The mission of Come As You Are Fellowship is to increase the knowledge and application of
God*s Word in the lives of His people and to lead others to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ
so that they can live to the glory of God. We fulfill this mission through the joyful pursuit of the
following primary passions . . .
Delighting in God's Glory Our God is glorious (Exodus 15:11; Psalm 145:5). His glory
consists in the overwhelming and overflowing beauty which stems from the sum total of all His
attributes working together in perfect harmony. God is perfect in His holiness (Exodus 15:11;
Isaiah 6:3; 1 Peter 1:16), justice (Psalm 99:4; Luke 19:7-8; Hebrews 6:10), wisdom (Romans
11:33; 1 Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 3:10), power (Isaiah 44:24; Job 9:12; Jeremiah 32:17),
grace and mercy (Ephesians 1:6-7; 2:4,7-9; Romans 3:24), and love (1 John 4:7-8, 16; Romans
5:18; John 3:16). God is not only glorious, but He loves His own glory with infinite intensity
(Isaiah 48:9-11) and therein lies His righteousness (Romans 9:14, 15; Exodus 33:18, 19). For
God to be righteous, He must love what is best; therefore His ultimate loyalty must be to the
maintenance and manifestation of His own glory. In other words, all God does, He does for His
own name's sake (Ezekiel 36:20-23). God created humanity for His own glory (Isaiah 43:7, 21);
God redeems sinners for the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:5-6, 12, 14; Romans 3:26;
9:22-23;15:7); God empowers Christians to live for His glory, both individually (1 Corinthians
10:31; 1 Peter 4:11) and corporately (Ephesians 3:10); and God's ultimate goal for His people is
that they might see and enjoy His glory forever (John 17:24). Because God is so jealous for His
own glory, our greatest duty to God is to live for this glory. The ultimate end for which God
created man is to see God's glory and worship Him fully. Our primary passion at this church is to
glorify God by enjoying Him forever. We are convinced that the quest for our joy and the quest
for God to glorify His name on this earth are bound up together. In other words, God is most
glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. God created this world, as He knew it would
be, for His glory. To the extent that we pursue God as the source of our joyful hope and
fulfillment, we are glorifying Him. We believe that God is not just to be obeyed, but delighted in.
He is worthy of our most diligent efforts to seek Him and He will reward those who do (Hebrews
11:6). We delight in the agenda that God is carrying out on this earth to glorify His name
because we know that in His presence is "fullness of joy" and at His right hand are "pleasures
forevermore" (Psalm 16:11).
Discerning God's Truth We believe the Bible is the way God has chosen to reveal Himself
to us and in it is the secret that gives all life meaning and hope. The Bible is not a book about
being good. The Bible is a book about a sovereign, good, and wise God who created a world in
which the creature turned on Him and how this loving God has provided redemption for
undeserving people from every tribe and tongue on earth. God's Word applies this work of
redemption to all areas of life. We do not believe knowledge of God*s Word is an end in itself.
We believe that the truth of God*s Word is to be preached with conviction and taught with clarity
for the purpose of transforming the affections. Both thinking and feeling are crucial to the
Christian life. God is not honored by either an unfeeling, joyless, loveless, intellectualism or by
an unthinking, uncritical emotionalism. Both are needed - minds that are gripped by the truth of
God acquired through the serious and rigorous study of Scripture, and hearts that are on fire
with intense emotions of love for God and His glory, awe of His majestic holiness, gratitude for
His mercy, and fear of His wrath. In the final analysis, what God wants most is our hearts. God
reaches our emotions through our intellect. Emotions must be grounded by correct thinking. It
is through the truth of Scripture that we become transformed people through the renewing of our
minds (Romans 12:2). This truth comes through the discipline of careful reading of the text
(Ephesians 3:4) seeking to find the author's intended meaning. It is by seeing the Bible in this
way that we are captivated by the glory of God and long to align ourselves with God's purposes
of love. We have a vision to see knowledge of God's Word penetrate our hearts and renew and
refresh worn down and unused affections for God, leading to the most pure and true worship of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word of God rightly applied to the heart of those who put faith in
Jesus Christ for salvation will inspire joyful, blissful hope and worship in the midst of the most
extreme earthly circumstances.
