WHAT WE BELIEVE

We believe the Gospel is the good news of salvation from the punishment of our sins. The salvation is by God’s grace (His undeserved kindness) through faith in Jesus Christ.  Salvation is a free gift given to the one who believes in Jesus.  The only way of receiving the free gift of eternal life is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose substitutionary death on the cross fully satisfied the requirement for our justification.  Faith is a personal response, apart from works, whereby we are persuaded that the finished work of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, has delivered us from condemnation and guaranteed our eternal life. 

We believe that all Scripture, the Old and New Testaments, is the inspired Word of God.  It is the truth and without error.  Scripture is complete and no further revelations are being given.

We believe in only one living and true God.  We believe that God is spirit and personal and that He created out of nothing and sustains the entire universe.

We believe in Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God.  While fully God, He became perfect man, adding to His deity, humanity, when He was born of the virgin Mary.  It was God’s plan that He suffer and die on the cross for us, bringing about our eternal salvation by paying fully the penalty for our sins.  He rose again from the grave and ascended into heaven, and is now at the right hand of God.

We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead.  In this age of grace, He resides in every believer.  We believe that some gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and miraculous healings, were temporary.  Speaking in tongues was never intended to be understood as a sign of a person’s faith in Jesus.  While God still heals today, it can be within His will for a believer to suffer.  Physical sickness is not always to be understood as a result of sin in the believer’s life.

We believe there is one true God, but in the unity of the Godhead there are three eternal, co-equal and distinct Persons (the Trinity):  God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

We believe Satan is a real supernatural personality, a fallen angel of great power and wickedness.  We believe that Christ by His death on the cross defeated and judged Satan and stripped him of his power over death, and secured victory for the believer over all the wiles of the devil.  Satan will ultimately be cast into the lake of fire.

We believe that by an immediate act of God mankind was created in His image.  Mankind became separated from God due to Adam’s sin in the Garden of Eden; Adam’s sin being charged to the entire human race.  Therefore, each person stands condemned before a holy God. We believe every person will be raised up; the saved unto life everlasting and the unsaved to eternal condemnation.

We believe that salvation is by God’s grace (His undeserved kindness) through faith in Jesus Christ.  Salvation is a free gift given to the one who believes in Jesus.  The only way of receiving the free gift of eternal life is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, whose substitutionary death on the cross fully satisfied the requirement for our justification.  Faith is a personal response, apart from works, whereby we are persuaded that the finished work of Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection, has delivered us from condemnation and guaranteed our eternal life. Being assured of salvation is the birthright of every believer from the moment of faith in Jesus Christ, and is founded upon the promise of God in His written Word. Spiritual growth (sanctification), which is different from salvation (justification), is God’s expectation for every believer, but spiritual growth is not necessarily manifested uniformly in every believer.

We believe that the church universal includes all believers from Pentecost to the Rapture of the church, while the local church includes believers united for the service of Christ in any given assembly.  We believe that the one true church is the spiritual body of the Lord Jesus into which all true believers of the present age are baptized immediately by the Holy Spirit.  The church gathers together to worship, to fellowship, to disciple believers and observe the ordinances (believer’s water baptism and the Lord’s Supper).  The church scattered is to proclaim the gospel and represent the Savior to a lost and dying world.

We believe Jesus will return just as He promised.  His return is imminent, for it could happen at any moment.  When Jesus comes, the church will be raptured from the earth and will forever be with the Lord.  After a period of seven years, the saints will return with Jesus at His Second Coming.  He will establish His reign on earth and rule for 1000 years.  We believe that the believers’ works will be judged according to their deeds and that they will receive rewards for their faithful service and that those who have not believed in Jesus will face judgment at the Great White Throne, when they will be eternally separated from God.  We believe that the final state of believers is far better than this present life in the body and that their final and eternal home is in heaven, the New Jerusalem.