WE BELIEVE
FOUNDATIONS OF OUR FAITH
We believe water baptism is an outward expression of our faith that demonstrates a believer’s identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus (Acts 8:12, Rom. 6:4).
We believe the Holy Spirit is our Comforter. He guides us in all areas of our lives (John 14:26 ᴋᴊᴠ). We believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of praying in the Spirit (Acts 2:1–4). We believe in the nine gifts of the Spirit and nine attributes of the fruit of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:7–11, Gal. 5:22–23).
We believe the good news that God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, Jesus, and whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16–17). We believe we are called to bring this good news—the gospel of grace—to all nations (Acts 20:24)
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We believe Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). All who call on the name of the Lord Jesus shall be saved (Rom. 10:13). The Bible tells us, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9–10).
VICTORY OVER SIN
We believe sin separated us from a holy God, and the penalty for sin is death. Romans 6:23 tells us, “The wages of sin is death.” The good news is that Romans 6:23 does not stop there. It goes on to say, “But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” In Christ, “we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7). The Bible also tells us, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Therefore, it is essential that when someone becomes a believer in Jesus Christ, they acknowledge their sins, recognize their need for the Savior, and make a personal decision to receive His complete forgiveness for all their sins.
We believe that as born-again believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to live victoriously over the power of sin and to “walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:10). We believe sin is always accompanied by destructive consequences. This is not the result of God’s punishment against believers but the destructive consequences of sin itself. To illustrate, a believer may exercise their free choice and place their hand in an open fire. The destructive consequence is the result of this person’s proactive choice rather than punishment from God.
We believe grace is a teacher who teaches true believers to deny ungodliness and worldly lust. The Bible is very clear in stating that “the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age” (Titus 2:11–12). Grace is not a license to sin. Any person who makes this false claim to justify their own life choices does not understand the gospel of grace and does not represent what we believe.
We believe sin shall not have dominion over believers who have an accurate revelation of the gospel of grace and who lay hold of their righteous identity in Christ. Romans 6:8, 12–14 makes this clear: “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. . . . Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
We believe the good fruit of the gospel of grace will lead to victorious living over sin, beautiful marriages, strong families, genuine generosity, and born-again believers who reign in every area of their lives to the glory of God. Romans 5:17 tells us, “Much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.”
We believe truly born-again believers are not looking for an excuse to sin. How can they if they have been impacted by Jesus’ love and sacrifice? We believe they are looking for a way out of sin and out of the prison of fear, guilt, and condemnation. We have observed that the more we proclaim God’s amazing grace and unconditional love, the more we receive testimony after testimony from people around the world who have been liberated from pornography, alcoholism, drugs, and sexual immorality. That is the power of the gospel of grace. When Jesus is preached, sin loses its power to have dominion over people’s lives and true repentance occurs.
We believe that today, we are under the new covenant of grace. “For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (John 1:17). The old covenant of the law was given through a servant. Grace and truth came through the Son. The law talks about what man ought to be. Grace reveals who God is to man. In the first miracle of Moses, he turned water into blood, resulting in death. In the first miracle of grace, Jesus turned water into wine, resulting in life and celebration. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). Under the law, God demands righteousness from spiritually bankrupt man. But under grace, God provides righteousness as a gift (2 Cor. 5:21, Rom. 5:17).
We believe that through the cross at Calvary, all who believe in Jesus and acknowledge Him as their Lord and Savior are under the new covenant of grace. Under the law, God said He will by no means clear the guilty but will visit their sins to the third and fourth generations (Exod. 34:7). Under grace, God says, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Heb. 8:12). The law is man-centered whereas grace is Jesus-centered. The law focuses on what we must accomplish to be justified. Grace focuses entirely on what Jesus has accomplished for our justification. Under the law, we are disqualified by our disobedience. Under grace, we are qualified by Jesus’ obedience. Under the law, we are made righteous when we do right. Under grace, we are made righteous when we believe right (Rom. 4:3–8).
