The Adventist community is a family committed to one ideal above all others: to love God with our entire heart, soul, and mind . . . then to love our neighbor too! You can travel the globe, and no matter where you touch down you’re going to find Adventist Christians cheerfully operating orphanages and setting up clinics. Building elementary schools and colleges and helping rescue young girls from prostitution. As Paul so wisely put in I Corinthians 13: “The greatest of all gifts is love.”
Do we sometimes fall short? Sure! But this “lifestyle of love” – of unselfishness and compassion – is what we humbly study and preach and pray and live. As we explore and grow a deep love for God, He reveals His radical love for US. And then acts of kindness offered to both neighbors and adversaries (and really, all fellow earth dwellers) help us grow and express the love we ourselves have witnessed through Jesus. Even in this nice exact moment where YOU have logged on to our web site to take a look, we’re eager to love a new friend like you in the name of our wonderful Savior.
It should amaze us all that Jesus made the Bethlehem decision to assume humanity with the cosmic goal of embodying and sharing the fullness of His eternal kingdom’s Magna Carta of love. To spend 33 years among us showing how heavenly love shines out to others. How the solitary perfect Being to ever dwell here on planet earth sought out broken, frustrated, often clueless or rebellious sinners! “I CAME here for the sinners,” He often insisted. He never backed down; He never compromised His passion to heal those who were suffering or on the wrong path.
Along with all Christians around the globe, we cling to amazing grace as our only hope of salvation. Grace is our Lord’s unlimited ocean of forgiveness, of undeserved favor. What’s the source of grace, then? Love. Always and only love. Every Christian pillar of belief comes back to this eternal imperative: unlimited love and grace. All the time: love and grace. Everywhere: love and grace. Past, present, and into heaven’s eternal future: love and grace.
GOD’S DESIGN LAW OF LOVE
Seventh-day Adventists Christians adhere to the belief that Jesus’ commandment to love God with one’s entire heart, soul, and mind, and to treat one’s neighbor as oneself, constitutes the fundamental principle that generates life in God’s universe. It is a design law that creates life. Without it things die.
This lifestyle of love embodies unselfishness and compassion. Cultivating a deep love for God reveals His radical love for humanity. This realization fills us with overwhelming love, urging us to be as kind and compassionate as God. Acts of kindness towards neighbors, adversaries, and fellow earth dwellers express the love we’ve witnessed through Jesus. He asks us to love in His Name or character to revive the dying. This design law of love redeems and saves all who would be saved on earth.
We are astounded by Jesus’ (this divine being’s) decision to assume humanity with the responsibility of embodying and sharing the full God family’s design law and what it would look like in the life of a human being. It is profound unconditional love that Jesus brought to an imperfect world of stark contrasts in how to live. This endeavor was astoundingly accomplished with absolute perfection, even in the face of immense suffering, loving all the way to a cruel cross unjustly accused. However, Jesus never chose to lose love even in the face of such brutality. Instead, he loved, forgave enemies, and is still inviting the world to return to the original way we were made to live. By adhering to the law of love, rather than selfishness, we can attain greater happiness in that design law of love that is received and then given to others. Without divine help this step into unconditional love would be impossible for already fallen humans. However, God is in the business of making what seemed impossible, possible. That is what makes all humanity have hope and this love awakens faith in all who seek to follow this God in Christianity.
TRINITY GOD FAMILY
Seventh-day Adventists believe in the Trinity Family. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. There is no hierarchy in this family. That is why God values equality of all genders, race, tongues and people. He calls all equally to his kingdom, to be heralds of this faith in a loving God that changes death back into life. The God family does not rule over one another. They are equally God, equally full of love, yet they play different roles in the life of humans. Deep study on this is invigorating and incredible. We seek to know God but at the same time their ways are not our ways and their creative power is beyond human comprehension. Instead they are one in purpose and love. Jesus came to represent the Trinity Family on earth by showing who God really is because our earth forgot. Hebrews 1:3 NIV. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
BIBLE SCRIPTURE
Seventh-day Adventists hold the belief that the Bible, comprising its 66 books, was inspired rather than dictated. Its interpretation should be guided by understanding the nature of Jesus’s divine identity and the embodiment of unconditional love throughout his life. He consistently refrained from hatred and demonstrated complete love until his death, embodying the essence of God.
Conversely, the Old Testament books challenge a comprehensive portrayal of God due to numerous misunderstandings regarding both the biblical authors and the cultural and societal context of their era. These books present a candid and honest account, interwoven with glimmers of hope as individuals in ancient times sought divine connection. These ancient testimonies provide valuable insights. Nevertheless, the most authentic depiction of God’s character remains unequivocally found in the life and teachings of Jesus.
