Shaped and Formed By Messiah

 Faith in Jesus calls for honesty and truthfulness.  It calls for authenticity and purity and mercy.  Jealousy and selfish ambition have no place in the life of one who is being shaped and formed by the Messiah who emptied Himself of all but love and bled for Adam's helpless race.

                       

The letter of James tells us "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James. 4:6).  Humility doesn't go over very well with many people.  Humility, to them, is for the weak.  To Jesus, however, humility brings a smile to the face of God.  It brings grace into the human situation and spreads love to folks who really do need to know they are loved. 

                       

The Christian presence in the cultures of the world is extremely important.  We followers of Jesus are compelled to show by our good behavior the deeds of our lives, carried out with the dignity and clarity of Christ-centered wisdom (See James 3:13).  How we live matters.  We are witnesses of the Good News that is Jesus, and it is important that we live in the spirit of a wisdom that is "from above," a wisdom that is pure and peaceable and gentle and reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy (James 3:17).  In short, it is a way of being that is centered in Jesus and reveals that it is in Him we live and move and have our being.

                       

Many people have written Jesus off, saying that He is anything but a Savior.  We Christians humbly disagree.  We believe Jesus is God's response to the deepest needs of the human heart.  Never will we write Him off.  Always we will bow our lives before Him and seek to live so that His will might be done on earth as it is in heaven.

                       

We believe Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world, the Holy One of God who loves us with an everlasting love.