WHAT WE BELIEVE
- God is the Sovereign Creator because it makes more sense to us than any other explanation, and we’ve looked at all of them.
- We also believe the Bible is the history of how God planned to relate to us (the human part of his creation). We believe this because the Bible makes historical sense, and has withstood criticism for at least 2,000 years.
- We believe that mankind (that’s us), in our arrogance, did not acknowledge God as Sovereign Creator. Consequently mankind turned to all sorts of human wickedness we recognize as sin, or our chosen imperfection.
- We believe that God is perfect, and can’t remain perfect if He accepts our chosen imperfection (our choice to sin).
- We believe that God is just, and consequently must “Render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2: 6 quoting from Psalms 62:12) if something dramatic doesn’t happen.
- We believe that the dramatic actually happened when God, in His Sovereignty, sent His Son, Jesus, to be the ultimate blood sacrifice for the individual sins of mankind (including us). We believe this happened as laid out in the Bible, by prophesied crucifixion.
- We believe the key for sinful mankind’s reconciliation to God is faith in Jesus. We also believe that ‘faith’ (Hebrews Chapter 11) is doing something because of what you know that you didn’t actually see or experience but were convinced of by evidence (Hebrews 11: 1).
- We believe it is through God’s amazing grace (given by Him) that we are ‘saved through faith’ (doing what He said to do because of the evidence we see) as a free gift. We don’t ‘earn’ salvation, we obey to receive God’s free gift if we choose Him.
- We believe our response to God’s free gift is the same today as it was when Peter told convicted sinners to ‘Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin, and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 2:38)
- We believe that Peter meant baptism was immersion in water because that’s what the “English-ized’ original New Testament word meant.
- We believe this is the beginning of the Christian life as God intended it to be. That is we believe God reconciles us to Himself when we repent of sin, and do things His way, and not ours. It is not the ‘end,’ but the beginning of reconciliation.
- We believe living out the Christian life is more than an initial reconciliation to God on His terms. As a fellowship of believers, we study, strive, worship, encourage, correct each other, and bear one another’s burdens as we try to fulfill the ‘law of God’s Christ’ (Galatians 6:2)
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.
Hebrews 10:23