT:  When you think about the dimensions of God’s love for you on this day of Thanksgiving do you think in terms of ounces of megatons, inches or miles?  Rejoice today that you will never deplete the dimensions of God’s love for you.  God’s love for you goes beyond human comprehension, measurement and calculation.  His love for you is beyond understanding but Paul prays an amazi...  Read More

November 17, 2017 GCT: Amazing thought this week from Ephesians 3:10. God’s amazing multi-faceted wisdom is being declared to angels and demons as all of us broken believers from different backgrounds and with difficult histories come together and are UNITED in this thing called church, also known as the body of Christ on this Earth.  Every function of GCT, united together, as Christ’s body declar...  Read More