I had an assignment for my Christian Beliefs class to give my statement of faith which would include both absolutely necessary items of faith and those that are secondary though still important, all only in our own words avoiding theological jargon. This was my response.
Statement of Faith
To boil down everything, the only thing that is truly necessary for the Christian’s salvation we must start with describing sin. Sin is humanity’s rebellion against God, He gave us rules with which to guide our lives and we have broken every single one of them. Payment had to be made for our crimes. God had a plan to save us from His judgment. God sent His son, to take the place for us in our punishment. All we must do now is accept Christ as God’s son and accept what He did for us, instead of doing what seems to be the natural human response, which is to try and be good enough to offset the wrong we’ve done. Secondly we must begin to live our lives differently, we must begin to actively try to live like God wants, as prescribed in the Bible. This is not to say we must be perfect, as this will never happen in this lifetime but we do need to be turning away from away from our old ways and begin a new life in God.
These are the only things necessary for salvation, a belief in God and the price He paid for us and a genuine sorrow and turning away from our old ways to follow in Jesus’ footsteps as much as we can. Adding any other thing we must do would lead to a works righteousness, which does not work at all. I cannot think of any other thing that we absolutely need to believe in order to be saved.
The list of things we ought to do as Christians, but could not be called absolutely necessary is quite long. A few of the more important things include baptism, joining and being a working member of a church, taking care of the poor, and of course spreading the gospel to the four corners of the earth. Baptism is the submersion of yourself into water in the manner that Jesus did, as a representation of your salvation. Joining a church and being an a active working member of the church can take many faces but basically involves worshipping and learning about God in a group setting, using that group to do good works and spread the gospel. Taking care of the poor is something that is largely forgotten but I believe that if we are to be taken seriously by the world as ambassadors from God we must not forget one of Christ’s commands. Spreading the gospel is not only good it is also cruel to neglect. Christ has chosen the way Christianity will spread is by word of his people. If we will not share this wonderful truth, in a loving and humble manner, we are basically condemning others to Hell.
One last thing is of the utmost importance for any Christian who wants to get past infancy is the study of God’s word through the Scriptures and the seeking of God’s voice in prayer and contemplation. Without the Bible we cannot know what God expects of any of us, we cannot judge a thought or action right or wrong. Without constant communication between us and God we cannot find his direct will for us in our daily lives and we certainly would not call anyone on Earth a friend whom we had never spoken to or rare was the occasion comments passed between. If we expect to know God and to follow him, these two disciplines must be practiced daily.
After my teacher's comments I made these revisions.
ReplyDeleteTo boil down everything to find the only thing that is truly necessary for the Christian’s salvation we must start with describing God and our relationship with him. God created us for his good pleasure and he created us in a way that we might have a relationship with Him. However, God is absolutely perfect and flawless and so can and will only associate with those like Him, perfect and flawless. He is love, goodness, the ultimate Judge and the creator of all that is.
Sin is humanity’s rebellion against God and His nature, He gave us rules with which to guide our lives and we have broken every single one of them. Payment had to be made for our crimes. God had a plan to save us from His judgment, His mercy and grace seen clearly in His sacrifice. God sent His son, who was fully God and fully man, to take the place for us in our punishment. All we must do now is accept Christ as God’s son and accept what He did for us, instead of doing what seems to be the natural human response, which is to try and be good enough to offset the wrong we’ve done. He did this knowing that on our own we could never achieve the standard the His perfection requires. Through our salvation he demonstrates His kindness and love.
Secondly we must begin to live our lives differently, we must begin to actively try to live like God wants, as prescribed in the Bible. This is not to say we must be perfect, as this will never happen in this lifetime but we do need to be turning away from away from our old ways and begin a new life in God.
These are the only things necessary for salvation, a belief in only the one and true God and the price He paid for us and a genuine sorrow and turning away from our old ways to follow in Jesus’ footsteps as much as we can. Adding any other thing we must do would lead to a works righteousness, which does not work at all. I cannot think of any other thing that we absolutely need to believe in order to be saved.
The list of things we ought to do as Christians, but could not be called absolutely necessary, is quite long. So I will list a few of the items I believe to be of higher priority which include baptism, joining and being a working member of a church, taking care of the poor, and of course spreading the gospel to the four corners of the earth. Baptism is the submersion of yourself into water in the manner that Jesus did, as a representation of your salvation. Joining a church and being an a active working member of the church can take many faces but basically involves worshipping and learning about God in a group setting, using that group to do good works and spread the gospel. Taking care of the poor is something that is largely forgotten but I believe that if we are to be taken seriously by the world as ambassadors from God we must not forget one of Christ’s commands. Spreading the gospel is not only good it is also cruel to neglect. Christ has chosen the way Christianity will spread is by word of his people. If we will not share this wonderful truth, in a loving and humble manner, we are basically condemning others to Hell.
One last thing is of the utmost importance for any Christian who wants to get past infancy is the study of God’s word, athe Scriptures and the seeking of God’s voice in prayer and contemplation. Without the Bible we cannot know what God expects of any of us, we cannot judge a thought or action right or wrong. Without constant communication between us and God we cannot find his direct will for us in our daily lives and we certainly would not call anyone on Earth a friend whom we had never spoken to or rare was the occasion comments passed between. If we expect to know God and to follow him, these two disciplines must be practiced daily.