Grace Raleigh

This week we take a break from our current series to invest an entire morning in learning more about the ministries we partner with outside the walls of the church.

We're pretty sure the title of this one tells you all you need to know.

This week we focus on the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water – while drawing parallels to the story of Doubting Thomas – to learn how Jesus responds to fear and doubt. These stories help offer a peace that Jesus is always with us, along with a motivation to continue to pursue a deeper faith in Him.

Last week we were encouraged to pursue love. This week we find out the amazing promise we are given if we will dedicate ourselves to that pursuit.

We all know we are called to love others as Jesus loves us. But what if that's something we build to rather than begin with?

If others in the church are paying attention to your example, then you're a leader in the church. What does God ask of His leaders? Peter tells us in chapter 5 of his letter.

What is your reason for being a Christian? Having a good answer to that question may be more important than you think.

Parenthood is an enormous blessing and an enormous responsibility. What can we do to ensure that we leave a lasting spiritual legacy?

In the second part of our series, we examine the revolutionary idea that God has made His children "Living Stones."

Scripture makes it clear that suffering is inevitable. But why does God allow it, and what can we possibly gain from it?

God wired the human brain to learn so much from images and imagery, and then gave us an image in Baptism to intentionally remind us of the miracle of Easter!

If we will expand our understanding of generosity, we will realize that it might just be the greatest apologetic there is.

The teachings of Jesus make it clear that, for the Christian, offering unlimited forgiveness is not optional. But how could the Father possibly look at His children in their greatest hurt and instruct them to forgive?

Repentance is mentioned throughout scripture, and yet often we do not find ourselves focused on it. But maybe if we listen to God's Word and cultivate a heart for repentance, we will discover why God's kindness leads us there.

We often turn to prayer out of a sense of duty or desperation. But what if we began to see prayer as God intended it to be? What if we understood it to be absolutely essential to the life He calls us to live?

This week as we observe Lent, we are focused on the idea of stillness. Why is it so difficult to be still? How can we choose it, and what happens when we do?

We continue in our Lent Series: A Holy Pause by discussing how Fasting helps to set our minds and our hearts on Christ. The hope is that it will serve as an encouragement to stand strong in, and get the most from, our 40-day fast through Lent.

This year at Grace, we are observing Lent for the first time in quite a while. As we prepare to observe this ancient season, we thought it wise to take a week to explain why we think it's so very important to observe this fast, inspired by Jesus Himself.

In the household codes that Paul details in Colossians 3, we actually see a bigger principle of radically reshaping our lives around Jesus.

To be a Christian is to live at war with yourself and always wonder how we are supposed to live the life God calls us to live. In Colossians 3, Paul shows us the way.

As a culture, we love the mythology and romanticism of a cowboy. We love the idea of going it alone and finding our own way. But the Bible really doesn't embrace that mythology when it comes to our faith. In fact, it teaches the exact opposite.

The Colossians are a church in need of encouragement. So Paul offers them a sweeping and soaring picture of Jesus to do just that.

When we call Grace Partners to be "all in", what does that look like? We can find our answer in the example of John the Baptist.

What would it look like if instead of simply consuming the local church, we decided to allow ourselves to be consumed by the local church? Is that what Jesus actually intended all along?

When we think about Jesus, we often think about His time on earth in the past, or we think about how we will be able to meet Him in the future. We often forget that Jesus is now and will always be at the right hand of God, as our High Priest, bringing our pleas to God and continuing to redeem us every second of every day. Simply put: Jesus's life in heaven is consumed by drawing us closer to the F...