Beckoned Call

1. God the King and the Holy Trinity
I believe that God is the Eternal King. He is an infinite, unchangeable Spirit,
perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power and love. From all eternity He exists as the One Living and True God in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory.

2. God the King: The Creator and Ruler of All Things
I believe that God’s kingdom is everlasting. From His throne, through His Son,
His eternal Word, God created, upholds and governs all that exists: the heavenly
places, the angelic hosts, the universe, the earth, every living thing and
mankind. God created all things very good.

3. Counterfeit Kingdom: Satan
I believe that Satan, originally a great, good angel, rebelled against God, taking a host of angels with him. He was cast out of God’s presence and, as a usurper of God’s rule, established a counter-kingdom of darkness and evil on the earth.

4. Creation of Man, the fall of man
I believe that God created mankind in His own image, male and female, for relationship with Himself and to govern the earth. Under the temptation of Satan, our original parents fell from grace, bringing sin, sickness and God’s judgment of death to the earth. Through the fall, Satan and his demonic hosts gained access to God’s good creation. Creation now experiences the consequences and effects of Adam’s original sin. Human beings are born in sin, subject to God’s judgment.

5. Christ the Mediator
I believe God sent His Son, Jesus, into the world, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, as fully God and fully man in one person. Jesus was anointed as God’s Messiah and empowered by the Holy Spirit, beginning God’s kingdom reign on earth, resisting temptation, preaching the good news of salvation, healing the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. He gathered His disciples, brought together His people as His Church, to be the instrument of His kingdom. After dying for the sins of the world, Jesus was raised from the dead on the third day. In His sinless, perfect life, Jesus paid for the debt of sin by His atoning death on the cross. Jesus fulfilled all Old Testament prophesy in ministry, His resurrection from the dead, His ascent into heaven and His present rule at the right hand of the Father. As God’s Son He is the eternal Messiah King, interceding for every believer.

6. The Ministry of the Holy Spirit
I believe that the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Church at Pentecost in power, baptizing believers into the Body of Christ and releasing the gifts of the Spirit to them. The Spirit brings the permanent indwelling presence of God to us for spiritual worship, personal sanctification, building up the Church, gifting us for ministry, and evangelization of the world through proclaiming the word of Jesus and doing the works of Jesus. I believe that the Holy Spirit indwells every believer in Jesus Christ and that He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. I believe in the filling or the empowering of the Holy Spirit, often a conscious experience, for ministry today. I believe in the present ministry of the Spirit and in the strict biblical exercise of all of the biblical gifts of the Spirit.

7. The Infallible Scripture
I believe that the Holy Spirit inspired the human authors of Holy Scripture so that the Bible is without error in the original manuscripts. I receive the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments as our final, absolute authority, the only infallible rule of faith and practice.

8. The Gospel
I believe that the whole world is under the domination of Satan and that all people are sinners by nature. All people therefore are under God’s just judgment. Through the preaching of the Good News of Jesus and the Kingdom of God and the work of the Holy Spirit, God regenerates, justifies, adopts and sanctifies through Jesus by the Spirit, all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. By this they enter into God’s kingdom reign.

9. The Church:
I believe in the one universal Church of Jesus Christ. (The Bride.) All who repent of their sins and confess Jesus as Lord and Savior are regenerated by the Holy Spirit and form the living Body of Christ, of which He is the head and of which we are all members.

10. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper
I believe that Jesus Christ committed two ordinances to the Church: Water Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, both are available to all believers.

11. The Kingdom of God and the Final Judgment
I believe that God’s kingdom has come in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, that it continues to come in the ministry of the Spirit through the Church, and that it will be consummated in the glorious, visible and triumphant appearing of Christ – His return to the earth as King. After Christ returns to reign, He will bring about the final defeat of Satan and all of his works, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment and the eternal blessing of the righteous and eternal conscious punishment of the wicked. Finally, God will be all in all and His kingdom, His rule and reign, will be fulfilled in the new heavens and the new earth, recreated by His mighty power, in which righteousness dwells and in which He will forever be worshipped.