NCC Daily

Jesus’ invitation is for us to sit with His love—to allow His love to rub on us. Jesus wants us to feel so connected and safe with him that we can offer safety and connection to others. Thus, I believe Jesus has called all of us to the ministry of sitting with people.

Living life on mission isn’t about being a savior to someone in need. It is about pointing them to the Savior and we do that through acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly. My hope is that you will answer the call. The mission will be hard, you must serve humbly, and seek God continuously, but when you do you will experience the miracles of heaven.

Creation of man begins with God’s breath indwelling the earth. It’s a moment of ignition as spirit comes into contact with soil, combined in the person of Adam. In fact, Adam or Adamah means land or soil. God’s spirit inhabiting a physical place and with that spark, we are created, created with a charge of presence within space. Adam is created and charged to work and care for the earth.

As we end this week of NCC daily’s and as we wind down on this series, I get the chance to leave you with one last thought. What better passage to guide us here, than the very last words of the Bible itself? The end of the book of Revelation.

Imagine that you run into a friend of yours, not an especially close friend, at Ebenezers when you go to get your Saturday morning cup of joe. You’re in line together and you’re just sort of chatting and you ask him, “Hey - so what have you got on your plate today?” And your friend goes, “You know, I feel like I have something but I don’t remember… otherwise, I think it's just a slow Saturday.”

Today we are continuing our conversation on eschatology - the study of the end. For the last two days, I’ve referenced verses in 1st Corinthians 15. That was not necessarily by design, but it’s sure not by mistake.

Today, we’re going to keep talking about “eschatology,” about the doctrine of final things (as it is sometime grandiosely called). Today, I want to share with you a verse that surprised me the first time I read it. It surprised me because it sort of turned my idea of eschatology on its head.

But the English word “eschatology” comes from the Greek word “eschaton” which means “the end of something or the goal of something.” In Christian theology, eschatology has come to mean “the study of God’s intended end for the world.” That’s what we’ll be talking about.

No matter what the situation looks like. No matter the season you find yourself in you can have confidence in the fact that Jesus is with you. With Jesus in your boat, the best is yet to come.

In the waiting is where you are tested. In the waiting is where you build endurance and where you really have to lean into your FAITH.

From the person who is in the middle of a rough season right now to the person who is in the middle of birthing a God-sized dream...Be encouraged! Be not dismayed! And know that God is for you. Take refuge in the fact that the best is yet to come!

I'm wondering how many of us have a God-given dream. A dream that is so big and so crazy we know that only God can bring it to pass. And maybe for some of us, the road to seeing that Dream realized has been a rocky one, one that has been met with some “No’s” One that has led to some closed doors.

What if Abraham, in Genesis 15:5, stays in the tent satisfied with the 8-foot ceiling? Does he ever become the father of many nations if he doesn’t take what Pastor Mark often calls “a two-foot field trip?”

Praying hard is going twelve rounds with God. A heavyweight prayer bout with God Almighty can be excruciating and exhausting, but that is how the greatest prayer victories are won. Praying hard is more than words. It’s blood, sweat, and tears.

Often Pastor Mark will say we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a year. Of course, we also tend to underestimate what we can accomplish in a decade.

If you are engaged with our sermon series, you know that we are right in the thick of our current series titled The Best is Yet to Come. NCC Daily is here to help us continue to walk through this season of dreaming big, praying hard, and thinking long.

We’ve talked about six habits—Flip the Script, Kiss the Wave, Eat the Frog, Fly the Kite, Cut the Rope, and Wind the Clock. It’s time to unpack habit #7, Seed The Clouds.

It’s time for us to wind the clock, habit #6. Time is measured in minutes, but life is measured in moments. We’ve got to steward the minutes and the moments. If we don’t, the days are long and the years are short. The question, of course, is how? It starts with living in day-tight compartments. It’s living each day like it’s the first day and last day of your life. It’s making every day count by c...

We’ve talked about burying dead yesterdays. You have to flip the script and kiss the wave. We’ve talked about winning the day. You have to eat the frog and fly the kite. It’s time to imagine unborn tomorrows.

We switch gears and shift our focus to habit #4, fly the kite. We are so easily overwhelmed by the size and scope of our goals. Go ahead and dream big, but you have to start small.

We have been kissing the wave, habit #3. It’s time to eat the frog, habit #4. If you want God to do the super, you have to do the natural. This is where we roll up our sleeves and go to work. You’ve got to pray like it depends on God, but you also have to work like it depends on you.

“I have learned to kiss the wave,” said Charles Spurgeon, “that throws me against the Rock of Ages.” Let that sink in for a second. It’s a powerful statement all by itself, but let’s be honest, it’s a lot easier said than done. Lots of waves crashing into our lives — waves of grief, waves of injustice, waves of anger, waves of pain and suffering.

We left off last week talking about method acting. Let me push that envelope with a simple thought that can flip the script. Here it is: Scripture is our script.