CREATION:
Seventh-day Adventists hold the belief that God created the Earth as stated Biblical scripture. He created our world in a state of perfection and beauty. This Earth served as a testament to the principle of reciprocity inherent in the cycle of life and the design law of love. Plants provide the oxygen necessary for animal respiration, while animals reciprocate by nurturing other species within this harmonious circle of life. This cycle exemplified the fundamental principles of love and reciprocity. God brought the physical world into existence in a manner that is beyond our complete comprehension, originating from a realm that is incomprehensible to us. Through all that He creates, He demonstrates the functioning of a kingdom governed and designed by love. This was an era characterized by absolute love, encompassing a cycle of life devoid of death, pain, or suffering.
SELFISHNESS ENTERS EARTH:
Seventh-Day Adventists believe that prior to our world’s creation there were heavenly beings called angels that were lovingly ministered to all the universe on God’s behalf. An angel who was highly honored in heaven called Lucifer, “son of the morning”, heard about God’s plan to create a new world. He begins this strange train of thought of does God not love us angels anymore? Will these beings replace me? Jealousy like a virus was planted in his mind. He nurtured it relived it until it overcame his love for God. He questioned was God not giving angels what they should have? God was being unfair he speculated. Were they not enough? Why is God making these new creatures. This jealousy begins a self-centered train of thought and Lucifer loses his trust and love in God who made him. Eventually, according to Revelation a third of the heavenly messengers were deceived into believing the lies of this angel that God was replacing them and would no longer love them. They began a viral weapon of mass destruction called selfishness. They were banished from heaven for the safety of the universe. However, they were not destroyed. They had created doubts in the universe and the whole universe would need to see which Kingdom would be the best. Would the design law of love bring more life or the survival of self at all costs be the way to go.
Our earth was a microcosm demonstration of God’s way of government and love. When he blessed the 7th Day Sabbath. He was answering the accusations of Lucifer and the 1/3 of the host of heaven. Saying I rest my case. Look at my creation, it receives and gives love. It is a circle of life. The anger of this fallen angel was great and he wanted to destroy these new human beings who had been given the gift of love and procreating. Our tiny planet then became the theater of the universe in a conflict spanning thousands of years in a struggle to save all in humanity who would listen to God’s way of life or take on the traits of the deceiver angel and his companions and put survival of self- A ME focused empire above all.
Genesis tells the sad story of how our human ancestral parents fell to the lies of the deceiver to create distrust in God. God gave our first parents a million reasons to choose him and created one tree representing this power of choice that they were free agents to chose their way of life.
This angel introduced doubt and distrust in God’s love. When it fully bloomed Adam and Eve gave in to the selfish survival and distrust. It plunged our world into a place of two kingdoms waging war against the other. When one party receives benefits without reciprocating, as Adam and Eve were tempted to do and then did, then the cycle of life was cut off. Without divine rescue it would completely self destruct because selfishness doesn’t produce life. The first parents succumbed to distrust and the subsequent loss of love that permeates our current society. Their marriage relationship was attacked first pitting survival and blaming each other rather than unconditional love that they had always had before. God in his love set into motion a grand rescue for all humanity.
THE GREAT CONTROVERSY OF TWO KINGDOMS
Seventh-Day Adventists hold the belief that we currently inhabit a bipolar world. Every individual on Earth possesses the right to make their own life choices. One kingdom is characterized by God’s way of life, governed by unconditional love, which is exemplified by Jesus’s complete embodiment of this Kingdom.
The other kingdom or empire, on the other hand, is founded on self-centered survival at all costs. It begins innocently with a hurtful experience, but instead of healing, it nurtures distrust. Distrust escalates to resentment, revenge, isolation, or even outright rebellion and violence. This ideology can manifest subtly in socially acceptable ways, both within and outside church structures. This inherent selfishness naturally leads individuals who adopt this lifestyle to experience significant pain. It erodes marriages, families, communities, and nations. This ideology fosters selfishness and a relentless pursuit of survival at any cost. When fully developed, it can exclude and oppress others, leading to tribalism and a profound lack of love and distrust.
The deepening divide within our world serves as a stark illustration of how this self-centered survival, prioritizing one’s own interests over others, can erode trust and eventually culminate in violence, manifesting itself in verbal, emotional, or physical forms of cruelty, bullying or passive aggressive resentment. This embodies the epitome of evil and selfishness that all on earth have fallen into.
