Is to live the life of Jesus in the world around us, and to get as many people as we can to live with us, His way, as we find it in the Bible. We are all growing in just what that means, how it applies to us, and how it applies to others. Therefore, if Christ receives you, so should we!

No matter what you may have thought from all the hotel rooms you’ve stayed in, a man named Gideon did not write the Bible. The Bible is God’s inspired, true story of Himself to humanity, written down for our benefit. We want to live like it teaches us to.

We are prone to mistakes and we don’t understand everything. Yet, God’s story was written not only for the people and places in the Bible, but for us, too. We depend on God to lead us into all of His truth as He reveals it in Scripture, and to show us how to live with Him and with each other. It came to be over thousands of years, through a plethora of writers, which came from diverse walks of life, and is simply the most remarkable book ever. It is chock full of adventure, intrigue, drama, comedy, irony, poetry, good advice, and most importantly, the good news about Jesus Christ and our hope in Him. It is the ultimate reality show. We don’t just read it. We live by it. We love it. And, it helps us live like no other writing possibly could, Christ’s way. So, we order our lives around what it says, we live in the hope of doing all that it shows us to, and enjoying all that it says we will.

The best part of God’s true story is that He loves us. No matter who you are, what you have done, or what your life has been before this moment, God loves you. How does God show us His love? That’s easy. God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that whoever trusts Him can live forever with God. His Son’ name? Jesus. He was a real man who lived a real life and died on a real cross. He rose from a real tomb within three days of his death. He really lives today and wants you to have the real life that He offers.

We have to admit it! We’ve all sinned. We’ve all fallen short of God’s perfection. But, He made one very simple solution for that. It’s often called repentance. It is the combination of admitting our sins, forsaking them, and following Christ. We call it trust, commitment, and rescue. When we repent and trust Christ, committing our lives to Him, He rescues us. You might think of it as waking up to a new day, finding a place of rest, or starting a new life. These are all ways that the Bible describes the life spent following Jesus. And, there’s so much more.

We can’t list it all on a sheet of paper, or even on a web page. One writer of the gospels said not enough books in the world could contain all that Jesus said or did. So, we simply invite you to come and see. And, we commit to showing you the “so much more”.

There is one God, the Creator of all. God has always been and always will be. This one God is revealed to us as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, (or, as some prefer to say, “Holy Spirit” — we’re good with that, too). God is almighty, all knowing, and all present. He is absolutely perfect and infinite in every way.

God became a man - Jesus. The Bible tells us that the only way to have fellowship with the Father is through Jesus, His Son.

He is uniquely God’s Son. The Bible says He was “begotten”, which means conceived and born in the usual way. Jesus was literally born, born a man. Except with Jesus, God supernaturally caused a young woman named Mary, while still a virgin, to conceive and give birth to His Son. He lived THE life that we all want to live, a sinless life. Every word He said, every thing He did. Every attitude and every gesture. He was perfect! We have and are completely devoting ourselves to Him and His ways. And,He is right now, in real time, showing us how to do that.

He lived a life that was 100% pleasing to His Heavenly Father in every way. No one before Him or since has ever done that. He enables and teaches us how to live that kind of life once we devote ourselves to Him. He did it because of God’s love for us, and because He is, in truth, God. And, then He gave that life on a cross. They crucified Him. Yet, He gave His life for us.

The good news about Him is that He lives today! His death on the cross satisfied God’s demand for justice for all of the sins of mankind: for your sins, and ours! Jesus physically, miraculously, three days after his death and burial, came back to life and came out of the tomb, never to die again. Christians refer to that as His resurrection. For several weeks after His resurrection, Jesus literally walked with, ate with, and taught His friends and followers. Then, He went up into the sky before their eyes, back to Heaven, abacl to where He was before He became a man, and as His story explains, He is now with the Father, standing as our mediator and access to Him. It is amazing!

Often people think of being a Christian as “being saved”, and that you become a Christian by “getting saved.” Theologians and translators have used a hefty word, “Salvation,” to describe both this process of becoming, and the state of being, a Christian. Salvation is a term people used to use for deliverance. To “save” means to deliver, to rescue.

To be a follower of Jesus means God has rescued you! He has rescued us from ourselves, from our sins, from the coming wrath of God and the fitting punishment of hell. He has even rescued us from death. Because of that we too will one day bodily rise and live never to die again.

