What Do I Believe?

I believe in the Trinity: Father God, the Son - Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit. There is only one God, but He exists in three persons. He is the Creator of everything. The Trinity was not created but exists outside of time and space. God is all-powerful and all-knowing. 

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God loved us from the start and He made man in His image to partner with Him in what He is doing on earth. When people in Old Testament times continued to reject His outstretched hand and didn't respond to His invitation to relationship, He didn't give up, but sent prophet after prophet, until He sent His beloved, one-of-a-kind son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Jesus came, although fully God to be fully man, laying His godliness down for the sake of demonstrating a life fully yielded to God, the Father. He partnered with God, doing only what He saw the Father did, and was obedient to the point of death. He died on the cross where He demonstrated that He was the Messiah fulfilling the Old Testament messianic prophecies, thereby cancelling the debt caused by sin of those that would believe in Him. He was laid in a tomb, guarded by a heavy stone and Roman soldiers, but raised after three days and appeared to many. He went up on a cloud in front of many witnesses to return to be at the right hand of God the Father forevermore. He will come again in glory to judge the prince of this world, Satan. Every knee that doesn't bow before His kingship, and acknowledge that He is the only way to the Father, will be judged by Him. The ultimate sin is to reject Jesus as Son of God and Saviour. 

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However,  when He came the first time, He didn't come to judge but to save, heal, restore and reconcile man to Himself. He came to reveal who the Father really was. To see Him, was to see the Father. When He left, He asked the disciples to wait for the Helper, the Holy Spirit, an ever-present Comforter, Guide and Teacher. He is a person and not merely a force. He is as much part of the relationship with God as are the other persons of the Trinity. Surrender to Holy Spirit is to live in victory over your own flesh and the schemes of the enemy and his helpers, empowered to do what God calls you to do, and to see the increasing appearance of His fruit in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I believe that every believer has to consciously choose to receive the fullness of Holy Spirit and continue to choose to be filled and re-filled. Drawing near to God is the submission to His glory and sovereign will. God drawing near is made manifest in our experience of His presence. 

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I believe in the Bible as the inspired word of God, written by human hands but breathed to life by God. It is full of true stories of men, with honesty and vulnerability and the redemptive grace of a loving and kind God. I believe that the cross: Christ's death and resurrection is the most significant point in history. Everything that happened before then in the Old Testament should be read through the lens of redemption of the New Testament. God never changes, and the God Abraham and Moses encountered, slow to anger and eager to forgive, is the God I call my Father. I believe all my sins, past, present and future have been nailed to the cross. The exchange is beauty for ashes and joy for mourning. Jesus modeled how to live so that the Kingdom is at hand for those around me; He even said greater things will we do!Faith is a gift in seed form: as I continue to step out in obedience, my faith is strengthened and grows into a mighty tree, step by step. 

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It is the kindness of God that leads me to repentance. I believe in teaching others how much God loves them, will nudge them to surrender more. Perfect love casts out all fear. We don't become acceptable and pleasing to God, we are fully pleasing to Him because of the righteousness of Christ in us. We don't earn His love by obedience; we are fully loved, demonstrated by Him laying down His life. Therefore, we respond to His love by loving Him back. Obedience is our love language. Christ was the perfect sacrificial lamb, and did it once and for all! Transformation is not out of reach. We are new creations in Christ. Our minds are renewed by taking thoughts captive and surrender them to Truth. Jesus Christ is Truth and the embodiment of the Word. Holy Spirit is actively involved in this process to teach, coach, remind, comfort and help. 

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I believe in a universal church with Christ as the head. Believers in Christ are parts of a greater body, and everybody has a significant part to play and a specific calling. Vulnerability, humility and accountability bind us together to love as we are loved. We look out for the young in faith and admonish each other in love and gentleness. Judgement of persons doesn't belong in the church. However, teachings and acts should be judged against truth as found in Scripture. Anyone who tries to lay a different foundation than Jesus Christ is a false teacher. The local churches are smaller presentations of the bigger body and should function as pictures of the bigger body, as a whole, interdependent on each other to fulfill all the roles.