What We Believe

Redemptive Life is a Protestant Christian Faith that believes in God as our Creator, Christ Jesus as our Savior, and the Holy Spirit as the evidence of God within and our soul’s comforter. Other beliefs that RLCF follows:

1. There is only one God who was, is, and ever shall be. God is not visible with the human eye, yet God reveals God’s self in a Trinitarian form; Maker, Redeemer, Sustainer.
   
   
2. The Son of God is the Word of God, and the Word of God was made flesh in Jesus Christ. He was in the beginning, and all things came into being through Him. ~ St. John 1:1-14.
   
   
3. Jesus Christ as recorded in scripture not only died for our sins and was buried, but He also rose and therefore defeated death and the grave. Further, Christ Jesus ascended to His throne in heaven and shall return one day as promised.
   
   
4. The Holy Spirit is the revelation of the promise of Jesus Christ that every believer would receive. The Holy Spirit lives within every believer, activates gifts, reveals the Word of God, brings to remembrance the living Word of God in times of need, and is our Advocate, Assurance, and Comforter.
   
   
5. The sixty-six books in the Bible are the inspired and divine Word of God and are necessary for salvation, teaching, and Christian living. However, the Bible is not the final word of God. God did not cease from speaking upon the completion of the Bible, for God is still writing and revealing Himself in the hearts of every believer and even the world always.
   
   
6. People are saved by Grace. Neither man nor woman can do anything to save themselves; salvation is a gift of God first extended by God to all persons.
   
   
7. Because of God’s grace we have the responsibility to do good works as our reasonable service and as a product of our love for God. Our works do not save us, but our works are an expression of our confessed and living conversion.
   
   
8. Every child of God has been given gifts and these gifts are to be used first to God’s glory and for “the common good.” Further, it is in the acknowledgement and nurturance of our gifts that we discover the purpose for which God has created us.
   
   
9. The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men and women, in which the Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments are duly administered according to Christ’s ordinance. (Adopted from A.M.E. Articles of Religion)
   
   
10. The Lord’s Supper is to be administered to all person’s who have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and have been baptized in the Christian faith. However, we do hold that even the un-baptized by the work of the Holy Spirit may be converted upon receipt of the body and the blood therefore the sacrament is not to be denied.
    
    
11. The Communion does symbolically represent the body and blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and is not the actual substance of the Savior. The Communion is consumed in remembrance of the sacrifice of Christ Jesus for the atonement of sins, and shall be conducted at minimum once per month, but as many times as led by the Holy Spirit.
    
    
12. Baptism is in two parts. First is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit whereby one is converted, believes, confesses, surrenders, and confirms a change from within. The second Baptism is by water which is the outward profession of the inward confession. Baptism will not be denied to children in accordance with scripture, and Holy Baptism may be conducted by pouring, sprinkling and immersion.
    
    
13. “Re-Baptism” (the repeating of baptism through immersion, pouring, sprinkling) will not be conducted as the Bible states that one baptism is sufficient. However, rededication is not to be denied to those who are sincere of heart and who subsequently are counseled on the purpose and meaning of the same.
    
    
14. The Roman Catholic Doctrine concerning purgatory is not biblically founded nor is it of sound theology. Indeed, when physical life ends as Paul contends, “absence from the body is presence with the Lord.” Therefore when the physical ends, the spirit of man or woman stands before God’s judgment there to make an accounting of our lives.
    
    
15. The offering/sacrifice of Christ Jesus once made is the sufficient and perfect satisfaction for the sins of the whole world and no other satisfaction or sacrifice for sins is sufficient, necessary, or biblically based. (Adapted from the A.M.E. Articles of Religion)