What do we believe?
ABOUT GOD …
There is one God who is an eternal personal Spirit. He has limitless power, wisdom, holiness and love. There is only one God yet he is Trinity (three persons). Trinity means he is Father, Son arid Holy Spirit.
ABOUT JESUS …
Jesus Christ, God’s Son is eternal (always existed and always will). He is one with God the Father. Jesus is the accurate reflection of God. To become man He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, the nature of God and the nature of man, were united in one Person; truly God and truly man.
ABOUT The HOLY SPIRIT …
The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity. He is eternally one with the Father and the Son yet He is sent by them to achieve God’s purpose in the world and in the Church.
ABOUT THE BIBLE …
The Bible, consisting of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments, is the infallible Word of God. They were written by holy men of God inspired by the Holy Spirit and have supreme authority in all matters of life and faith.
PEOPLE ARE SINNERS
People are made in the image (likeness) of God and for a relationship with Him. By disobeying God’s commands our relationship with God and our personhoods have become corrupted. As a consequence, all people are spiritually dead under Satan’s dominion and control and subject to God’s anger and deserve a guilt sentence in ‘God’s courthouse’. Therefore, apart from God’s grace, people are helpless and hopeless.
JESUS SAVES PEOPLE FROM SIN AND DEATH.
In order to save people from the guilt, penalty and power of sin, Jesus Christ became a man and died a sacrificial death as our representative substitute. He took our guilty sentence, punishment and death upon himself. God accepted Jesus’ substituting himself for us and proved it by raising Jesus back to life. This salvation is for the whole world but only effective only if we accept Jesus. The sinner is justified and reconciled to God, not through any personal merit but solely on the basis of God’s gracious gift of salvation in Jesus Christ received through faith.
The ROLE OF the holy SPIRIT IN SALVATION.
The Holy Spirit helps us to understand and accept God’s provision of salvation. The Holy Spirit convinces sinners of their sinfulness and leads them to personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. He also causes them to have a kind of ‘spiritual rebirth’ in which they become children of God and have a ongoing relationship with Jesus.
Working within the life of believers the Holy Spirit makes real the presence of Christ, witnesses to their relationship with God, leads into all truth, gives gifts for effective service and produces graces for holy living.
CHURCH.
The Church is the body of people whom God has separated from the world through faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. All believers in Jesus are members of God’s universal Church. All Christians are priests who try to help others to get to know God as well. God calls individuals to positions of Bible teaching and leadership or to other special acts of serving others. The Church recognises such by ordaining pastors, commissioning missionaries, appointing deacons and other leaders, following New Testament practice.
BAPTISM OF Believers
Baptism is something the Lord Jesus encourages people to do. It is a declaration of a person’s faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. In accordance with the Bible in the New Testament it is done by total immersion in water which symbolises the believer’s identification with Christ in death, burial and resurrection, the washing away of sins and the believer’s dedication of himself to God to live and walk in newness of life.
COMMUNION OR THE LORD’S TABLE
The Lord’s Supper is another activity the Lord Jesus encourages us to do. It is celebrated with bread and wine. Christians will do this until the end of the age. It commemorates and declares our thanks for the Lord’s substitutionary death. The celebration expresses our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and with one another.
the Return OF the LORD JESUS CHRIST.
At the end of this age, according to His promise, Jesus Christ will return personally and visibly in His glory to the earth. The full consummation of the Kingdom of God awaits His return.
THE resurrection OF THE DEAD.
At the end of the age, there is to be a resurrection both of the righteous and the unrighteous. After death the bodies of people return to dust, but their spirits return immediately to God. Followers of Jesus go to be with Him while others wait for the judgment.
REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS ON A FUTURE DAY.
God has appointed a day of final judgment for the world. At that time Jesus Christ will judge every person and each will receive reward or punishment according to their deeds. Those who accepted Jesus’ offer of forgiveness will receive their reward and live in heaven in resurrected and glorified bodies. Those who did not accept Jesus’ offer of forgiveness and did not make Jesus the ruler of the lives will be consigned to Hell, the place of everlasting punishment.
