Death Is Coming. Life Has A Purpose.
If you are like us, you generally associate a ‘This We Believe’ (What We Believe) statement with the local church. What this or that church body believes. But a This We Believe statement should actually be viewed as a This I Believe statement. Just as our relationship with God is an individual and personal one, so a This I Believe statement is a personal covenant between you and God. Father, this I believe……
Here is ours. We welcome your comments.
A. The Trinity
We believe in God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, who exists as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is eternal, infinite, and sovereign. He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and unchanging. He is holy, just, and righteous. God is love, grace, mercy, and goodness.
We believe Jesus Christ, as Immanuel, was fully God and fully man. We believe in His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, His atoning death on the cross, His bodily resurrection, His ascension to the right hand of the Father as our High Priest and Advocate, and in His imminent return in power and glory.
We believe in the person and the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, whose indwelling enables the Christian to live a godly life. He regenerates sinners and indwells believers. He is the agent by whom Christ baptizes all believers into His body. He is the seal by whom the Father guarantees the salvation of believers unto the day of redemption. And He is the Divine Teacher who illumines believers’ hearts and minds as they study the Word of God.
B. Revealed Truth
We believe that God has revealed himself to humanity in three ways:
- Through Creation itself, including Earth, the Milky Way Galaxy, the innumerable galaxies to the outer reaches of the universe, and all that is nature.
- Through the Bible which is the inspired, infallible, and authoritative Word of God, inerrant in its original writings. It is the final authority, fully sufficient for salvation and for living a godly life.
- Through the life and ministry of Jesus, including His substitutionary death on the cross.
C. Humanity
We believe that humanity came into existence by direct creation of God, uniquely made in His image and likeness and, as a result, that human life is sacred from conception to its natural end. We believe that because of Adam’s fall, humanity has inherited a sinful nature, that all human beings sin, that all sin is foreign and abhorrent to God, and that, in our humanity, we are utterly incapable of saving ourselves or earning our way back into a right relationship with God.
D. Salvation
We believe that salvation is a free gift from God, given to us through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and through faith in Him we can be reconciled to God and receive the gift of eternal life. We believe that salvation is a gift of God’s grace through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. Christ died in our place. On the third day after His death, He rose again, manifesting His victory over sin and death.
We believe salvation is received by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Good works and obedience are results of salvation, not requirements for salvation. And that the sufficiency and perfection of Christ’s sacrifice means all those who accept Christ as Savior are eternally secure in salvation. Just as salvation cannot be earned by good works, neither does it need good works to be maintained or sustained.
E. Sacraments and Ordinances
We believe that sacraments and ordinances are visible signs of God’s grace, are means through which God works in the lives of believers, and means by which believers can appropriately respond to and worship God. We believe in the sacraments and ordinances of baptism, the Lord’s Supper (Communion), and marriage. We believe that God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society.
F. The Church
We believe in the Church universal, which is the body of Christ on earth and consists of all believers in Jesus of this present age. We believe in the Great Commandment, the spiritual unity of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the importance of local churches, which are communities of believers who gather together for worship, fellowship, and the furtherance of God’s work in the world.
We believe we have been left here for a purpose. Until the Rapture trumpet call (listen for it), we are to carry out the Great Commission, sharing the good news of salvation to Judea, and Samaria, and even unto the ends of the earth (evangelism), and to help believers to grow into maturity in Christ (discipleship). We believe the Great Commission is the primary mission of the Church, and that it is the obligation of all believers to witness, by word and life, to the truth of God’s Word.
G. Things to Come
We believe that at death the souls of believers are absent from the body and present with the Lord, that we close our eyes to this world and open them to the face of Jesus Christ. We believe in the physical resurrection of all human beings, the saved unto the resurrection of eternal life (the First Resurrection) and the lost unto the resurrection of damnation (the Second Resurrection). As part of the First Resurrection, each believer will be rewarded, not based on deeds or on some man-made scale of justice, but according to their individual relationship to the sovereign will of God; “well done my good and faithful servant.”
We believe that the next prophecy to be fulfilled will be the sound of the trumpet at the imminent pre-tribulation rapture of the Saints by our Lord Jesus Christ, followed by the Tribulation and the return of Christ to the earth with His saints to establish His promised millennial Kingdom. We believe in the end of the age and in the new heaven and the new earth.