Today we look back on Jesus’ death. Early this morning, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus faced the immense weight of what was to come, He prayed, asking if there was another way, if the cup of suffering could pass from Him (Mat. 26:39). Yet, He ultimately submitted to the Father’s will, a testimony to the singular path of redemption laid out before Him. If there had been an alternative, surel...  Read More

Church Family: As the Church, we can do no less than be joyful mirrors of God’s love (1 John 4:7-8). When we manifest the love of God, we show that we have been born of God and that we truly know God. Love is equally a sign of the new birth as righteousness. There is no such thing as a loveless Christian.The world is saturated with the messaging of love, but where the world says “love is love,” Go...  Read More

Church Family: If you turn on your favorite media source of choice and there is a person proclaiming the name of Jesus along with a few Bible verses, do you accept what they are saying as true and biblical? Can you distinguish between what John the Apostle calls a spirit of antichrist and a spirit of error, and the Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of God?Every two years, Ligonier Ministries surveys ...  Read More

Do you struggle with self-condemnation? Because your heart is deceitful above all things, it tells you that you are not good enough (Jer. 17:9). Even though you confessed your sins to God and repented, your heart takes over God’s courtroom and replays your sin over and over in its rogue court, declaring the wrong verdict: “You are still guilty!”Does your heart declare the lie to you that God despi...  Read More

Church Family: What have you set as your standard for the depth of love you show one another as a part of GCT? Is your standard the world’s standard: “I will tolerate you because you are so difficult to be around?” Or maybe it is a love of compromise that has grown into an attitude of neglect in settling for not knowing others at their level of need. Church family, I know the level of need easily ...  Read More

Church family:William Wilberforce, renowned British abolitionist, and his friend, then-Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, were invited to a sermon by the famous evangelical pastor Richard Cecil. During the sermon, Wilberforce, deeply moved by Pastor Cecil's exposition on the kingdom of God and the relationship between God and His children, found himself reveling in joy listening to the glori...  Read More

Church family: While we were living in Chicago, we had the privilege of attending the Chicago Auto Show’s First Look event. As it was the day before the opening, I anticipated smaller crowds. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Navigating the thousands of spectators, I held tightly to six-year-old Ashlyn’s hand. That is, until the moment I had to get a picture of one amazing truck in front of me. Let...  Read More

The Antichrist! What comes to mind upon hearing this name? Do you think of a person? A president? A world dictator? Do you think of some future event? Now, consider how you came to your understanding of the Antichrist. Movies? Novels? Dante's Inferno? YouTube videos? Rap songs? As a Christian you are called by God to dive into His word in order to mine Truth, dispel lies, and recognize heresy. Bec...  Read More

Church Family: As a human you have a heart/soul that operates like a kingdom and in the midst of it sits a throne. As a Christian, upon the throne of your heart sits King Jesus, the king of you, giving you encouragement, wisdom, correction, commands and expressing His dominion over you as your Lord. King Jesus while on the throne of your heart commands you to utilize great defensive weapons which ...  Read More

Church Family: How does Christ want you to be known? How does Christ want His Church to be known? How does Christ want you to be known as a husband or as a wife or as a child? How does Christ want you to be known when you encounter other Christians? What should be included in every Christian’s eulogy when they pass on from this world? Love. In all of these relationships you are to be known as disp...  Read More

Nicole grew up in a strict religious household. From a young age, she was taught to obey God’s commandments. Her family read the Bible only as a form of correction for bad behavior. It was only brought out during times of punishment. For Nicole, obedience to the Bible always felt like a duty or a checklist of rules to follow to avoid punishment or earn approval. As an adult, Nicole carried this mi...  Read More

In His celestial courtroom, The Judge, God the Father, robed in radiant light, sat on His throne, His presence filling the room with awe. Before Him stood the Accuser of all mankind, Satan, his voice was articulate and unyielding as he presented a long list of charges against the defendant, a trembling soul named Steve. Steve stood in front of the defense table, overwhelmed by the weight of his gu...  Read More

