THE HOLY BIBLE

The Bible is God's Will and Word on paper. The Bible was written by the finger of God (Deuteronomy 9:10) and from the heart of God to communicate His Will in the earth. God inspired men to write according to His direction and influence. Although much of the communication of events and happenings was done orally by early mankind, archeologists and researchers have discovered writings and artifacts that prove many of the Bible events occurred and characters existed. Beginning with Moses, God begin to give man detailed insight on events that happened from the beginning of time. These initial writings from the Old Testament are recognized as the scriptures and Word of God. New Testament scripture was added much later by the hand of the Apostles ordained by Jesus Christ and men that shaped the New Testament church. 

JESUS CHRIST IS LORD

Throughout the Bible there is a central theme of the oneness of God. One Supernatural Being from Genesis to Revelations that created all things for His glory. The Bible says, "Hear, O Israel; the Lord your God is one Lord” (Deuteronomy 6:4). These words spoken to the Jews in the Old Testament shaped theIR monotheistic views of their being only one God; and it was that theme of oneness that separated their faith from other polytheistic religions. That one God inspired the Prophet Isaiah and all the prophets of the Bible to declare that God would manifest one day in the earth to save Israel from their sin. Isaiah prophesies in Isaiah 9:6, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” We fully understand that this was a prophecy about the coming of Jesus Christ. He was that child that was born of a virgin (Isaiah 7:14) and that fulfilled all prophecy in the Old Testament.  Isaiah said that that child would be the Might God in the earth and the singular only everlasting Father manifested. 

GOD IS A GOD OF RELATIONSHIP

The God that we serve is a God of relationship. From the very beginning of time, God has desired a spiritual everlasting relationship with His greatest creation, Man. Out of all things created, Man was the only being created that was created in the similitude of God’s likeness (Genesis 1:26). God came down Himself and communed with Adam and in the Book of Revelation, that same God is coming back to rapture His children to live forever with Him. Therefore, from Genesis to Revelation, God has shown His commitment to having an eternal relationship with Man.

With the knowledge of this truth, we see God manifesting Himself throughout the Bible in different perspectives to promote a holistic relationship with Man. So there are three relationships that we see God fulfilling in relation to Man: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. There are some that will try to separate these three manifestations to say that there are three entities that make up God. But Father, Son, and Holy Ghost represent three relationships that God has with Man. Each relationship has a strategic and specific purpose but they all manifest in order to demonstrate the power and love of one God. 

SALVATION

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). Therefore, salvation is an act of God. Jesus declared that salvation by man’s efforts is impossible but it can be achieved by the act of God through Jesus Christ. After the fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden, it was clear that man was not equipped to save himself. Therefore, God came in flesh as Jesus Christ to save mankind from the penalty and affects of sin. Because we are born in sin and shapened in iniquity (Psalms 51:5) in order for us to be saved we must accept the act of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection so that we could be saved from sin and eternal separation from God.  Jesus Christ has done the works necessary for man to receive salvation; so now all man has to do is to believe and acknowledge that the works of Jesus Christ are sufficient for his salvation. “He that cometh to God must first believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). 

When you recognize the awesome works of Jesus Christ’s love in the world and His commitment to seeing the world saved (2 Peter 3:9), you will repent and turn to God. Then you will accept the baptism in water in Jesus name so that you can identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus (Romans 6:1-8) which will remove your sin. Then your heart will be opened to God so that He can fill you with His Spirit , known as the Holy Ghost, so that you can live an empowered life for Jesus (Acts 1:8). At that point, you are saved and can walk in the freedom and power of God that comes with true salvation.  On the day of Pentecost, the sorrowful Jews and others cried out and asked what should they do now that Jesus was already crucified and they had rejected Him. “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, be baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:37, 38). Now after living a life of rejecting Jesus, you can be saved if you follow the instructions delivered by Peter on that great day.

REPENTANCE

The Necessity of Repentance for Salvation

Repentance is a godly sorrow that comes to one’s heart that causes them to turn away from their life of sin and turn to God. Repentance is a releasing of one’s total self in order to take on all of God’s nature, love, and power. Repentance is a rejection of the life once lived and an acceptance of the life that can be lived in Christ Jesus because of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore, a person cannot come to God unless they first repent or turn to Him for the purpose of surrendering their life to Him.

More Scriptures to Study Concerning Repentance

II Peter 3:9  - “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Acts 2:38 – “ . . . Repent and be baptized everyone of you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”

Psalm 51: 1-7 – (Example of Repentance) “Have mercy upon me, O God, accord to thy loving kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions . .”

WATER BAPTISM

The Necessity of Water Baptism for Salvation

Baptism comes from the word “baptizo” which means to submerge or go under. As in the Bible, people were submerged under water because the natural cleaning power of water was symbolic of the spiritual cleansing of one’s soul that takes place when one is washed in the water. After a person repents, they need to be baptized in order to wash themselves of their old sins and nature. Water baptism is an identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Baptism shows that a person is dying out to themselves; burying their old man, and coming out of the water with a new life. 

