What We Stand 4

  1. We believe that God is Love (Luke 10: 17-20). How do you get love? You get Love by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior, which is called born again and filled with the power of God (Romans 5:5).Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us
    (I John 4:7-12).
  2. We believe that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. We understand the whole Bible is inspired in the sense that holy men of God were moved by the Holy Spirit to write the very words of Scripture. We believe in the complete inerrancy of the original manuscripts of the whole Bible and that they serve as the only rule of faith and practice (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21).
  3. We believe in the Eternal Godhead who has revealed Himself as ONE God existing in THREE persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; distinguishable but indivisible (Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14).
  4. We believe in the creation, test, and fall of man as recorded in the book of Genesis; his total spiritual depravity and inability to attain divine righteousness (Romans 5:12, 18).
  5. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of men, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, very God and very man (Luke 1:26-35; John 1:18; Isaiah 7:14; 9:6).
  6. We believe Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose again on the third day, and personally appeared to His disciples (1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 4:25).
  7. We believe in the bodily Ascension of Jesus to heaven, His exaltation, and personal, literal, and bodily return the second time for the Church (John 14:2-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18).
  8. We believe in the salvation of sinners by grace, through repentance and faith in the perfect and sufficient work of the cross of Calvary by which we obtain remission of sins (Ephesians 2:8-9; Hebrews 9:12; Romans 5:11).
  9. We believe in the necessity of water baptism by immersion in the name of the Eternal Godhead in order to fulfill the command of Christ (Matthew 28:19; Acts 2:36-39; 19:1-6).

    Dead to Sin, Alive in Christ

    What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

    8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.

    11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

    Slaves to Righteousness

    15     What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!     16 Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. 18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

    19 I am using an example from everyday life because of your human limitations. Just as you used to offer yourselves as slaves to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer yourselves as slaves to righteousness leading to holiness. 20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in[b] Christ Jesus our Lord(Romans 6:1-23).

  10. We believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as an experience subsequent to salvation, with Scriptural evidence; namely, speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives utterance (Acts 2:1-4; 8:14-17; 10:44-46; 19:1-6; Ephesians 1:13-14).
  11. We believe in the operation of the gifts and ministries as was manifested in the Early Church, along with the fruit of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:8-11; Eph. 4:11; Gal. 5:22-23).
  12. We believe in the healing of the body by divine power or divine healing in its varied aspects as practiced in the Early Church (Acts 4:30; Romans 8:11; 1 Corinthians 12:9; James 5:14).
  13. We believe in the Spirit-filled life, a life of separation from the world, and perfecting of holiness in the fear of God as an expression of Christian faith (Ephesians 5:18; 2 Corinthians 6:14; 7:1).
  14. We believe that sexual purity is a necessary expression for all of God’s children and requires abstinence from adultery, fornication, incest, homosexuality, or other sexual relationships and practices are forbidden by Scripture (Lev. 18:1-30; 1 Cor. 6:18; Heb. 13:4).
  15. We believe that marriage is a sacred institution established by God and carried out in the act of uniting one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime. All sexual relationships other than between a man and a woman married to each other are condemned in the Bible (Leviticus 18:22, 26:15-56; Romans 1:24-25 and 1 Corinthians 5:9-13, 6:9-12, 15-20).
  16. We believe in the Table of the Lord, commonly called Communion, or the Lord’s Supper, for believers (1 Corinthians 11:23-32).
  17. We believe in eternal life for believers (John 3:16; 5:24) and eternal punishment for unbelievers (Mark 9:43-50; 1 Thessalonians 1:9-10; Revelation 20:10-15).
  18. We believe in the reality and personality of Satan and the eternal judgment of Satan and his angels (Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10-15).
  19. We believe that the government should stay out of women’s and men’s private life when it comes to abortion. People life is private. We do not believe in using the taxpayer’s money for murdering a child (Jeremiah 1:15; Psalms 139:13; Exodus 20:13; Hosea 4:2; Matthew 5:21).
  20. We believe that everyone who has accepted Jesus will have the Spirit activated in their life with power and fire to carry out the word of God (7 Acts 1:4-5, 7).
  21. We do believe that our enemy is Satan and his evil network of demonic and satanic spirits (Ephesians 6:12, Luke 10:17-20). We only can fight a good fight of faith (I Timothy 6:12) with God through the power of the Holy Spirit.