Faith
By Reverend Stephen Cook
The Christian Faith is personal.
We believe that behind and beyond and within this extraordinary, wonderful and bewildering world is a creator who knows us, who loves us and has made us for a purpose.
We accept the scientific explanations of the way things came to be but, like many of the great pioneers of science, we see it as an exploration of how God does things. We reject the idea that the universe just happened.
We believe that everything has its origin in God’s intention and that we as human beings are the particular focus of God’s love and purpose. We believe that we are created in God’s image and just as God loves us, so we are created to love God, our neighbours and even our enemies in return.
Beloved, let us love one another because love is from God; everyone one who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
We believe that there is only one God, who is revealed to us as “Father” “Son” and “Holy Spirit”. We worship God as “Father”: the Almighty, the origin, the source of all being.
We worship God as “Son”: who is revealed to us in the life, the teachings, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. We worship God as “Holy Spirit”, because God is not just out there or back then but here and now: with you as you read this.
The Bible
The Bible is a collection of 66 books, written by many authors over hundreds of years.
It is in two parts: the Old Testament, written before the time of Jesus, and the New Testament, written afterwards.
The New Testament begins with four accounts of the life of Jesus called Gospels. If you are new to reading the Bible this is a good place to start, perhaps with Luke’s Gospel. He opens with the familiar Christmas story and then jumps to Jesus’ adult life, death and resurrection.
As you read, pause frequently to meditate on the meaning of what you are reading. Absorb the Word into your system by dwelling on it, pondering it, going over it again and again in your mind, considering it from many different angles, until it becomes part of you.
When you have read Luke you might like to read John, which tells the same story in a different way, then the Acts of the Apostles, which tells the story of the early church.
When you have finished Acts you might want to start dipping into other parts of the New Testament or the Old, but at this point you will almost certainly need some help because although the Bible is a wonderful book it can also be confusing. Your local church will be pleased to point you in the right direction.
Statements of faith
We have statements of faith called “creeds”, and libraries of books have been written about what we believe, but in the end it comes down to whether or not we are willing to trust. The earliest Christian statement of faith was simply “Jesus is Lord”: that was what the first believers had to declare before they could be baptised.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Over the centuries people have wanted to ask more detailed questions and to produce ever more complex statements of belief but at its core the message hasn’t changed.
If you have read this far it may be because you have a sense of God’s hand on your life. No one can tell you what to believe, you must decide for yourself, and for Christians it begins with a decision about Jesus.
Deciding
And it’s not just about believing; you can believe something without it making any difference to your life, it’s also about a decision to trust.
When belief and trust come together they produce faith and faith is what makes a difference to our lives.
