Church family: One of the clearest and most personally shaping studies of my life has been our time in the Sermon on the Mount this past year. Jesus’ words continue to challenge my thoughts and actions, sometimes before I sin, and sometimes, by His grace, after. Even then, He is still sanctifying us.Have you ever thought about how Jesus wants the Sermon on the Mount to shape the way we gather as G...  Read More

Church family: Take a moment to think about this: the greatest invitation in the world is extended to us from the God of the universe, our Heavenly Father, "come and ask me for good gifts” (Matthew 7:7–11). Jesus invites us to come to our Father again and again to ask, seek, and knock with confidence. Of course, this is not a blank check for everything on our wish list. It is an invitation to keep...  Read More

Church family: As we enter our new building, we do so with full hearts, deep gratitude, and joyful celebration. This moment has been long hoped for, prayed over, and worked toward, and in His kindness the Lord has now brought us here. Sunday is a day to rejoice together in His faithfulness. When I sat alone in the sanctuary Tuesday evening, reflecting on this blessing, I was struck by the windows,...  Read More

Church family: Have you ever noticed how easy it is to judge someone else while giving yourself endless grace? Judgmentalism looks down on others, assumes the worst about their motives, and speaks as though it can see their heart clearly enough to pronounce final verdicts. In doing so, it wrongly makes us a very poor version of God. Scripture reminds us that God alone is Judge and that we are not ...  Read More

Church family: Do you struggle with anxiety? At its deepest level, anxiety forms a worldview: no one will meet my needs, no one can rescue me, and no one sees my distress. I am left like an orphan in a chaotic world ruled by chance.Anxiety often shows itself as a divided mind, pulled in many directions by worries we cannot control. It lives in the future, imagining danger and destruction before it...  Read More

Church family: Think with me: what words would you use to describe your relationship with God?Scripture invites us to embrace an astonishing truth: through Jesus Christ, God is not only our Creator and King but our Heavenly Father. You are a child of God!This week I have been studying the beautiful gift of knowing God in this way. He chose the name “Father” to show us His daily care, love, and pur...  Read More

Church family: What a joy it is to enter this new season together as God’s people at GCT. For fifteen years, the Lord has faithfully led us, and He has brought us to this moment for His purposes and His glory. As we prepare to move into our new church building (hopefully June 28), let us not simply enter a new space; let us embrace a renewed call to live as God’s holy people, set apart by His grac...  Read More

Church family: Fasting has always been countercultural. It pushes against Western values by calling us to self-denial and sacrifice. It is neither easy nor comfortable, unlike the convenience and ease our culture often celebrates. And those values have also made their way into the Western Church, yet Jesus fasted and He calls us to do the same.At the very start of His ministry, the Son of God was ...  Read More

Church Family: Picture an enemy lurking at the edges of your home and church, sowing doubt and trying to twist what is good into evil. This is the daily battlefield we inhabit. Jesus teaches us to pray with eyes wide open to that unseen conflict. “Deliver us from evil” is our call for God’s forces to move forward, confident that the LORD of hosts enters every dark place ahead of us. The Lord’s Pra...  Read More

Church Family: Are you battling temptation right now? Temptation is the quiet, deceptive voice in the tug-of-war of the human heart. It shows up when we are angry and want us to lash out, when we are tired and want to quit, when we are lured and enticed to compromise, hide, procrastinate, or live as though God were not present. None of us is untouched by it. Temptation lures us toward what will ru...  Read More

Church Family: As De Witt Talmage wrote, “There is no emotion so completely unselfish as motherly affection. Marital love expects the return of many kindnesses and attentions, but the strength of a mother’s love is entirely independent of the past and the future, and is, of all emotions, the purest. Your child has done nothing in the past to earn your kindness, and in the future your child may gro...  Read More

Church Family:Before we forgive others, remember this: in Christ, we were forgiven first. Forgiveness doesn’t start with our strength, maturity, or emotional readiness; it starts at the cross, where Jesus bore our sin, paid our debt, and set us free from condemnation. We don’t forgive to earn God’s favor; we forgive because we have already received it. A forgiven mindset changes how you experience...  Read More

