Grace Community Church: Painted Post, Corning

When you find yourself struggling with doubt, take encouragement, So did the disciples even with the risen Jesus standing before them. Jesus didn’t sideline them – just to opposite! – he revealed his greatness, commanded them to get busy,

The work of the Spirit to make us more like Jesus begins on the inside and works its way outward. He changes both our attitude and our actions because who Jesus is, he is through and through.

What’s the next step in the discipleship journey? We all should be asking that, not only for ourselves (growing), but for what we can do to help others take that next step (going).

If the Lord tarries, one day each of us will be put to rest, but the switch isn’t on “off”, it’s on “sleep” and at that last day the resurrection power of Jesus will course through us and we will rise up in newness of life never to die.

Maybe you’re in a season of victory and success. Good for you! Enjoy it! Thank God for it! Maybe you’re in a season of loss and failure, of suffering and sorrow and it hurts. And you feel disoriented – you can’t see how God’s promises help in this season. Let weakness be your superpower.

History (as we know it) doesn’t end on a dark note. The world doesn’t end in a cataclysmic explosion or a meteor killing everything or the oceans covering the world. History ends with Jesus coming back and setting everything right. It ends on the brightest note of hope, so we can live every day in that hope with simple faith.

Being ready and watching to me isn’t an intangible, sentimental, thing. It’s discipleship. Recommitting ourselves to rooting our souls deeply in the word of God. Jesus said abide in me – that’s being rooted and established in Christ. It’s letting God’s word feed and nourish our hearts, minds, and souls. Being ready is asking the Holy Spirit for transforming grace. To break sin’s hold, break worldliness, repent of hard-heartedness, and ask God for a soft heart. And taking the good news out into a world that needs it more than ever.

Are we living in the last days? Broadly speaking, yes, because the last days clock started ticking when Jesus died, rose, ascended, and gave us his holy Spirit. But are we in the last of the last days when Jesus is about to return? We don’t know. Therefore we should keep watch and be ready.

When God says no, that no is wrapped with love and wisdom and His knowledge of what’s best for us and we can trust Him, that He has something better in mind for us. And that kind of trust is believing for impact too.

The impact of community is accumulative. It’s not what you do. It’s not what I do. It’s not what the person next to us does. The impact is when you add up all those things together that the gospel ball gets moved forward. That’s the impact of community!

Jesus is the best king and obeying Jesus leads to the best life. To the life that stands when storms come. To the life that isn’t barren and empty and meaningless. To the life that isn’t demolished, the life that doesn’t have nothing to show for it, the life that has nothing left that remains. Jesus came to give us life and that more abundantly.

The good news of the kingdom is that all who believe in Jesus and place their trust in him are freed from Satan’s grip, delivered from his dark, miserable, hellish domain, and transferred to the kingdom of the Son God loves.

Gospel impact isn’t just something God works through us, gospel impact is also something God works in us. Impact needs to flow outwardly and inwardly if we’re going to be healthy believers.

Impact is defined as the act or force of one thing hitting another, or a powerful influence or effect. The book of Acts is all about impact! In fact the impact of the gospel, and the Spirit, working through the church is so great that even their enemies had to admit they were turning the world upside down!

The trajectory of our lives have been affected so much more than we can even imagine by the impact others have had on us, and we have affected the trajectory of others in ways we may not even realize.