SCRIPTURES:

 

            We believe that the Old and New Testament were written by men divinely inspired by God, and is infallible and inerrant in the original manuscripts, totally trustworthy and reliable, and is the final authority in all matters of life and faith.  The scriptures are the revelation of God and his redemptive plan for man.  It is the supreme source of truth and instructions for holy living.

                        (II Tim. 3:15-17 & II Pet. 1:20-21)

 

GOD:

 

            We believe that there is only one living and true God, eternal and infinite, existing in three persons; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  He is our Creator who is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, the Sovereign and Supreme Ruler of the universe.  The eternal triune God reveals Himself to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, which equally co-exist with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence or being. (I John 5:7)

 

MAN:

 

            We believe that man was created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27).  Adam willfully sinned in the Garden of Eden and brought the curse of sin, which is death (Rom. 6:23) and alienation from God, upon all mankind.  All human beings are born with a sinful nature (Rom. 3:10-12), coming short of God’s standard of holiness (Rom. 3:23), and thus guilty of spiritual death (eternal punishment in hell (Rev. 21:8).  Man is depraved and desperately in need of forgiveness and redemption in order to be brought back into fellowship with God.

 

JESUS CHRIST:

 

            We believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, the eternal second person in the Trinity, co-equal with the Father (Phil. 2:6), the only begotten Son of the Father who became flesh (John 1:14 – His incarnation), conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of a virgin birth (Matt. 1:20-23), lived a sinless life (II Cor. 5:21), died upon the Cross for the sins of the whole world (John 3:16) offering himself as a perfect substitutionary sacrifice for our redemption (I Peter 2:24), on the third day He bodily rose from the grave, ascended into heaven, presently setting at the right hand of the Father making intercessions on our behalf, and one day soon, He will return in all power and glory to judge the world and complete His redemptive mission.

 

HOLY SPIRIT:

 

            We believe that the Holy Spirit is the third person in the Trinity and co-equal with the Father and the Son.  The Holy Spirit’s ministry is to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment (John 16:7-11), He performs the miracle of Salvation (John 3:6-8 & Titus 3:5-6), baptizing us into the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:12-13).  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ that comes to indwell the believer giving them eternal life (I Cor. 6:19-20).  He empowers us to live the Christian life (II Cor. 5:17), endows us with gifts (I Cor. 12), instructs us and guides us into all truth (John 16:13), He teaches us the deeper things of God (John 14:26) and makes intercessions for us (Rom. 8:26-27).  He sanctifies us (Rom. 15:16), seals us (Eph. 4:30), and is always exalting Christ and not himself.  The Holy Spirit is our Comforter, Guide, and Director energizing us to be able to live a holy life, and empowering us to be witnesses to a lost and dying world (Acts 1:8).

 

SATAN:

 

            We believe that Satan was a created angel, known as the anointed Cherub that covereth in heaven, who was called Lucifer.  He was created perfect in all of his way, beautiful in every aspect and full of wisdom until pride rose up in his heart (Ezek 28:13-17), and decided to try to dethrone God (Isa. 14:12-16).  He was cast out of heaven to the earth along with 1/3 of the angels that had fallen with him (Rev. 12:3-4 & 9).  Satan’s goal is to steal, kill and destroy (John 10:10) and keep the world in darkness and away from the truth.  He is the arch enemy of God, and Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil (I John 3:8) and set the captives free from his lies and destruction.  Satan is NOT omnipresent and not all powerful but controls a massive army of fallen angels (demons) called principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, and spiritual wickedness in high places (Eph. 6:12). He cannot do a thing that God does not allow him to do (Job 1:7-12).  We as God’s children are to put on the whole armor of God (Eph. 6:11) in order to live victorious over the world, the flesh, and the devil (I John 4:4).  Jesus defeated Satan at the Cross and his ultimate end will be in the lake of fire.

