Bolling With 5: Our Faith!

Welcome to our NEW blog design! I thought the BEST way to start out this new look is by giving honor and glory to God, by speaking of "our faith". The tab "Our Faith", on our blog, is now filled in, but I also want to take this time to share our faith with you and I am sorry/regretful that I have not done this sooner.

Our Faith

We call ourselves "Christ followers", simply put, because Jesus Christ is who we believe in and what we stand for. Jesus is our Lord and our Savior.

What We Believe

We stand firm in believing in the gospel aka the "good news". We give glory to a holy God, who is sinless, spotless, perfect and set apart from the rest of this world. He is the maker of heaven and earth. WE are all sinners, wicked, vile, and detestable to Him above. We need a Savior, for there is no way sinful man can be in contact with a holy God. Therefore, God, merciful God, gave us an opportunity to be reconciled to Him. This opportunity comes in the form of a perfect man named Jesus Christ. Jesus was human like us, fully man, but also fully God. He faced all of the temptations that we as sinners do, however he was able to refrain from them. He lived a perfect life, a life that none of us could ever accomplish. He lived a sinless life full of complete and total obedience to our heavenly Father, obedience even to the point of being beaten, mocked, and slain on a cross.

"...And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." ~Philippians 2:8

And He did this for us while were haters of Him.

"...but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." ~Romans 5:8

Let me stress, that in order for us to be reconciled to a holy God, we needed a perfect, spotless sacrifice. Jesus Christ is His name! There had to be a punishment for sin/sinners in order to be made pure in God's eyes. After Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection from the dead, it was made to known to us that God had indeed accepted Christ as our wrath bearer and substitution for sin. What a grace! What a marvelous grace. If we repent and believe/have faith, AND true genuine faith, not just flippant, sloppy faith, then we are righteous in God's eyes.

After Jesus' resurrection, we were given the promise of the Holy Spirit, who resides in us. He is our helper, convicts us of sin, and strengthens us in Christ. Daily, we die to our old ways, aka "repent". Day after day, we are sanctified and conformed into the the image of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. NO ONE comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Where does our faith come from? Aside from the obvious... God, creation speaks of His evidence, AND the Holy Spirit, aka our "helper", our knowledge comes solely from the Bible. These words are NOT our own. Again, we draw you to scripture for proof of our beliefs, not beliefs of our own making.

"All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness." ~2 Timothy 3:16

To sum things up, I love what Nancy Leigh Demoss writes,

"It was at Calvary that God's mercy and love for sinners and the Truth of His holy hatred for sin found a meeting place. At Calvary, God heaped upon Jesus all the punishment for all the sin of the world. At the same time, He offered peace and reconciliation to sinners who had been estranged from Him. The Cross shows us in the starkest possible terms what God thinks of our sin; it reveals the incredible cost He paid to redeem us from those "weaknesses" that we trivialize in our minds. The Cross also displays in brilliant [detail] the love and mercy of God for even the "chief of sinners."

Sadly, the standard way our world thinks, is that when you die, you go to Heaven. Please do not deceive yourselves. You cannot love your sin, live a life without repentance and belief in Jesus Christ, and reside in a holy place when you pass away. Your life will end in one of two ways, 1. eternal life in hell or 2. eternal life in Heaven. Which path do you desire?

"Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?' And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you, depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.' " ~Matthew 7:21-23

If you do not know HIM or think that you do, but realize now you do not, and if feel a conviction to know more, we would love to talk to you openly about this amazing grace that God gives to those who believe.