NXT Podcast: Recent Episodes
Grace Church Students
Weekly messages and other exciting content from NXT students, a ministry of Grace church, Eden Prairie MN.
We call Wednesday nights the Best Night of the week because we believe Jesus can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. We know a God who goes above and beyond to celebrate the repentant sinner. Ultimately, we see that when we gather, we get a glimpse of the best version of eternity, with our perfect King who loves us and wants us far more than anything in this world.
We call Wednesday nights the Best Night of the week because we believe Jesus can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. We know a God who goes above and beyond to celebrate the repentant sinner. Ultimately, we see that when we gather, we get a glimpse of the best version of eternity, with our perfect King who loves us and wants us far more than anything in this world.
We call Wednesday nights the Best Night of the week because we believe Jesus can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. We know a God who goes above and beyond to celebrate the repentant sinner. Ultimately, we see that when we gather, we get a glimpse of the best version of eternity, with our perfect King who loves us and wants us far more than anything in this world.
We call Wednesday nights the Best Night of the week because we believe Jesus can take the ordinary and make it extraordinary. We know a God who goes above and beyond to celebrate the repentant sinner. Ultimately, we see that when we gather, we get a glimpse of the best version of eternity, with our perfect King who loves us and wants us far more than anything in this world.
Here we begin a series as the climax to the entire year, 2021-2022. The Arrest, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus.
If you truly want to love God and love others well, you have got to take a few things into consideration: When Jesus says to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength we need to stop and ask ourselves, are we holistically healthy people?
Self-righteousness can’t save, only Jesus can do that. When our faith is more concerned with what we “don’t” do and our idea of righteousness is being “better” than someone else, God is not your God, YOU are.
Slapping Jesus’ name on something doesn’t mean we’re submitting to the authority of Jesus. The power isn’t in the “name” Jesus, there are a lot of people named Jesus, the power is in the PERSON of Jesus. When our faith is driven by that person, we’ll see some pretty incredible things!
We’re actually QUITE small minded if you stop to think about it. And yet, somehow we tend to think we’ve got it all figured out. Enter Jesus. Ephesians 3:20-21 says that he is able to do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine”. Did you catch that? Immeasurably more! So why do we keep limiting God to our little brain sized box?
If someone you respected as an authority in your life told you that you would have to die the worst imaginable death in order to prove your dedication to them, how would you respond? This is EXACTLY what Jesus said to the men and women following Him.
Not everyone’s testimony is as extreme as the Garasean Demoniac, but the reality is that you were once dead and passed from death to life. THAT IS EXTREME! When we realize there is power in our testimony, God can use it to impact your world!
In our self-righteous assumption about our character, we have a tendency to assume that if we do the right things, and say the right words, it means we have faith. As long as the good words and actions outweigh the bad, we’re fine. In the Upside-Down Kingdom, character actually flows from faith that impacts the words, which influence the actions! Our lives can’t be measured by “more good than bad” but by the object of our faith. Jesus flips the entire reality of what “character” is on it’s head.
Two identical homes face two identical floods, why does one not even shake while the other is completely demolished? Part two of “The Heart of the Issue” looks specifically at what we can practically do to live a life with deep roots and a firm foundation.
This two-week series aims to take an authentic look at what is below the surface and in the heart. This week, we will direct the conversation to an intentional focus for honest reflection and asking, “Where am I truly?”. Here, Jesus uses a divided heart over “treasure”, but could apply to many things, not just money.
When external piety seems to give platform and prestige, Jesus displays that it is in fact the opposite that is celebrated in the Kingdom. A humble heart fully aware of its need for Jesus and willingness to pursue him is what’s elevated in this passage. If you look at the opposite of each of the blessed statements, you'll quickly find a pattern emerging of a self-centered self-focused individual, this is the same attitude found in people whose primary goal is to achieve the “blessing” of fame. So, what will you pursue? Fame, or Humility?
The religious elite in Jesus’ day saw themselves as just that “elite”. They set up an entire system of rules that would “protect” them and others from breaking God’s laws. Unfortunately, this was actually oppressive which God never intended his commands to be. Jesus intentionally breaks idle laws of man to prove a point about the rules.
Jesus shows up to four fishermen and in giving them the best catch of their lives, opens their eyes to a calling greater than they could have ever dreamed.
Jesus walks into a cultural situation where people are actually offending God in the name of worshiping him! This sends Jesus over the edge. In his perfection, he starts flipping tables! In all of this Jesus shows us a new way to approach God.
Jesus gets led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days of fasting and temptation, during this time, we get a relatable model for how Jesus fought temptation.
Knowing that Jesus was fully God gives us hope in His deity, but the fact that He is also fully man has implications for us beyond what we typically think about. Jesus as man means the availability of salvation for us and for all mankind.
As we set up our overall series, we will begin with the end. Jesus is God and he shows from Genesis to Revelation how and why that matters. Not only is Jesus God, but we have been given his Words!