Who or what has ultimate power in my life?
GOD
God the Father acts out of love, grace, and compassion and desires the best for His creation.
Jehovah God is the only true God. He is personal, all-powerful, sovereign, transcendent, eternal, unchanging, and triune. God is holy, just, kind, good, gracious, and loving. He is the creator of all that is, both visible and invisible. God is the source of all life. God is fatherly in His attitude toward all people. He is Father in truth to those who become children of God through faith in Jesus Christ.
JESUS
Jesus was born of a virgin, died on a cross, was raised from the dead, and ascended to heaven so that we can be saved.
Jesus is the eternal Son of God and the second Person of the Trinity. In His incarnation as Jesus Christ He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. Jesus perfectly revealed and did the will of God, completely identifying with humanity yet without sin. He made provision for salvation through His substitutionary death on the cross. He was raised from the dead, appeared to His followers over the course of 40 days, and ascended into heaven. Jesus is exalted at the right hand of God and awaits the time He will return to earth to judge the living and the dead and to consummate His redemptive mission.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God, who convicts of sin, calls people to the Savior, cultivates character, comforts believers, and bestows spiritual gifts for service.
The Holy Spirit is fully divine and the third Person of the Trinity. He inspired the writers of the Scriptures. Through illumination He enables human beings to understand truth. He exalts Christ and convicts human beings of sin, righteousness, and the judgment. He calls people to the Savior and effects the regeneration of those who trust in Christ. The Holy Spirit cultivates Christian character, comforts believers, and bestows spiritual gifts by which believers serve God through His church. The Holy Spirit seals the believer unto the day of final redemption.
What’s really true?
The Bible is God’s written revelation: true, trustworthy, authoritative, and final.
In the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, God has spoken objectively, personally, and propositionally. His written revelation is intelligent and intelligible, true and trustworthy, authoritative and final. Because it is God who has spoken the words of the Bible, the Bible is authoritative in all that it affirms, teaches, and commands. Hence the Bible has the authority to command our beliefs and order our behavior.
Where did I come from? Will I survive and be secure?
God established natural laws to cause His creation to function with order, predictability, and splendor.
Creation consists of both material or physical elements and immaterial or spiritual elements. God’s creation functions with order, predictability, and splendor. God has established natural laws according to which the universe operates. God is sovereign over His creation. He actively continues to preserve, provide for, and sustain His creation. He providentially controls, guides, and directs the universe toward His purposes. God has assigned human beings accountability in managing and caring for His creation.
Am I loved? Do I belong?
FAMILY
God ordained the family to accccomplish His purposes through love, discipline, encouragement, and secucurity.
God made people to need other people. He ordained the family to accomplish His purposes in our lives through love, discipline, encouragement, and security.
COMMUNITY AND WORLD
God ordained communities, societies, and nations to accccomplish His purposes.
Believers discover their purpose and identity not only in relationship to their families but also in relationship to their communities and world. Societies thrive when their laws, traditions, activities, and plans are based on and consistent with God’s revealed truth.
CHURCH AND KINGDOM
God’s reign over His creation is made visible through the church, expressed in the lives of believers as they join together in faith and fellowship.
God’s kingdom is His sovereign and righteous reign over His creation. The church is the visible expression of God’s kingdom on earth in the lives of those who willfully acknowledge God as King. A local New Testament church is a congregation of baptized believers, associated by covenant in the faith and fellowship of the gospel.
What does it mean to be human?
All people are created in the image of God to love and worship Him, possessing personality, intellect, creativity, self-consciousness, and self-determination.
All people are created in the image of God and are, therefore, valuable as individuals. Human beings are total entities consisting of a material body and an immaterial spiritual part. God made human beings male and female. He gave them equality of status but a difference of roles. As the creation of a personal God, people possess personality, intellect, creativity, self-consciousness, and self-determination. Humanity’s highest purpose is to love God and worship Him.
Can I be forgiven and have a new start?
God offers forgiveness of sin to those who trust in Christ, who suffered and died in our place to atone for sin.
God was not thwarted by the rebellion of His creation. God has acted in history to redeem human beings and His creation through His Son, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, God entered into time and space in human form, and He suffered and died to atone for sin in the place of (as a substitute for) human beings. God offers forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to those who will trust in Christ’s sacrifice. To them, God promises hope, resurrection, and victory.
Do I have a meaningful purpose in life?
Christian discipleship involves self-denial, obedience, prayer, witnessing, acting on Christian virtues, and remaining faithful.
The Christian life is a life of discipleship that involves self-denial, obedience to God’s commands, vigilance in prayer, and authentic witness, cultivation of the mind of Christ, production of the fruit of the Spirit, progression in holiness, demonstration of Christian virtues, and perseverance in faithfulness.
What’s right and what’s wrong? Who says so?
God is the moral standard by which all moral judgments are measured, revealed to us through conscience, Scripture, and the Holy Spirit.
God is a holy God. He is the moral standard by which all moral judgments are measured. God created human beings with a moral nature and has established moral absolutes. Human beings are moral agents who are morally responsible to God in terms of both personal and social moral obligations. God has revealed His moral standards through human conscience, Scripture, and the witness of the Holy Spirit. Thus human beings are responsible for abiding by creation ethics and Christian ethics.
What’s real? And how can I live wisely?
Because God is intelligent and orderly, much of what can be known is gained by reason, but faith lays hold of a reality and knowledge that cannot be seen.
Because God is intelligent and orderly, reality is fixed and knowable to human beings made in His image. Reality involves both material substance and non-material or spiritual substance. Much of what can be known is gained by reason, but faith lays hold of reality and knowledge that is not accessible to the senses.
Why are evil, suffering, and death part of life?
Because all have sinned, everyone is fallen and lost; thus sin has resulted in alienation, condemnation, enslavement, depravity, and death.
All human beings have sinned against God. Because all have sinned, everyone is fallen and lost. Sin has resulted in alienation, condemnation, enslavement, depravity, and death. Creation itself suffers from the impact of sin and is, therefore, no longer as God created it.
Where are time and history ultimately headed?
God works within time to accccomplish His purposes. Someday Jesus will return to raise the dead, judge the world, punish the lost, reward the redeemed, and establish His eternal kingdom.
God is not limited by time. He works within time to accomplish His purposes. Time is moving forward meaningfully and purposely because God is moving time, history, and creation toward a determined end. Someday Jesus will return in power and great glory to raise the dead, judge the world, punish the lost in a place called hell, reward the redeemed in heaven, establish His kingdom, renew heaven and earth, and consummate His redemptive mission.
