YOU MATTER TO GOD
Perhaps you came to this page because someone in our church prayed for you. We do that a lot.
Perhaps that person seemed to know things about your life that only God could know. That's pretty common.
Maybe you even experienced a miracle when that person prayed for you. We consider this "normal."
Or maybe you simply sensed genuine love from God in that person--something we hope will happen in every interaction.
Whatever drew you here, it's no mistake.
You matter to God.
God has been doing everything possible to reach you since even before you were born. That's why He sent Jesus to earth. He loved you so much that He sent Jesus to rescue you out of a path of spiritual destruction and bring you into an eternal relationship with Himself.
You may have a thousand questions about life, like why there is so much tragedy and pain in the world. If God wanted those things to happen, then He wouldn't have sent Jesus to do what He did.
Tragedy and pain comes from "sin." Sin is a destructive force that works contrary to God's love, nature, and design for all things. Even problems that seem like natural parts of this world, like storms or natural disasters, are only in this world because sin shattered the original perfection God created.
Sin holds the whole world captive. It ruins people's lives. It brings never-ending destruction and pain to people. And people find themselves helpless to do anything but perpetuate the problem. No matter how hard people try, sin is right there with them, inspiring actions, words, and attitudes that spread sin like a cancer.
God hates sin because He loves people.
Knowing this helps us understand Jesus. He is God's only Son. Through God's power, He was born of a virgin here on earth and entered our world in human form, growing up like one of us with all our weaknesses and frailties; and yet, He never sinned.
Jesus lived a perfect life. As an adult, He healed countless sick, injured, and diseased people. He worked more miracles than people could write down. He fed the hungry, loved the outcasts, protected the weak, and confronted evil in all its forms.
But this upset the religious establishment of the day, and they plotted to have Jesus arrested and killed like a common criminal.
To make a long story short, their schemes worked. Jesus was killed through Roman crucifixion--one of the most vicious forms of execution the world has ever seen. He was beaten, whipped, spat upon, nailed through His hands and feet to a wooden cross, and left there to suffer for hours until He died.
And yet, even in the face of all this suffering and injustice, Jesus forgave the people who brutalized Him.
The Bible says that as Jesus hung on that cross, He somehow took all of our sin into His body. What looks like injustice to us was actually a terrifyingly beautiful act of God's mercy. God made a way to destroy sin with love and set us free. Everything that happened to Jesus on that cross is what all our sin deserved.
When we consider the cross, we see two world-changing truths. First, we see the magnitude of our sin and the seriousness of its consequences. But second, we see our value to God. If we weren't valuable to God, then He would have never sent Jesus. The cross reveals our value.
You matter to God.
The terrible beauty of the cross is that when Jesus died, sin died. My sin died. Your sin died. Sin itself was condemned on the cross so that we could be rescued from its torturous, destructive grip on our lives.
Jesus so thoroughly defeated sin that He even overcame death itself. After dying on the cross, Jesus was confirmed dead and sealed in a tomb. Two nights passed. And on the morning of the third day, the earth shook, an angel rolled away the stone that sealed the tomb, and Jesus was alive, raised from the dead!
The Bible reveals that the same Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead can live inside of us and make us into brand new people. As "new creations," we are set free from the power of sin, given eternal life, reconciled to a perfect relationship with God, and transformed into people whose lives shine with the light of God's love.
That's why our church family prays for people wherever we go. That's why we expect miracles and listen for God to speak to us. We want your encounter with us to be an encounter with Him.
Why?
You matter to God.
You can know Jesus like we do. You can be forgiven of every sin that has worked against your relationship with the God who loves you. You can receive God's Holy Spirit into your life to transform you and empower you to live a new life in relationship with Jesus.
Here's how.
The Bible tells us that we need to believe that Jesus is alive from the dead and is presently living with Father God in heaven. In other words, believe that He rose from the dead and wants a relationship with you.
It also tells us to declare with our mouth (or speak out loud) that "Jesus is Lord." That means we recognize that He is the One who has all the authority. It means we surrender our definitions of morality, our plans for the future, and our ideas about our identities. And in their place, we receive His definitions of morality, His plans for our future, and His ideas about our identities.
Immediately, the Holy Spirit moves into your heart, filling your body with His presence and taking up residence in you. He promises to remain with you and invites you to remain in Him by continuing to trust in Jesus and His powerful work on the cross.
If you're ready to start a new relationship with Jesus, we want to connect with you and have a conversation about knowing God. We can talk about this new life you're entering. We can arrange for you to be baptized in water (if you don't know what that is, don't worry... we'll get there). We will pray together for you to receive and experience everything the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life. And we will invite you to join our Christian family as we all learn to follow Jesus together.
If that sounds like what you want, please fill out the form below, and someone from our church will contact you soon.
You matter to God.
In this video, one of our pastors shares his personal testimony about how God transformed his life.
He'll also share about how you can experience the same things.
