All people need to be saved.

None of us has a special claim before God of being worthy of living eternally in heaven.

All of us have relationships with others that are challenging and less than holy.

That’s what we mean when we say that all people need to be saved.

We believe it is through the grace of Jesus Christ that we are saved.

In this grace, we are convicted of our sins and our need for God.

In this grace, we receive the example of how to be fully human in Jesus Christ.

In this grace, we receive the strength and direction of the Holy Spirit

so that what God has begun in us, God can complete in us.

All people can be saved.

The world wants us to believe that some people can’t be saved, or are not worthy of being saved.

Even some theologians proclaim that God is not interested in loving all of us.

Yet over and over again, Jesus reached out to those the world said were beyond saving.

We believe that God is still at work, tugging at our hearts and nudging us to recognize our need for God.

We believe that “our hearts are restless until they rest in God” (Augustine, in his Confessions).

We call this “prevenient” grace -- the grace that comes to us even before we know we need it.

It is this grace that helps us become aware of our sin, as well as our need for God.

All people can know they are saved.

Salvation is not just a heavenly book-keeping exercise keeping track of who gets in and who doesn’t.

When we recognize our need for God, and humble ourselves because we know we are not worthy

to be in the presence of such perfect holiness, God gives us an assurance that we are loved.

John Wesley called that assurance “a strangely warmed heart.”

You might call it a sense of confidence and peace.

It might come quickly and dramatically, or it may come as a growing awareness,

but we can know that God loves us!

All people can be saved to the uttermost.

Jesus died for our sins, and he was raised for our new life.

The life of salvation, the eternal life, begins when we follow Jesus and live as disciples.

We have been called to love each other as Christ has loved us.

We are not saints because we believe -- we become saints as we follow Jesus Christ.

John Wesley called the life of discipleship “going on to perfection” in love,

as Jesus commanded us to do in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:48).

What God has begun in us (the new birth) God can complete in us (the new life).

By practicing the means of grace, we prepare a place in our lives that only God can fill,

and where God can work through us to bring God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

Christ is risen!

Christ is risen, indeed!

A Christian disciple seeks to:

Depend on God

Conform to Christ

Confide in the Holy Spirit