It starts with God
By definition, our life as a Bible-believing Christian church begins with God. You can read in more detail what our beliefs are here, but in short, as Christians we believe that God is the Creator of the Universe. As such, it is only through being in right relationship with Him that we as His creatures can find true and lasting purpose in our life on earth.
Sin: Disconnection from God
Our human experience demonstrates what God’s word, the Bible explains – that we are born disconnected from God – ignorant of, ignoring, and even rebelling against relating rightly with Him as our Creator. The Bible describes this state of passive or active rebellion against God as sin. We need something or someone to provide us with the means to restore our connection with God and to rescue us from the hopeless consequences of our disconnectedness.
Jesus: Our means of reconnection
Hope of hopes – a special man, Jesus Christ, was born to this earth about 2000 years ago. What he did and said, as recorded in his biographies (the New Testament Gospels) demonstrated that he was God’s Son, born as man to restore the lost connection between fellow man and God. He did this by exchanging his connectedness with God, with our disconnection. Where Jesus was never in a state of sinful rebellion against God, he took on himself our sinful rebellion and its just punishment – complete disconnectedness from God through death. When Jesus died on the Roman cross (commemorated by Christians on Good Friday), God relegated him to a status he’d never before experienced. Namely, because of the sin he was bearing, Jesus went from being intimately connected with God as His Son, to being infinitely disconnected from God as His enemy.
Faith: Reconnecting with God
The great mystery that the Bible explains to us is that because of this divine exchange, I can swap my eternal disconnectedness from God, with eternal connectedness – through believing on Jesus Christ’s death for me. Instead of enduring an eternal disconnect with God and all its dis-satisfaction, confusion, and guilt, I can exchange this state for the state of total connection – or right relationship – with God. I don’t deserve it and there’s nothing I can do to achieve it myself; the only way I can ‘attain to it’ is simply by receiving it from God, through Jesus. The Bible says I do this by faith – again, through believing that Jesus’ death was enacting a divine exchange, making it possible for any person to swap disconnectedness from God with connection – in other words, exchanging sin for forgiveness.
Assurance: This is for you
Sound too good to be true? The Bible explains that God raised Jesus from the dead to demonstrate that the exchange Jesus died for was acceptable to Him; the transaction was complete. God had punished Jesus as His enemy through disconnecting him in death, then raised Him back to life to restore their connection. In raising Jesus, God was also declaring that people who accept Jesus’ divine exchange for them can share too in the re-connection. The Bible is clear on this: through faith in Jesus, you can be restored to a right relationship with God.
Questions?
In a nutshell, this is the centre of Christian life and faith. Contrary to popular (mis)understanding, being a Christian isn’t about trying under our own steam to connect with God through doing things (like going to Church, getting baptised, or even praying). Being a Christian is about living out and honouring the restored connection with God that Jesus has freely provided (which is the real reason why Christians do things like go to church, get baptised, and pray). Part of Christians living out their connection with God is introducing the whole concept to others – and that’s what we hope has just happened for you.
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