|
Beliefs
Jesus Christ is the Way
At the very core of our beliefs is that Jesus Christ lived, died, and was raised on the third day to save humanity. The Old Testament Scriptures foretell the coming of the One who is to come – Jesus Christ – and the New Testament Scriptures reveal that he is the one who fulfilled the Old Testament prophesy.
We believe that we are saved by grace through faith, that we cannot earn God’s love. We believe good behavior and living a good life are important, but these do not compel God to love us. The good news of Scripture is that God knows us, our failures, our mistakes, the harm we have done to others and ourselves, and he loves us anyway. That is the mystery and blessing of God’s grace.
Jesus Christ is the Truth
In the world today there are many competing truth claims, so many that it is difficult to know in what or in whom to believe. Further, the dominant culture cautions against challenging one another’s truths, yet truth from as biblical perspective means “constant, permanent, faithful, and reliable.”
The Gospel of John helps us understand that Christ reveals God and God’s truth and that when we do Christ’s work, he enables us to know the truth and to be free. Truth and freedom are intimately connected as both come from Jesus Christ. We cannot know truth without knowing Christ, and we are never truly free apart from life in him.
Jesus Christ is the Life
Studies indicate that the average American is bombarded with thousands of messages each day. Most of these come from advertisers who try to get us to buy a particular product or service and it seems that most of these messages claim that if we wear it, drive it, eat it, drink it, or use it, we’ll become more successful and more well liked. Money management expert, Dave Ramsey, often says, “We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like” and perhaps he’s right.
In our brokenness and pain we seek to find life in many wrong ways. True happiness, fulfillment, and joy come from Christ and him alone. The voices of the culture tell us that we can have it all and that we can have it now, yet it, whatever it is, never satisfies us for very long. We believe that Christ can satisfy a hungry heart and a thirsty soul, in him alone is the life for which we all long.
|
|