Church Family:It sure does hurt when somebody lies to you, right? But what about when you lie to yourself? Deceiving yourself can be much worse and even have eternal consequences. Often you do not even know you are self-deceived. Being self-deceived is when you believe something to be true about yourself when there is incontrovertible evidence that what you are believing is clearly false. For exam...  Read More

Church Family: Here is your one question test for today. Do you pursue walking in darkness or walking in light (1 John 1:5-6)? Your answer will reveal fruit of having fellowship with Jesus Christ unto eternal life or not (1 John 5:13). Don’t forget that walking in the light of Christ is not a means of gaining fellowship with God; instead, because of the fellowship that we possess by faith in Chris...  Read More

Church Family: God wants you to be joyful. In fact, He wants you to experience the most maximum fullness of joy that is available on earth. John the Apostle, as he was approaching 90 years old, after he had watched all his closest friends be martyred, who also spent decades fleeing Christian persecution, wrote a letter on how to have a full and complete joy. We call that letter 1 John. John wrote ...  Read More

Church Family: Do you find yourself thinking and living as a “what if” Christian or an “even if” Christian? A “what if” Christian is one who is ruled by anxiety and worry as they imagine worst-case “what if” scenarios and their potential consequences. An “even if” Christian is one who knows that “even if” the worst may come tomorrow there is no reason to fear because God is carrying out His plan o...  Read More

Church family,We put on clothes every day. And why do we do this? Because the occasions of life simply require it. The circumstances of our lives determine the Outfit-Of-the-Day for us. Marines wear MARPAT uniforms to maintain regulations for dress and appearance in their units. Medical personnel wear scrubs, or they wear business attire underneath their white coats. Athletes wear loose-fitting je...  Read More

Church Family: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his wife Fanny Elizabeth had two boys and four girls during the mid 1800s. They had another daughter that died as an infant. Fanny tragically died after her dress caught on fire while taking a nap. Henry awakened and tried to extinguish the flames with a rug and then his own body, but Fanny had already suffered severe burns. She died the next morning (...  Read More

Church Family:Do you ever get through the Christmas season and think, "well I missed the point of Christmas again"? Do you miss what makes the birth of Jesus so miraculous? Do you pause to consider the depths of Christmas being the celebration of God becoming man so that we may be conformed to the image of God in Christ (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 3:18)? Christmas is the celebration of the spectacular, won...  Read More

Church Family: The train wreck of Nehemiah 13 is so very discouraging. When you read the last chapter in Nehemiah you wish that the LORD had led Nehemiah to end his letter at Nehemiah 12. In his last chapter, Nehemiah is throwing furniture (13:8), threatening physical violence upon merchants (13:22), speaking curses on people, beating them up and pulling their hair out (13:25). Buy why? Why is the...  Read More

Church Family:Have you ever heard the phrase, "complainers are going to complain?" Sometimes we have a tendency to find fault or express dissatisfaction regardless of any circumstance. Have you ever found yourself in the complaining rut? Complaining is a heart issue that results when we live our lives as if we are the center of this universe. We then focus on how we feel and what we want. Then whe...  Read More

Church Family: When you look at your children, grandchildren or the younger generation in our church and community do you ever think, "Oh LORD, they are up against so much in this culture, only by Your Hand, LORD, will they daily pursue You with holy, loving, delight-filled lives." Well, of course that is true, but we are the ones God uses do His work to encourage generational faithfulness to the ...  Read More

Church Family: So what does observing the Sabbath mean for God’s people today? Are Christians still responsible to observe the Sabbath today? If so, how? Sabbath simply means "cease from work." What kind of work is God referring to?The Original Sabbath:After creating the world and everything in it, including man and woman, God “rested” from His work. He set aside the seventh day to be a day in whi...  Read More

Church Family: God has promised to give you a flourishing, thriving life by loving and obeying His Law (Ps. 1). God’s Law was given to us a loving guide to lead us away from destruction and into maximum blessing from God. God did not give His Law to make us miserable prisoners of gloom. He gave us His Law so that we would live thriving lives in this sinful world.In Nehemiah 10, God’s people had be...  Read More