FaithPoints for Living Core Beliefs
WELCOME - WE'RE GLAD YOU ARE HERE!
Evangelical in the proclamation of the Gospel of our Lord, Savior, and God Jesus Christ.
Orthodox in adhering to the Faith of the undivided - one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.
Catholic in maintaining the universal witness of the Orthodox and Catholic Faith as handed down to us from the Apostles and the Fathers of the Church who have gone before us.
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
Thank you for visiting us through the official website of FaithPoints For Living It is a joy to know that the Holy Spirit has led you to us! We would like to introduce you to the heart of our community.
As mentioned above, the Seven Sacraments are indeed the Heart of the Catholic / Orthodox Faith Tradition. They are also at the heart of our FaithPoints community. The seven sacraments—Baptism, Confirmation, Holy Communion, Confession, Marriage, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick—are the life of the Church and you will see this addressed throughout our web site as well as practiced in our various ministries across the country. Each sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. When we participate in them worthily, each provides us with graces—with the life of God in our soul. In worship, we give to God that which we owe Him in the sacraments, He gives us the graces necessary to live a truly human life.
The Holy Eucharist is the most important of the seven sacraments because, in this and in no other sacrament, we receive the very body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Innumerable, precious graces come to us through the reception of Holy Communion.
Holy Communion is an intimate encounter with Christ, in which we sacramentally receive Christ into our bodies, that we may be more completely assimilated into His. The Eucharist builds the Church. It deepens unity with the Church, more fully assimilating us into Christ.
Christ in the Eucharist also strengthens the individual because in it Jesus himself, the Word made flesh, forgives our venial sins and gives us the strength to resist mortal sin. It is also the very channel of eternal life: Jesus himself.
In John’s gospel, Jesus summarized the reasons for receiving Holy Communion when he said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food, and my blood is real drink. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven, not such as the fathers ate and died he who eats this bread will live forever” (John 6:53–58).
We believe the Bible to be the complete Word of God.
- That the 73 books of the Old and New Testament were inspired by the Spirit of God as originally written
- That the Bible is the final authority in all matters of faith and conducts · 2 Timothy 3:16
God
We believe in one God, Creator of all, holy, sovereign, eternal, existing in three equal Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit
Jesus Christ
We believe in the absolute and essential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ
- In His eternal existence, with the Father in pre-incarnate glory
- In His work of creation, in His virgin birth, sinless life, substitutionary death, and bodily resurrection
- In His triumphant ascension, mediatorial ministry and personal return
The Holy Spirit
We believe in the absolute and essential deity, and in the personality of the Holy Spirit
- Who convinces of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment
- Who regenerates, indwells, seals, sanctifies, illuminates, and comforts those who believe in Jesus Christ
- Who baptizes believers at conversion into the Body of Christ and bestows upon them His gifts sovereignly as He wills and fills those yielded to Him
Mankind
We believe that Adam was divinely created in the image of God
- That by the sin of disobedience he fell from that state
- That all his posterity inherited spiritual depravity and defilement
- That all men, therefore, are guilty before God and condemned to physical and spiritual death
Salvation
We believe that salvation is by the sovereign grace of God
- That by the Father, Christ voluntarily suffered a propitiatory death
- That justification is by faith alone in the all-sufficient sacrifice and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ
- That those whom God has effectually called shall be divinely preserved and ultimately perfected in the image of the Lord