We believe…
The Bible is the inspired Word of God. Holy men of God wrote under the guidance, influence, and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. We receive the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments as the True Revelation of God, our final, absolute authority, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. The Word of God brings provision for healing. Like a seed, when planted it will produce a harvest.
There is one God, eternally existent in three persons: Yahweh, the Father Almighty, Yeshua (Jesus) the Son, and Ruach Ha’Kodesh, the Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory. God is the Eternal King, the Infinite, Unchangeable Spirit, perfect in holiness, wisdom, goodness, justice, power, and love.
Jesus appeared on the earth fully God and fully human. He was born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, and performed miracles to confirm His deity and that the Kingdom of God had invaded the earth. In His sinless, perfect life, Jesus met the demands of the Law, and in His atoning death on the cross He took God’s judgment for sin, which we deserve as lawbreakers, upon Himself. By His death on the cross, He also disarmed the demonic powers and released healing as a demonstration of the Gospel of the Kingdom. He was resurrected bodily from death and ascended to the right hand of the Father. At the time known only by the Father, Jesus will return to the earth in power and glory.
In the present ministry of the Holy Spirit, who indwells and empowers every believer in Jesus Christ to live a faithful, Godly life and do the “greater works” Jesus said we would do in His name (John 14:12). He is our abiding Helper, Teacher, and Guide. We believe Jesus is the one who baptizes us in the Holy Spirit, as a conscious experience, to empower us for ministry. The filling of the Holy Spirit is available to every believer who asks for it in faith and is evidenced by the believer functioning in the nine empowering gifts of the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:7-10). We believe the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—releases the gifts of the Spirit.
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 and called them good. When he created the first humans, he called his creation very good.
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 earth.
God created mankind in His 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, and creation experiences the consequences and effects of Adam’s original sin to the present day. Human beings are born in sin, subject to God’s judgment of death, and captive to satan’s kingdom of darkness.
The Holy Spirit was first poured out on the church on the evening of the resurrection when Jesus breathed upon his disciples and told them to receive the Holy Spirit. This was the experience of receiving the indwelling Spirit, bringing zoe life to them. The baptism of repentance is when this is continued in the history of the Church. This is the “one baptism” referred to in 1 Corinthians 12:13, baptizing believers into the body of Christ.
At Pentecost, the disciples and others received the “Promise of the Father:” the mighty baptism with the Holy Spirit when He came upon (epi) them in power and released the gifts of the Spirit to them. The Holy Spirit brings the permanent indwelling presence of God to us for spiritual worship, personal sanctification, building up the Church, gifting us for ministry, and driving back the kingdom of satan by the evangelization of the world through proclaiming the word of Jesus and doing the works of Jesus.
Jesus established one, holy, universal Ekklesia (Church). All who repent of their sins and trust 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 all are members. The Ekklesia (Church) was established during the ministry of our Lord, received the Spirit, with its regenerating life, on the night of the Resurrection, and received the “Promise of the Father” the Baptism or filling with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
God’s kingdom came to the earth in the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ and continues to come in the ministry of the Holy Spirit through the Body of Christ. Any servant in Kingdom ministry must be yielded to Holy Spirit, seek an increase in His anointing, be open to operate in any gift of the Spirit needed to serve people, draw daily on His presence and power from the Word and in prayer, and continually give God the glory for what He has done.
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 as Lord and Savior. By this they are released from satan’s domain and enter God’s kingdom reign.
God’s plan for creation will be consummated in the glorious, visible, and triumphant appearing of Jesus: His return to the earth as King. After Jesus returns to reign, He will bring about the final defeat of satan and all his demons and works, the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment and eternal conscious punishment of the wicked, and the eternal blessing of the righteous. Finally, God will be all in all in His new heavens and new earth, recreated by His mighty power, in which righteousness dwells and in which He will forever be worshiped.