Church Family:“Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11) is not just a line we recite; it is a prayer that will change your life. Many of us wake up in the morning feeling that we do not have enough. Before our feet hit the floor, we carry quiet worries: I didn’t get enough sleep, I don’t have enough time, I don’t have enough energy, I don’t have enough money. Jesus meets our anxious thinki...  Read More

Church Family: Over the past several years, GCT has experienced significant growth, which has brought the need for meaningful changes in how we care for everyone who calls GCT their church family. Unfortunately, I have not done a good job of sharing the task of “shepherding the flock of God that is among us” (1 Peter 5:2). By not delegating well to other elders, I have left some pastoral needs unm...  Read More

Church Family: Everyone has a kingdom. Your kingdom is the sphere where what you say, do, and decide makes a difference; it is the space in this world that you have been entrusted to steward. Your kingdom is everything you have say over: your time, words, resources, decisions, and relationships. And Jesus demands that we are to radically rethink how we live in our kingdom as we pray, “Our heavenly...  Read More

Church Family: On resurrection morning, the silence of the tomb was shattered. Jesus Christ walked forth, triumphant over death, declaring, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me” (Matthew 28:18). The resurrection of Jesus Christ is meant to change every single thing in your life. Yet so often, we forget what resurrection power really is. We forget what we have been given and w...  Read More

Church Family: I am presently sitting in a hospital surgery center waiting for news on my mom's somewhat minor surgery. I am surrounded by other patient's loved ones also waiting for their news. Understandably, many here are burdened with anxiety and fear. You know when you experience that deep sense of unease in your mind and heart, a troubled spirit caused by uncertainty or disbelief; when God f...  Read More

Church Family: Do you see the moment God has given us? Right here, Pender County is among the top three fastest growing counties in North Carolina, with Pender’s population rising over 21% since 2020, adding tens of thousands of new neighbors in just a few years. This is not an accident; the Lord has placed GCT as a living witness in a county that is swelling with people who need hope, a church fa...  Read More

Church Family:The providence of God is not cold fate; it is His sovereign and loving hand wisely governing every detail of our lives. Sometimes in this life there befalls us a difficult providence of God. This is when a challenging or seemingly negative event in life, which is still under God’s sovereign control and part of His divine plan, is directed toward us by God’s loving and purposeful hand...  Read More

Church Family: Following last Sunday's worship service, we discussed the financial steps that will bring our building project to completion. Providentially and expositionally, the next Scripture we get to in the Sermon on the Mount is Matthew 6:1-4, in which Jesus encourages a deeper commitment through the discipline of giving. He desires that our giving would be motivated by the personal reward o...  Read More

Church Family: The Gospel is shocking! Astonishing! Outrageous! Words fall short! The Gospel of God bursts onto the scene as His divine rescue for sinners like us who deserve nothing but His wrath, yet Jesus arrives with joyful, overflowing, eternal mercy! Abundant joyful hope surges through every vein of the gospel, so let it surge through our spiritual veins as well.Picture Paul, foaming at the ...  Read More

Church Family: Loving our enemies is not optional for disciples of Jesus. It is one of the clearest ways we show we belong to our Father and not to the spirit of the world. Jesus teaches in Matthew 5 that true righteousness transforms the heart, not just the actions. He reveals the deep roots of sin: anger that fuels murder, lust that gives birth to adultery, deceit that twists promises, retaliati...  Read More

Church Family: Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:38-42 pierce our daily lives with countercultural clarity: “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye.’ But I tell you, do not resist the one who is evil... If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” In our world of quick comebacks and vengefulness, whether at work, on Highway 17, on social media, or in family conflicts, ...  Read More

Church Family: Allow me to make a claim; there is no sin more tolerated or widespread among Christians than legalism. Our struggle at GCT most likely will be legalism not wokeism or liberalism. Most of the time we look at legalism as just someone being overzealous rather than them perpetuating anti-gospel sin. We tend to look at adultery and theft as more heinous than legalism. But look at Jesus’ ...  Read More