WHY WE LEAD WITH HOPE & LOVE?

Hope and Love are the forces that drive us.

1 Corinthians 13:13 tells us about three forces that will last forever: faith, hope and love.

Hope and Love are the forces that drive us. If we have hope, we have strength to persevere through difficulty, and adversity. Yet as powerful as hope is, 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is greater. Hope may motivate and inspire us but love is the essence of who we are as Christians. Love is also the essence of the character of God.

Faith in this trio is the instructor, the guide. We have hope but it is faith that guides us to place our hope in something or someone worthy of our hope. And it is faith that instructs us as to what true love is.

WHY JESUS?

Not only does Jesus provide the fulfillment of humanity’s best hopes, He is the solution for all our greatest dilemmas.

Where to start? To say that Jesus means everything to the Christian is to understate reality.

Not only does Jesus provide the fulfillment of humanity's best hopes. He is the solution for all our greatest dilemmas. Scripture identifies Jesus as the creator, redeemer, provider, healer, and mediator. He is the good shepherd seeking his lost sheep, He is the lover rejoicing in anticipation of his marriage to us, He is the father yearning to be reunited with his children, He is the loving and holy judge searching for every opportunity to extend mercy to us.

Why Jesus? Because he's everything to us.

WHY THE WHOLE BIBLE?

The Bible’s powner to transform people and nations is well documented throughout history. Hearts have been changed through history when the Word of God is absorbed and put into practice in the lives people when their hearts were open to God!

In the New Testament Paul writes to his protege Timothy, praising him for his knowledge of "the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus."

The "Holy Scriptures" Paul was talking about were the Old Testament scriptures of our Bible, remember that is all that was written at that time.

Beyond question the New Testament is vital to a Christian's faith but we must not neglect the revelation first given in the Old. It is our desire to become wise unto salvation through Jesus Christ that drives us to learn of him in ALL of his written word.

WHY DOES BAD STUFF HAPPEN?

Because the God we serve is a just and loving God; He will accomplish this mutual act of salvation and bringing an end to evil without violating anyone’s rights or personal freedoms.

Why doesn't God stop the madness? This is the heart of the question.

The answer is that dealing with sin (or evil) is far more complicated than we understand.

Scripture tells us that the problem of sin began before the creation of this world. Moreover, the book of Revelation also tells us that God's goal is to save as many as He can while He makes a complete and eternal end of all sin in the universe.

Because the God we serve is a just and loving God; He will accomplish this mutual act of salvation and bringing an end to evil without violating anyone's rights or personal freedoms. We have all experienced the pain caused by evil. We have all experienced injustice, loss and death; these problems are universal. The eternal solution to this universal problem requires that God allow sin and Satan to reveal their true character as God reveals his love and respect for humanity.

WHY SATURDAY?

The Sabbath is God’s first gift to humanity. In it God gives us all the gift of personal time with him.

The Sabbath is God's first gift to humanity. In it God gives us all personal time with him. In fact, Isaiah 58:13, 14 tells us that if we will keep the Sabbath and take pleasure in the keeping of it then we will delight in the Lord. God takes pleasure in His relationship with us and He wants us to take pleasure in a relationship with him.

God gave us the Sabbath so that we could have what we need to know Him. Time.

His call to us in Exodus 20:8 is to remember His gift and to accept no substitutes. By remembering that God's Sabbath gift is Saturday, the seventh day of the week, we honor God's call and accept His gift of time.