We believe that there is a God who created every good thing in the universe and who is the ultimate guide to what is good. However, our ancestors were deceived into deciding for themselves what was good rather than taking God’s word for it. In disobeying God, they brought upon all creation the terrible consequences of separation from Him: divisions, diseases, disasters, and death. Yet God still loved us and did not abandon us. When the time was right, He sent Jesus into our world to become one of us and take upon Himself the punishment we deserved for our disobedience. He lived a perfect life in our place, suffered injustice, abandonment by God, and a cruel death as our substitute, and rose from death in order to make available to us a new spiritual life now, and a new physical life with Him in eternity. This is a free gift, paid for by God Himself, through His grace alone.

How do we grasp this grace of God, so that we can experience His goodness in this life and in eternity? Only by trusting in His love and redemption through Jesus Christ. We believe that God’s Holy Spirit is poured out on His people to enable us to know Him, to believe in His grace, and to become more the people He intends us to be. We do not do good in order to earn forgiveness and a future with Him, but to the extent that we believe that we have been given the gift of forgiveness and a future with Him, we are motivated to respond by trying to do good. We still struggle with our fallen human nature and often fail to do as God desires, but we are able to remain joyful, content, and confident in His love for us through faith alone.

How do we know all this, and what is our guide to what is good in God’s eyes? We believe that God has revealed His personality, perfect will, and plan for us through the writings contained in the Bible. As vulnerable individuals, we admit that we can be deceived, not only by politicians and false teachers, but by our own thoughts and feelings. Yet we believe that God’s Holy Spirit has not only preserved the truths revealed to us in the words of the Bible, but continues to gather us together as a God’s church so that together we can rightly understand and increasingly live by the light of God’s will, revealed to us in Scripture alone.