A Brief Statement of Faith

by Tom Jonard

.We are created in the Image of God.  We are like God in that we too create.  But we are unlike God in that we are limited and we create Good and Evil.  Even our best efforts and our best intentions cannot guarantee the results of our actions.  We fail and this is our nature.  We judge and are judged.

.I believe in Jesus Christ, the only true human face of God.  He alone is wholly human and wholly God.

.Jesus was conceived and born of God and humanity.  He was the son of Mary and Joseph and the Child of God.  He taught by word and act that the Kingdom of God is here now.  He healed and comforted.  He blessed and forgave.  He laughed and cried.  He sang and danced.  He loved.  He called disciples to follow him doing the same.  He worked and lived not among the high and mighty and secure but the meek and lowly and powerless.  He called to account his church, government and society.  He called us to speak and act with compassion toward one another.

.When the world needed a sacrifice he freely gave his life.  Though he was innocent and his only offence was to offend the authorities they convicted him and sentenced him to death.  And the mob of humanity went along with this.  He suffered and died like us that we might know that God does not abandon us in suffering and death.

.He returned from death and he comes again now so that we know that death is not the end.

.Jesus is Christ, the One given by God to call us in the Name of God to follow God's Way.

.In Jesus Christ God is offering once and for all grace, reconciliation and salvation to those who have turned away, stumbled and fallen.  Christ is the embodiment of God's Grace for us and He calls us to respond by being the same for each other.  In Christ we see God manifest as love, grace, hope, peace, meaning, strength and joy.  Yet we also see that love is not God; nor grace; nor hope; nor peace; nor meaning; nor strength; nor joy.

.The Church in all ages and places is the Body and Presence of Christ with us and the Communion of those who have received and embody the Grace of God.  In the Church we are united with Christ, each other, the Church past, present and future, and the world.

.I believe in the Spirit of God who dwells with us and inspires, enlivens, comforts, strengthens, delights and leads us in feeling, thought and action to see, understand and do what is required to follow God's Way.  Anything that inspires, enlivens, comforts, strengthens, delights and leads us in feeling, thought and action is spirit.  The Spirit of God is distinguished and known because it is uniquely revealed in Jesus Christ.  The Spirit of God maintains the Church but is embodied and manifest in the world.  

.I believe in the resurrection of the body which is the only self incarnation we know.

.I believe in life in the presence of God which is full, complete and eternal.
 

.Return to Tom Jonard's Faith page.