First Baptist Church of Ore City

    "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only Savior of the world.  He was born of the Virgin Mary, and lived a completely sinless life, even though his life was full of every temptation as we have. He was acquainted with our griefs, a Man of Sorrows.  Although He had never sinned, the Father made Him to become our sin and allowed Him to pay the death penalty for us, instead of us, so that every person in the world could have access to the Heavenly Father and eternal life through Jesus, instead of spending eternity separated from God in a place of torment, called the Lake of Fire. 

     It is because He rose from the grave on the third day that we believe and know that we can trust Him and that He really did defeat sin, death, the grave, and even hell on our behalf.  He did all of this out of His shared love with the Father and the Spirit, Who are all three one, yet distinct, for their beloved humanity, Whom They created in Their likeness in the beginning, along with every other living thing, not to mention the universe itself. 

     The Bible, in its original manuscripts is the very living breath of God.  It is completely trustworthy, without error, and is the authoritative work of God to both instruct us in all of His ways and guide us to His love and grace in Christ Jesus.  Any who would desire to follow Christ may do so.  Upon turning from the old systems of belief, repentance, to a believing faith in Jesus Christ and calling on Him as Lord and Savior, one is adopted as a true son of God, given the Holy Spirit as a down-payment of the promised eternal glory, and gifted individually as a part of the whole body of Christ to fulfill great and good works that the Father had planned for His children to walk in before the foundation of the world was laid. 

     However, there are no good works that any person can do in order to gain this access, this place of promise or this granting of heaven by the Father.  Salvation has always been by grace, through faith, and that not of ourselves, but a free gift from God, not of any kind of works, so that no one may be able to boast, except in God and the cross of Christ alone.

     Every person on Earth, having attained an age in which they have the ability to comprehend, that has not believed in Jesus Christ, is lost, held captive by the enemy, Lucifer, to do his will and destined for eternity in hell.  It is only upon receiving the free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ that we are free not only from this destiny, but also this bondage to iniquity.

     The Lord instituted two practices that the church is to continue in throughout the church age until His return: Baptism and Communion. 

     We are Baptized after becoming a part of the family of God through our personal faith in Christ.  The Biblical mode of Baptism is immersion under water as it fully represents best not only what is spoken of in Scripture but is also the best picture of what has taken place spiritually in the life of a new believer. 

     The Lord’s Supper, or Communion, is a practice representing the New Covenant and physical sacrifice of the Lord’s body for our sin.  His broken body and spilled blood for us is remembered and is to be remembered reverently and as if we were proclaiming this death of His to the world as He would wish us to, until He comes.  The table is open to all who believe.

     Every believer is called to make disciples.  We do so by "doing life" with people as we are living life near people.  We are called to come alongside and teach others all that Christ taught us.   We are not called to manipulate people into a verbal assent, get people to merely walk an aisle, or become members of our churches.  As was the ministry of Christ and the Apostles, so should our approaches to ministry be. 

     While we have no power in and of ourselves to accomplish the tasks of that which can only be described as supernatural, we are endowed with the power of the Holy Spirit, and we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength."