As a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ who has been called to teach His Word orally and through the craft of writing parables, it is important that I testify to what I believe.
The 66 books of the Holy Bible are inspired and without error and are the supreme and final authority of truth, faith and life, revealing the purpose and person of God.
There is one God in 3 persons-Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This relational Triune God created all things and sustains all things through His power. He is sovereign and completely responsible for every thing. He is transcendent and beyond understanding and yet personal and intimately involved. A God who so furiously loves His people, He gave them free will and has an intentional sovereign plan for salvation to redeem them and transform them into the likeness of Christ.
Man was originally created in the image of God and through Adam fell into sin. This decisive rebellion seeks independence and self effort & sufficiency instead of God dependence and causes man to be separated from God and lost eternally. Each man is responsible for all sin committed after reaching the age of accountability. Sin is the condition of being separated from God who is life, thus sin can be stated as being dead, empty and lacking aliveness. Anything humans turn to that tries to fill the absence of God is simply a symptom or fruit of sin, some of these behaviors look really good like religion and some of these behaviors look really bad like evil wickedness. The problem with the human race is not simply a matter of bad behavior; that is an incomplete definition of sin. The problem with the human race is the dead emptiness inside us we are trying to fill. We are empty of the thing that makes us most who we are and makes us feel fully alive and trying to fix this problem produces actions and behaviors that violate God’s will and fall short of God’s directives.
Salvation from everlasting punishment and entrance into a state of restored fellowship with God is secured by believing that Jesus Christ the Son of God bore our sin in His own body on the cross, died and was buried and was resurrected from the dead and now stands willing to make an exchange with any sinner that believes in Him- their dead emptiness for His aliveness, their sinful behaviors for His righteousness, their eternal death penalty of separation from God for His atoning re-connection with God that gives abundant and eternal life.
The Holy Spirit indwells all who receive Jesus Christ as both Savior and Lord as a comforter and counselor. He is responsible for the spiritual birth, sealing and sanctification of the believer and empowers us to live loved.
The Church is the body of Christ, a spiritual organism of born again believers called to be identified with Christ in baptism and to remember his death in the Lord’s supper. I believe all believers are called to gather together in worship and to be in the world but not of it and to witness for Christ, preaching the good news of his gospel and to study the Bible personally through the power of the Holy Spirit maturing into the preordained purpose of God for them.
4jlkelly 