message

Here is a summary of the most important parts of the message which has up to now formed the basis of our work:

• Conversion:

Every person is separated from God because of  his own sin. In order to experience the forgiveness of his sins and be saved for eternal life, he must accept Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died for him on the cross, as his own personal saviour and redeemer. He does this because God's infinitely great love and mercy draws him to do so. He makes a personal decision and repents.

• Born Again:

Through belief in the resurrection of Jesus Christ a person receives a new life in connection with repentance. This new life is eternal life, born of God's spirit and meant for people to be experienced from then on.
In this way we become children of God and are taken up into our heavenly father's family. Without this new life it is impossible to see the kingdom of God. (John 3) The new inner person begins to develop and become manifest, and cannot sin (1 John 3,9). His roots and identity are in the spiritual world, and his name is written in the book of life in heaven (Luke 10,20). This new life born of the spirit is purely an act of  the spirit of God, based on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

• Baptism in Water:

Through the symbolic act of baptism in water, the  new believer - on his own decision - testifies to having been cleansed of sin, to the old sinful person having died and his new person being resurrected with Christ. He testifies publicly to what has already happened in his heart. He also expresses his own devotion and willingness to let all God's righteousness be fulfilled and become true in his own life. Baptism in water is carried out by a baptist and by full immersion.

• Baptism in the Holy Spirit:

God wants not only to accompany the person who has been born again in the kingdom of God, but also to live in him through His Spirit. Every believer can invite the Holy Spirit not only to be"with him"but also to be"in him"(John 14,17), and thus give God his own life to use as a temple. God gives his inner being (his spirit) to a believer without price if he comes to Jesus (who baptises in the Holy Spirit) and asks for this in faith and drinks the"water of life". This feast of pentecost can be experienced by every believer. Through this, God's spirit is able to lead the believer into the whole truth, give him heavenly power and spiritual gifts, and thus make him a strong witness and disciple of Jesus. God's laws are then written on his heart, and he can be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8,29).

• Church as Body:

Through the Holy Spirit, believers can be equipped to become spiritual co-workers. The Holy Spirit calls them and appoints them. Jesus as Head, given by God to the church, joins individual members together so that an organism develops in which he is glorified and in which his words become manifest. The Holy Spirit is the life spirit of the body of Christ (the church). He keeps it alive, comforts it, leads it, disciplines it and builds it up, as his gifts can develop there. Jesus wants to fulfil his plan in the church and through the church and thus reveal the true identity of God. This is why the church, especially, is a home where there is a place for everyone, and where security, love, growth and freedom are possible under the leadership of Jesus Christ. To this purpose God has created services in the church, e.g. elders, pastors, teachers etc. Eph. 1,22-23 states:"And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

The regular celebration of the Lord's supper reminds the church of the complete work of redemption of Jesus Christ. In celebrating this the church also proclaims the new covenant and the communion of the redeemed in his church.

• Church as Mother:

When freedom, love, the spirit of God and the word of God are at work in the church, it can function like a mother. In it people can be provided for, comforted, healed, built up, and transformed into mature Christians (Isaiah 66,13).

• Church as City:

A spiritual city is made up of spiritual people, whereby each individual recognizes and fulfils his responsibility as a heavenly citizen and is built up to be a dwelling of God in the spirit. "But the Jerusalem above (that is, in the invisible world) is free, and she is our mother." (Gal. 4,26) "She is the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven." (Hebrews 12,22-23)"She is the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God."(Hebrews 11,10) She will also be the holy city, new Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband (Rev. 21,2). The Church thus plays a very important part at the close of this age. It will emerge victorious, through and with Jesus.

• Sonship:

God wishes to reveal himself. He revealed himself most clearly in Jesus. But he will also reveal himself more and more clearly in people who grow from children into sons. God needs the church for this very reason. When baptised in the Holy Spirit, believers receive the spirit of sonship (Romans 8,14-15). In him they can grow up into adult and mature sons of God, "for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." (Romans 8,19)

• Spiritual Warfare:

In order to lead a victorious life, we must be able to distinguish between good and evil and the sources of both. We are not meant to fight in the natural world  with natural weapons, but with spiritual armour against the devil and his demons (Eph. 6,13). The devil is the source of every lie, every temptation and every sin, also of every illness and bondage. If a person is really freed and healed in the name of Jesus, he can walk upright again in the kingdom of God and experience the presence of God even more intensely (Luke 11,20). Jesus is also leading his church in the battle against the spirits of antichrist in this present age, and wants us to be able to say with Paul: "But in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us." (Romans 8,37)

• God is Only Good:

The only true image of God was revealed by his Son, Jesus Christ. "In these last days he has spoken to us by a Son ... He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature."(Hebrews 1,2-3) In the gospel of Jesus Christ we discover God's  thoughts as they were "from the beginning"(e.g. Matthew 19,8; 1 John 2,14): God is only good, and everything  he created is also only good. Thus a human being is also only good at the time he is created. Only the devil is evil, and it is he who wants to destroy people. The Old Testament is, among other things, a shadow of the future. Jesus has fulfilled its laws and revealed reality. Thus we must read the Old Testament in the spirit of Christ, who gives real freedom and removes the foreskin of the heart (2 Cor. 3,15-18), so that we can discover our only good God in this too.