 

SALVATION:

 

            We believe that there can be salvation in none other than Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12 & John 14:6).  We believe that we are saved by grace alone (Eph. 2:8-9), through faith alone, in Christ Jesus alone, trusting in the shed blood of Jesus on the Cross (Eph. 1:7) to remove our sin, and trusting in His resurrection, to give us eternal life (Rom. 5:9-10).  Salvation is totally provided as an act of grace (Rom. 11:6) and not by man’s works (Titus 3:5).  It is provided through Jesus Christ death, burial, and resurrection (I Cor. 15:1-4).  Man cannot add to what Christ has done for them, they can only receive His free gift of eternal life (John 1:12) by faith and trusting totally in Jesus Christ to save them.  Even though man is a free will agent and has the choice of accepting or rejecting God’s free offer of salvation, if a man chooses to not receive Christ then he is condemned already because he was born in sin (John 3:16-18) and the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23).  There is no salvation apart from repentance (turning from your sin), and a personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord (Giving Him control of your life).  Salvation includes regeneration, justification, sanctification and glorification.

 

CHURCH:

 

            We believe that a New Testament church of the Lord Jesus Christ is an autonomous body of baptized believers that has covenanted together in likeness of faith, and in the fellowship of the gospel, to become obedient in fulfilling the Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37-40), and the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20).  We acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the head (Col. 1:18), and we as members are the body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23).  We believe that we are to operate in love and unity under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and that the gifts, talents, and abilities that God gives to individual members will determine the uniqueness and character of His church.  Our ultimate goal and purpose is to be used of God to bring glory and honor to His name, to see the Saints grow to maturity, and see souls won into His Kingdom.

 

ORDINANCES:

 

            We believe that Lord instructs us as a church to observe two ordinances, “Water Baptism” and observing of the “Lord’s Supper.”  We believe that these are not sacraments for there is no saving power in them, but they were to be observed in openly declaring our faith.

 

            We believe that Christian Baptism is through immersion in water as set forth by Jesus example in the scriptures (Matt. 3:13-17).  After one has been saved, trusting in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they are instructed to follow the Lord in baptism in obedience to the great commission (Matt. 28:19-20).  Baptism gives us the privilege to openly testify of the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord and thus identifying publicly with Him as our Redeemer.  Baptism is a physical picture of what Jesus did for us spiritually (Rom. 6:3-8).

 

            We believe that the Lord’s super is an ordinance to be observed in commemorating Jesus death on the Cross for the sins of men.  The bread represents Jesus’ body that was voluntarily given and broken for us (I Cor. 11:24), and the cup represented the blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins (Matt. 26:28).  As often as we partake of the Lord’s Supper we are to do it in remembrance of His death and in anticipation of His soon return (I Cor. 11:26).  We believe in open communion, which means that you do not have to be a member of the “River of Life Christian Fellowship” to partake, but you must be a Baptized Born Again Believer in right standing with the Lord.  This observance is always to be preceded by a solemn self-examination, making sure that our hearts and motives are right (I Cor. 11:27-32).

 

HELL & HEAVEN:

 

            We believe that hell and heaven are literal places described in scripture.

 

Hell is a place of torment (Luke 16:23) where people who never trust in Jesus as their Lord and Savior will go and spend eternity.  When they refuse to receive God’s only remedy for sin, which is Jesus shed blood on the Cross, then because of their rebellion and sin they are cast from God’s presents into eternal damnation (Rev. 20:10-15 & Rev. 21:7-8).

 

            Heaven is where the Father lives (matt 5:16 & 48), and a place that God has prepared for those that love Him (I Pet 1:3-5).  Those that have trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will spend eternity in heaven with our God.  Heaven will be glorious and beyond anything that we can imagine (I Cor. 2:9).  Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us in the Father’s house and will soon return and take the redeemed back with Him (John 14:1-3).  When a person dies, we believe that their spirit and soul leaves their body and goes to be with the Lord (II Cor. 5:8) until the resurrection day, in which we will be given an incorruptible and glorified body that will rise and unite with our soul and spirit (I Cor. 15:49-54) and to ever be with the Lord.

 

FILLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT:

 

            We believe that at salvation the Holy Spirit baptizes us into the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:12-13).  The Holy Spirit comes into the believer to indwell and tabernacle within us forever (I Cor. 6:19-20; Rom. 8:9-11; John 14:16-17; Heb 13:5).  We enter into the family of God through spiritual birth and regeneration (John 3:3-8, Titus 3:5), becoming new creatures in Christ (II Cor. 5:17), born of his Spirit.  We are baptized into Christ and into all that He is and has accomplished (Rom. 6:3-11, Gal 3:27).