Displaying God's Love We believe that we have a mandate as ambassadors for Christ (2
Corinthians 5:20) to display the love of God to all people for His glory and their joy. Christians
have died to themselves and thus order their lives around the agenda of the Lord Jesus Christ
whom they represent (2 Corinthians 5:14-6:13). God-pleasing and virtuous love comes from our
overflow of joy in God that gladly meets the needs of others (2 Corinthians 8:1-5). True love is
only defined and displayed in God's Word and is very different from how the world's cultures
define love. Love is not just a series of just and right actions toward God or others, but a
deep-rooted affection for God that works outward in physical acts of good toward others. These
physical acts of good will be carried out through "Ministries of Justice and Mercy (MJM)" to the
people in our churches, communities and the world (Proverbs 14:21; 31:8-9; Micah 6:8; Matthew
25:31-46: Luke 10:25-37; 12:32-34; 2 Corinthians 8-9; Galatians 6:2; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; James
1:27). True love is the Holy Spirit produced affection that causes us to do whatever it takes to
help others make much of God. The foundation of all love is a passion to see God made much
of in all things. This affectionate love for God and others will often come at a cost of temporal
pleasure or discomfort for us. However the joy that we gain from being in Christ far outweighs
any earthly inconvenience or wrong done to us in the process of making much of God and
helping others make much of God (Hebrews 10:32-34; 11:24-26). Saving faith inevitably "works
through love" (Galatians 5:6). In other words, love is the result of the "obedience of faith"
(Romans 16:27). It is because of our faith in God's promise to
reward us with Himself that we love Him and others in all situations
(Hebrews 11:6). Our faith in the power and promises of God toward us through Jesus Christ
breaks the bonds of fear and sin, freeing us to give of ourselves wholly to God and our neighbor.
Declaring God's Grace We have a passion to see the good news of the gospel of God's
grace spread to all people groups for God's glory and their joy. Grace is God's love in action as
He works out His eternal purposes to call out and redeem an undeserving people for His own
pleasure. We believe that God brings most glory to Himself on this earth when He gives new
birth (Ephesians 1:3-2:10; 1 Peter 1:3-9) to someone spiritually dead and unable to save
themselves from God's coming wrath. The most lovely and magnificent aspect of God's grace is
the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on the cross to reconcile to Himself (2 Corinthians
5:21;Ephesians 2:16; Colossians 1:20) all those whose names were in the Book of Life before
the foundation of the world (Revelation 17:8). God's grace is responsible for our salvation from
first to last and God will complete the work He starts in those He calls (Romans 8:28-39;
Philippians 1:6). God's people respond positively to the gospel through grace and are enabled
to live according to the gospel through the continuing work of God's grace in the believer. This
grace is the foundation of not just evangelism and missionary work toward the unbeliever but
also counseling and discipleship of the believer (1 Corinthians 15:10; 2 Corinthians 12:9; 2
Timothy 2:1; Titus 2:11-15; Hebrews 4:16; 2 Peter 3:18). The grace of God displayed in the
gospel is God's way of redeeming His people from the power, affects and consequences of sin.
We have a passion to be faithful in declaring God's grace to all people in all nations at all times
because only God knows whom He will call to Himself and when (Romans 10:14-21). We desire
to be faithful to God's agenda to save sinners for His glory, both through personally declaring
His transforming grace within our spheres of influence and by lovingly giving resources to those
declaring God's grace in areas beyond our personal reach. Evangelism, missions and
discipleship are all crucial fruits of God's grace.
For freedom Christ has set us free...
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