God rescues people when they turn from their sins, their former way of living, and trust His Son to lead and direct their lives. Really trust Him. In fact, the trust that God tells us about is described as a kind of death to one’s way of living before encountering Jesus, and waking up to a whole new freely given life from God. It is this kind of life that we have and want to share with the people around us. That includes you. It includes everyone!

This Jesus kind of life is the one we are committed to living. It is a revolution of the soul. It is the life that unfolds love, hope, community, faith, sacrifice, and the sharing of life’s hardships, which can become unbearable alone. The life that follows Jesus is one that leads away from the heavy burden and guilt of past sins, and away from the life-sucking draw or temptation to sin further. It empowers and leads us toward loving God with our whole selves, and toward loving and treating everyone else the way we want to be loved and treated. That makes God happy. And when God is happy with you , well, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

Next time you “go to church” look around you. Do you see the walls? The windows? Doors? Chairs? That’s all they are. It’s just a meeting place. The real church is people, people who are devoted to following Jesus and living His way.

Now, we think it is great to have a place that we get to meet and talk about Jesus, and what it means for us to live today like He would live if He were here in our own shirts and shoes. We actually love to meet and talk about all that, and to share what that life is and can be: the ups and downs, the unspeakable horrors we encounter, and the unspeakable joys we have. When we meet as the church, and as we carry out His mission for it, He is with us in a special way. In fact, He promised that wherever two or three people gather together who live for Him, He is there. Really and truly!

Jesus started the church. He set it up. He gives us all various jobs to carry out as a part of it, and expects us to work together to accomplish His purpose for us, just like a human body. He expects us to assemble together regularly, to learn, live, and keep His teaching, and to enlist others to follow and trust in Him. The church (all the followers of Christ collectively), as well as each local gathering, is responsible for, and should be committed to, making followers of Jesus better followers, as well as reaching others to become followers, as we share with them God’s rescue plan. In this way we become an extension of Jesus Himself. We are His hands and His feet — His body here on earth. That’s our reason for being here. That’s what the church is all about.

Did you know Jesus was baptized? No kidding. If you knew that already, chances are that you’ve been baptized, too.

Maybe you were sprinkled with a few drops of water and didn’t have to change your clothes afterward. But, we personally prefer to get wet! Here’s why — you ready? Jesus did it, and He said for His followers to do it. In fact, He says whenever any individual decides to believe the gospel and follow Him they are to be baptized. We told you we want to do what He did and to follow His ways. The word baptize is a modern form of a word from Bible times that literally meant to immerse.

Baptism is a dramatic, beautiful celebration of new life in Jesus. It is a public coming-out party for followers of Jesus. Everyone who truly commits to living His way should do it. Living is doing. Baptism in water is a confirmation to oneself and to the whole community that a person has committed his or her life to Jesus and His way. When Jesus was baptized, the Spirit in the form of a dove landed on Him and God’s voice spoke from heaven, “This is my Son and I am very pleased with Him.”

He’ll be pleased with you, too.

History has recorded lots of different names for it, but whatever you prefer to call it, we honor the example of Jesus based on the last Passover meal that He ate before His death on the cross. In fact, He told us to.

Periodically, we gather to rehearse the story of Jesus’ last meal, and what His death on the cross and His life in us means now. We try to do that at least once a year on or around the actual time of Passover. We eat unleavened bread and drink wine or grape juice, the symbols of His body and blood that He gave for us. His followers everywhere are told to remember Him in this way until He returns to Earth.

Speaking of that…

“I will come again and receive you,” Jesus said that to His followers after His resurrection and just before ascending to the Father. We believe it. In fact, we’re counting on it so much that we are living like He is already the King of this world. He is, but He’s not physically here ruling right now. That’s why we pray for His Kingdom to come.

For now, He lives in and among us, and He is easily found. We don’t see Him or His kingdom visually, but the Bible describes Him as being “at the right hand of the Father” and as His kingdom being within us. We do not know what that fully means. But, we know He is in Heaven on our behalf and that He will one day personally, bodily, and visibly return to this Earth, when He will actually rule this world, the whole world, for a thousand years.

All of us, the living and the dead, will stand before Him at some point. The dead will be raised back to life. Each of us will give an account to Him for the way we have lived. For those who follow Him, the faithful, life with Him forever is what He has promised. For those who do not follow Him, eternal judgment and punishment await.

We hope that everyone we know and meet will decide to trust and follow Him, and we want to treat you as if you are the most important reason for this world to be here — in the hope that you will see that He genuinely loves you and does not want you to perish. It isn’t because any of us are such great or nice people, although we want to be and like to think we are. It is because God loves us.

He loves you!