 

            We become his purchased possessions and become heirs and joint heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16-17).  The Spirit of God comes to live and dwell in our spirit giving us eternal life (Rom. 8:9; John 1:12; I John 5:11-13).

 

At Jesus Ascension, He instructed the Disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait there (John 16:7) until they received the Holy Ghost, as John proclaimed (Acts 1:4-5), and it was there in that upper room, during Pentecost, that the Church was birthed (the promise was fulfilled) and the believers received the holy Ghost with power (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33; Acts 1:5).

 

We believe that at salvation there is an initial filling and many continual fillings (Acts 2:4; Acts 4:8; Acts 4:32; Acts 9:17; Acts 13:9; Eph. 3:19).  The Lord commands that we be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 5:18), and to be filled you must deny yourself (Luke 9:23), and surrender the controls of your life over to Him.  All Christians should continuously live a life of self-denial and yieldedness to our Lord.  After Salvation, too often many drift away from the lordship of Christ, and God has to bring us to a place of brokenness before we will yield the controls back over to the Lord.  When the Holy Spirit fills us, it is only then that we can sense the power to live the Christian life, because it is He that must live the life through us.

 

SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER:

 

            We believe that Salvation is all an act of God and not of man.  The only way that a man can be saved is by the intervention of God.  The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin (John 16:8), sends a messenger with the Word of God to us (Rom. 10:14-17), opens our eyes to the truth, draws us to Jesus (John 6:44), chooses us and gives us an invitation to respond to his call (John 15:16), gives us the faith to trust in Him (Gal. 2:20), and all we have to do is respond to His invitation (Rom. 10:13).  Salvation is an act of Grace (Rom. 11:6) and is a free gift (Rom. 6:23; Eph. 2:8-9).  We did not do anything to get it, and we cannot do anything to keep it (Gal. 3:1-3).  When Jesus comes to live inside of us, He changes us from the inside out, making us a new creation, and we will never be the same (II Cor. 5:17).  As Christians, he deals with us differently from the world.  He loves us, guides us, directs us, and chastens us (Heb. 12:6-8).  If one has ever trusted in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and has become a Christian, then it is impossible to undo what Christ has done (Heb. 6:4-6).  If you could lose your salvation, then you would be saying that the blood of Jesus Christ was not sufficient to keep you redeemed.  We do not have to hang on to God for salvation, for He is the one that keeps us safe in His grace (John 17:12).

 

RAPTURE:

 

            We believe that just before the seven years of great tribulation begins as recorded in Daniel and Revelation, that the Lord Jesus will come for His Bride (the Church).  Even though the Scriptures do not mention the word “Rapture,” which means to be “snatched out” or “taken out,” the scriptures clearly describe the event in I Thes. 4:16-18 and I Cor. 15:50-52.  There will be a bodily resurrection of all Saints, those that had previously passed on before us and those still alive when Jesus comes will be raptured out to meet the Lord in the air.

 

MILLINEAL REIGN OF CHRIST:

 

            We believe that after the seven year tribulation, and the battle of Armageddon is fought, that the Lord Jesus will come to earth, cast Satan in the bottomless pit for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-3), set upon the throne of David in Jerusalem, and reign in righteousness as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords for the thousand year period (Rev. 20:4-6).  He will loose Satan for a season to deceive the nations (Rev. 20:7-8) that would choose to follow him, and then cast Satan and his fallen angels in to the lake of fire (Rev. 20:10).

 

THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT:

 

            We believe that after the thousand years, and Satan has been cast into the Lake of Fire, that all those through the ages that have refused to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, will be brought before the Great White Throne Judgment and the wicked will give an account of their lives.  Those whose names who do not appear in the Book of Life will be cast into the Lake of Fire (Rev. 20:11-15).

 

THE NEW HEAVENS AND THE NEW EARTH:

 

            We believe that the Lord will make all things new (Rev. 21:1) and the redeemed of the Lord will live throughout eternity, rejoicing because of His Amazing Grace.