We believe the Ten Commandments are holy, just, glorious, and good, and we have the utmost honor and esteem for the perfect law of God. We believe the Ten Commandments are so pristine in their standard and so unbending in their holy requirements that as Galatians 3:11 spells out, “no one is justified by the law in the sight of God.” Justification before God can only come by faith in Christ: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified. . . . For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (Gal. 2:16, 19–21).
We believe that believers who have been transformed by the power of the Lord’s grace will desire to fulfill and keep the moral excellencies, values, and virtues espoused by the Ten Commandments. True grace produces true holiness. As apostle Paul proclaimed, “Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom. 13:10).
We believe God’s people under grace not only fulfill the letter of the law, but in Christ, they exceed it and go the extra mile. For example, the law can only command one to not commit adultery, and while a person can keep that law outwardly, it is possible that inwardly, they still have no love for their spouse. Grace doesn’t just deal with the surface or outward behavior modification but goes deeper. It teaches a man to love his wife as Christ loved the church and to build a beautiful marriage based on the power of the cross. That is the transforming power of God’s grace. The power to love and to live morally glorifying lives comes from first experiencing the Lord’s most intimate love for us (1 John 4:19). Having experienced God’s extravagant grace, not only will one not covet what belongs to their neighbor, but they will also have the power to be generous to their neighbor and community. We believe this is what happened to Zacchaeus after he experienced the grace of God firsthand. He said, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold” (Luke 19:8).
TRANSFORMING POWER OF GRACE
We believe it is essential to understand the original meaning of the Greek word for repentance and not just its traditional meaning of doing outward penance. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia, which means “a change of mind.”
Repentance that involves a genuine change of mind goes deeper than mere outward expressions of repentance. A person can appear outwardly remorseful and even cry bitter tears and still not experience a breakthrough over their sin. True repentance (metanoia) speaks of genuine contrition, a recognition of wrongdoing, and a real inward desire to turn away from sin and to return to grace by having a revelation of the cross (2 Cor. 7:9–10).
We believe one can only experience true repentance and break free from sin by having faith in the efficacy of the finished work of our Lord Jesus. We believe that if a believer has fallen into sin and is struggling with a sinful habit today, it is essential they have a change of mind and believe by faith that even that sin has been punished in the body of Jesus and begin to receive afresh God’s forgiveness, God’s unmerited favor, and God’s righteousness to overcome that weakness. We encourage all who have failed to not run away from our Lord Jesus but rather to run to Him. Jesus is the solution, the answer, and the victory out of any destructive cycle of sin (Rom. 5:17).
We believe in progressive sanctification. The moment we received Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we were forgiven, cleansed, perfected in righteousness, and saved. We were also sanctified in Christ (Heb. 10:10). However, it is important to understand that the revelation and outworking of our sanctification in Christ are progressive. As a believer, we cannot become more righteous, but we can become more sanctified or holy in terms of how we live our lives. In other words, while a believer has been justified and made righteous by the blood of Jesus once and for all, sanctification is ongoing in their growth as a Christian. The more one grows in grace and in their relationship with the Lord—the more one is washed again and again by the water of the word of God’s grace—the more one grows in sanctification and holiness. This is why the author of the book of Hebrews says we “are being sanctified” even though we have been “perfected forever” by Christ’s one act of obedience at the cross (Heb. 10:14).
We believe “all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). We are thus wary of any counterfeit “grace teaching” that says behavior, discipline, correction, and right living are not important. The revelation of forgiveness does not detract from, nor is it at the expense of, right living. Instead, it is the fuel that makes right living happen. However, it is vital we know the Lord will never correct us with tragic accidents, sicknesses, and diseases. The Bible tells us, “For the Lᴏʀᴅ corrects those he loves, just as a father corrects a child in whom he delights” (Prov. 3:12 ɴʟᴛ).