Grace Community Church

Have you ever thought about patience as communal? Probably not. When it comes to the fruit of the Spirit, we typically are thinking about it from the perspective of how the Spirit is solely working in us, but the Spirit not only works in the Christian heart, but also in the communal Church’s heart. The work of the fruit of the Spirit should impact our individual lives, but al...

At this point in our study, you have probably begun to realize that the fruit of the Spirit are not the way we traditionally view them. These were uniquely Greek terms that were not virtue-based, but tangible markers of the Holy Spirit working in our hearts and lives. They are meant to be active works, not simply feelings or emotions we possess towards God and others. The fru...

If biblical peace meant everyone getting along, the New Testament would look very different. The early churches had plenty of disagreements. The question was not whether conflict would come, but how followers of Jesus would respond when it did. Christopher J. H. Wright writes, “Since God has made peace between himself and us, God now calls us to live in peace with one another...

Every person longs for peace, but the peace we often pursue depends on our circumstances. We imagine that if life were less stressful, relationships were easier, or the future felt more certain, we would finally have peace. Jesus offers a peace that remains steady even when life is not. Before we can experience the peace of God, we must first receive the peace with Go...

Most of us think of peace as the absence of conflict or the feeling of being calm. The Bible gives us a much fuller picture. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom, and it describes life as God intended it to be: whole, flourishing, and in right relationship with God, others, ourselves, and creation. When Paul lists peace in Galatians 5, he uses the Greek word <...