Called to be in a Relationship with God through Jesus
Our hope is to simply be Christians in Christ’s church… SHAPED BY SCRIPTURE.
God Offers Salvation to All PeopleWe are the supreme object of God’s creation. We are made in the spiritual image of God, to be like Him in character while exercising free moral choice. Unfortunately, we have all chosen to sin and thus have become separated from God. This is the dangerous condition from which we need to be saved.
God offers all of mankind a way back into His Kingdom through covenant relationship.” Jesus offers us His “New Covenant” for the Christian age which began on the day of Pentecost and continues today.
Salvation is God’s free gift to us. We can never make up for our sin by self-improvement or good works. We avoid separation from God only by accepting God’s forgiveness through Jesus Christ .
Though salvation is a free gift to us, we still must choose to accept it. When we turn from our self-ruled life and turn to Jesus in obedient faith, we are saved and receive the promise of eternal life in heaven. In spite of our many mistakes, we remain secure in God’s grace. Only if we turn in rebellion may we be lost.
Faith begins with choosing to believe what we learn from scripture concerning the Good News of Jesus Christ: that He is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, that He was buried, and was raised from the dead.
Faith includes a change of mind or heart, produced by grief concerning our separation from God because of our own sin. This grief leads to a willing change in the way we think and act. Our will becomes that of doing our Heavenly Father’s will.
Faith in the heart finds expression in the verbal confession that Jesus is the Son of God. This confession includes faith in God having raised Jesus from the dead, a belief central to Christianity.
Faith culminates in baptism of the penitent believer. Baptism (immersion) is a reenactment of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Baptism is the time at which God pronounces forgiveness and where our guilt of sin is removed from God’s view of us. In light of this, we recognize that baptism is essential for salvation. The blood that Jesus shed on the cross provides the sacrificial payment required by God for our sins and is the power of baptism. As God created us to be children in His eternal Kingdom, our new birth at baptism begins life in His family.
At the moment of baptism, we can know we have passed from spiritual death into spiritual life. We have passed from Satan’s realm into the “In-Christ” realm.
We know at the moment of baptism that His Holy Spirit indwells our heart. This promise of the New Covenant empowers us to live according to God’s way.
Salvation Requires us to be Transformed Followers of Jesus ChristSalvation is just the beginning of a lifetime of Christian growth better known as discipleship.
Just as in a marriage relationship, a covenant relationship has to be nurtured in order to be healthy.
Providing our mind with constant interaction with the Word is vital to our continued growth, health, and greater faith.
Putting our faith into practice strengthens our spirit. We do not participate in good works in order to be saved; rather, we participate in good works out of gratitude for our salvation. Good works is now a part of who we are. Failure to grow in good works leads to spiritual weakness and eventual death.
Jesus asks us to grow beyond our comfort zone. This growth is sometimes difficult and requires spiritual discipline to achieve. The Holy Spirit helps us in a special way with this life of discipline that leads to purity, maturity, and Christlikeness.
All scripture quotations in the Beliefs section use the English Standard Version (ESV®). |