A Church Re-Planting

What we believe starts with the realization that there is a God, who decided to make Himself known and accessible to us. Although we can learn something about God by looking at His creation, He chose to reveal Himself to us by speaking to and through different people, at different times, different places. The Bible is the record of these interactions with God. The Bible tells us who God is, who we are, and what we need as human beings. It also tells us what God has done in the past, is doing in the present, and will do in the future.

The Bible begins with these simple but powerful words from Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Hebrews 11:3 further explains that the universe was created “by the word of God.” God completed his creation by creating people, “in his own image, in the image of God.”

God created Human beings with the ability to choose to obey or to disobey Him. The very first humans, Adam and Eve, chose to disobey God and since then, our choices have reflected our desire to do things our way.  While God commands us to love him and love other people, we often choose to treat God disrespectfully and to mistreat others. The Bible calls this sin and because of sin, we moved from a relationship with God to being separated from God.

Because God loves us, he created a plan to help restore our relationship with him. The Bible reveals a loving God, reaching out to rescue His creation from the consequences of our rebellion.

God starts his plan with Abraham. In Genesis 12, God talks to Abraham promising to bless him, and through him, the whole world. He planned to create a nation from Abraham’s descendants to reveal Himself to the entire world. Later, God sent Moses to deliver the descendants of Abraham from slavery in Egypt, reaffirming His purpose to make them a nation dedicated to God. 

Abraham’s descendants became the nation of Israel.  God planned that He would be Israel’s king, but the Israelites rejected God asking for a human king. God let them have their human kings but to one of them, David -  “a man after God’s own heart” - He promised that one of his descendants would be the Savior of the world and the King of Israel. This king would fulfill the desires of both Israel and God because he would be both human and God.

God fulfilled His promise by sending Jesus to the world. Jesus, who eternally existed as the Son of God, became the historical and supernatural appearance of God on earth. By becoming a man, Jesus identified Himself with humanity in every way but for sin. He lived a perfect life, voluntarily died on our behalf, taking upon Himself the punishment for our sins and rose from the dead to give us eternal life.

After Jesus returned to heaven, Israel once again rejected God, was set aside and now God is working in the world through a spiritual organism, the apostle Paul calls the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ has been committed by God with the message of reconciliation, meaning that the separation with God is gone, and by the Grace of God through faith, we can enjoy a perfect and eternal relationship with God in Christ.

The Bible also shows us that it is God’s will that believers get together regularly to worship Him and to help one another to grow in our common faith in Jesus Christ.

This summary demonstrates how God has revealed Himself through the pages of the Bible. God does not change, but in His eternal plan, there is real progress, variety, and change. Therefore it is essential to understand what God is doing today, in and through the Body of Christ.