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What Christians Believe

Church Life

GOD

The source of all love  

Within science there is a great debate as to how the universe was created. The answer to the debate for the Christian is not with the question “how” but rather with the question “Who”.

Christians affirm that God was in the beginning, the first mover, the creator of all that is. Christians further affirm that God is personal and longs to have a relationship with the high point of His creation - humanity.

However because we human beings are indeed made in the image of God one of our key characteristics is that we have free will. This means that God does not force us either to love Him or to love our fellow human beings.

Sadly many of the choices that individuals and nations make turn out to be selfish and bad ones, and as a result this world is not as it should be. The earth’s resources are ruthlessly exploited, strong groups and nations take advantage of the weak, the bounty of creation which offers enough for all is unevenly shared out and some have too much and many more too little. The word we use to speak about the sum total of this selfishness is “sin”.

However in the face of all this God has never given up on us. His love reaches out to us from the beginning of time, He sent prophets to warn us, and finally even his Son Jesus. This love of God continues to reach out today, no one is excluded from it. God loves every man and woman on the face of this earth regardless of any wrongs we have done.

This means that God loves YOU!

JESUS

Who makes love plain

Sometimes we do not understand something and we say “Show me”. God loved us from the beginning of time, He made us for a relationship with Him, He tried to make this clear through sending prophets to tell us about Himself, but still we could not understand.

Finally God sent His son Jesus to show us how much He loves us and to model what human love could be.

Jesus was born to a poor teenage peasant girl called Mary. Various signs and wonders were linked to his birth, so much so that the local ruler was scared and tried to kill this new baby. The family of Jesus had to escape and so became refuges in Egypt, only returning home to Israel after many years exile.

When he was about 30 years old Jesus started to preach about God his Father; he drew a band of followers around him; he shared marvellously wise teaching; he told stories which helped people to understand his message; he offered forgiveness to people no one else bothered with; he healed the sick. Such goodness was hard to live with and the secular and religious authorities wanted him done away with. They arranged for false accusations to be made, rigged the trial and had Jesus condemned to death.

He was crucified on a cross and sealed in a tomb. The Christian faith affirms however that on the third day Jesus rose from the dead, that he is alive, and therefore we can all know him here and now.

The cross means Jesus died for love of YOU!

THE HOLY SPIRIT

Love within us

Knowing that God is love and knowing that Jesus is the Son of God are two truths of immense value.

Knowing that when Jesus died on the cross it was to put women and men right with God is another great truth.

Knowing that no one is excluded from this love - that even the thief who was crucified next to Jesus was told by Jesus that he was welcome in his Kingdom - means that even if we feel we have made a real mess of our life we are still loved by God and saved by Jesus - great news!

Knowing that Jesus was raised from the dead and is alive to come and meet us means that faith translates to the twenty first century.

Our problem is that knowing we are made to love, knowing we are saved by love, does not always make us into loving people!

The Holy Spirit is God’s power of love coming to live and work in our hearts. Jesus told his followers that when he was gone they would have another “helper” who would fill them and strengthen them to walk the Christian way.

Jesus called this helper the “Holy Spirit”. The Holy Spirit is God coming in person to anyone who asks him, coming to fill us with love and make us more loving people, coming also to make us strong both as we face sin within our own heart and a broken world all around us. In the Bible the Holy Spirit is described as being like a fire to cleanse us, a wind to renew us, and a dove to give us peace.

The Holy Spirit will come to YOU if you ask!

A word from the minister of Central Hall

Knowing God is not something for other people -
it can be something for you!

You do not need to understand every point of Christian belief, you certainly do not need to wait until you feel that you are good enough for God - what a long wait that would be for most of us! What you do need to do is to really want to know God for yourself. The way for you to know God has already been opened up for you by the cross of Jesus Christ, on that cross Jesus died for YOU, if you were the only person on the face of the earth Jesus would still have gone to that cross, so great is his love for you.

All you need to do is:-

A accept your need for God in your life.

B believe that Jesus lived and died his life of love for you, and that through Jesus you can know forgiveness and a new beginning in your life.

C come to God in prayer to pray for that new start and to ask God to fill you with the loving Holy Spirit.

If that is something you feel is right for you, find
somewhere quiet and simply talk to God. If you do
that and ask God to come in to your life, or you want
other help or advice, please contact me via this website.

May God bless you and those you love,

Martin Turner