More Scriptures to Study Concerning Water Baptism

•Acts 2:38 – “Then Peter said, Repent and be baptized everyone of you . . .”

•John 3:5 – “. . except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”

•. Romans 6: 1-6 – “. . .Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead, by the glory of the Father, even so we also, should walk in the newness of life.”

•Acts 10: 44-48 – “ . . .Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?  And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord . . .”

INFILLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Necessity of Infilling of Holy Spirit for Salvation

As earlier mentioned,  Jesus says in John 3 that “. . except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” So baptism in water alone cannot save an individual’s soul. It is the baptism in the Holy Spirit that fills man with the nature, character, and power of God. God is a Spirit (John 4:24), so to have the Spirit is to have God in you. Now the Lord is that Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty” (2 Corinthians 3:17); therefore, again Spirit of God is indeed God coming to live in us and wherever God is there can be nothing but freedom. The Spirit of God frees you from the bondage and death that is in the flesh and gives us access to the promises of God. The Holy Ghost comes from the Hagios Pneuma “Holy or Set Apart” ,“Breath or Wind” of God that enters a heart that is emptied out before God and totally open to God. The purpose of the Holy Ghost is to empower man with the ability to represent God in the earth having dominion over the enemy through God’s Spirit in the inward man. John writes that “as many as received him [Jesus], to them gave he [Jesus] power to become the sons of God (St. John 1:12). So only those that receive Jesus through the Holy Spirit are able to become child of God. Therefore, the Spirit is mandatory for one to claim complete salvation. We further understand that from the beginning of the Christian Church that came out of the Book of Acts until now that the initial evidence that someone has received the Spirit is that they speak with tongues or in a heavenly language that only God can give (Acts 2; Acts 10; Acts 19).

More Scriptures to Study Concerning the Infilling of Holy Spirit 

•Acts 2:38 – “ . . .Repent and be baptized . . . and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost . . “

•Luke 11:9-13 – “ . . .how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Ghost to them that ask him?”  

•Acts 1:8 – “But ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you . . .”

•Acts 2: 1-4 – “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come . . .and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance [ability].”

RIGHTEOUS LIVING

The Bible declares that our righteousness is as filthy rags so true righteousness can never be fulfilled by operating in ourselves. Paul says that in this flesh dwelleth no good thing (Romans 7). But we can live righteous as we walk by faith and in the Spirit. Abraham believed God and God accounted it to him for righteousness (Galatians 3:6). Our faith in God is at the core of living righteous. Then after we believe we must walk or operate in the Spirit so that we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh (Galatians 5:16). We must live with a righteous consciousness accepting all of the freedom that Jesus died for so that we could be righteous. While Paul was giving the Church at Ephesus keys to living successfully in the world’s system, he admonishes believers to put on the breastplate of righteousness (Ephesians 6:14). Prayer, fasting, and continually hearing and applying the Word of God to our lives reinforces the work that was done by Jesus Christ on the cross to make us righteous.

HEAVEN & HELL

We understand that man was made in the image of God with a body, a spirit, and a soul. When a man dies, his body returns to the dust,  but the soul lives eternally in either heaven or hell. After death, the soul will immediately report to a resting place waiting to be judged by Jesus Christ. The resting place for believers is called Paradise. The resting place for unbelievers and sinners is known as shoel, hades, or hell. The Bible says that when Jesus comes back to rapture His Church that the dead in Christ shall rise first; which means that those souls that are in the paradise holding place will rise to meet Jesus first. Then those that remain will be caught up or raptured to meet God (1 Thessalonians 5;16,17). Then everyone will be judged. Those that are deemed worthy to have their name already written in the Book of Life will gain access to Heaven where they will be able to take advantage of their eternal home of their soul and have eternal access to God and all of Heaven’s amenities. All those not counted worthy to be written in the Book will be cast back into hell. Finally hell will be cast into the Lake of Fire where those souls will be tormented alongside the devil and his demonic rank (2 Peter 2:4-9). Worst of all, those souls will forever be separated from the presence of God. (Revelations 21:8)

WORSHIP

Worship is the expression of the heart that leads to a sincere willingness to sacrifice to God the things that He requires and desires. One of the most crucial truths of worship that one must embrace is that worship is a matter of the heart. Most people relate outward actions and physical movement or noise to worship, but at the very core of worship there must be a heart that is given to God. Jesus said, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,” (St. Matthew 12:34); therefore, the outward expressions are just an end result of the inward devotion to God. Worship is essential to our walk with Christ because worship is the avenue your heart uses to  communicate to God.

LOVE

“God is love and everyone that loveth is born of God.” Thus love is at the essence of who God is and should be at the core of who we are as children of God. Jesus said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another” (St. John 13:35). We are defined by the love that we display to the world on a regular basis. It is the love that God showed us that drew us to Him; and it is the love that we share with others that will lead them to the God that we serve. Paul declares “....though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:2) Therefore, the love that God has for us, the love that we have for God, and the love that we have for one another are all at the crux of our faith.