There is hope. Jesus promises we don’t have to live the way of the ME empire. instead we can have our minds healed, and a radically loving way has been given to all on earth to chose the orginal kingdom of love.
We are currently witnessing a pivotal moment in our history when individuals will ultimately choose between embracing a loving kingdom (the “WE” kingdom of love and community) or succumbing to the selfish “ME” empire.
JESUS CHRIST
Seventh-day Adventists believe that Jesus is God and a part of the Trinity family. He came to earth on a grand rescue mission for all people in all ages. He lived, taught, and died fully sharing unconditional love. He never gave in to hate or deceit. No one in history other than Jesus has done this. That is why he is a true person that we can model our lives after. When we focus our lives and hearts on him, we are changed by beholding him and what the whole God Family Trinity made us to be. Jesus life of love is the best way to understand scripture and to understand who God truly is.
SALVATION
Seventh-day Adventists believe that salvation is not attained through personal merit, as we have all succumbed to the notion of self-preservation and lost our love for others. Through faith and trust in the benevolent God of unconditional love, we gradually transform into the very essence of our focus. It is true that by beholding we become changed. This transformation brings salvation, as it involves rejecting the self-preservation strategies of distrust, loss of love, isolation, division, or manipulating power for narcissistic and cruel ends. These behaviors deviate from God’s original design for humanity. However, by embracing Jesus’ path of salvation, we embark on a journey of living a more fulfilling life. Our minds, a divine gift, enable us to cultivate healthier lives of peace and tranquility as we allow God to renew and transform our thoughts from negative self destructive ones to ones of gratitude, compassion, and genuine love for our fellow human beings in this journey of life. We truly learn to love like our Savior through acts of service as he did. Though God counts us a righteous from the moment we turn to Him, the transformation process is a lifelong one. God’s grace is sufficient for us, and He promises to complete this work in us. We often cry out to him knowing our own weakness but he gives strength to the weary and burdened. He encourages us to focus not one the glaring cruel politics, wars, angry ungodly world we live in but do as Phillipians 4:8 says. “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” This is a gift to mental health in the midst of worldly challenge.
DEATH
Seventh-day Adventists believe in a loving God that does not roast you for eternity if you choose to walk away. He instead allows all people choice. Those who reject God receive what they want. We each have a choice. When we wonder we know that God’s character is a God of love. He is a lot better than we thought so worrying about who is raised to life, should not be a worry when you know you have a loving God wishing the best for all. Think of it as a loving Father tucking in his child at night to sleep and rest and then in the morning the Father wakes up his child with love. There should be no fear in death. Jesus conquered the grave.
God is the righteous judge, and many who enter heaven beyond death lived lives of unselfish, unconditional love, even without knowing Jesus in their culture. God still loves all and rewards those living up to their best.
When we die, we’ll experience it like a long sleep until Jesus wakes us up for a brand-new resurrection of life, forever with God, no more pain or suffering. Some people in the Bible were resurrected on special occasions, like when Jesus rose from the dead or when Elijah and Moses spoke to Jesus. But Adventists believe that the greatest of these will be the day when Jesus returns. “The dead in Christ will rise first, and we who are still alive and stay alive will be taken up together in the air.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16
SABBATH
Seventh-day Adventists hold the belief that the Sabbath serves as a symbolic representation of the rest Jesus bestows upon our minds and hearts when we permit Him to dispel our selfishness and replace it with love and peace. The Sabbath is designated as a day of gratitude for God’s creation and the reclamation of our hearts.
Traditionally, Seventh-day Adventists reserve Saturday as a day of special observance, dedicated to fostering a deeper connection with the benevolent God through church services, intellectual enrichment, and community support. It is emphasized that Jesus holds dominion over the Sabbath. Consequently, any act of love, community building, grace, and selfless compassion is encouraged on this Sabbath day, weekly. It represents a respite from the customary workweek, serving as an opportunity to recalibrate one’s compass in alignment with the Creator and the ultimate source of love. All are cordially invited to partake in this Sabbath rest. This set aside of a special day doesn’t negate the love and following of God’s kingdom all through the week moment by moment.
SECOND COMING & NEW EARTH
Seventh-Day Adventist look forward to the hope with the Great Controversy between God’s design law and the survival of self above all else comes to a close. The scriptures tell of that day when every eye will see Jesus come in the clouds of heaven and he will take those who want to be a part of the Kingdom of heaven away from the Empire of selfishness. In the new earth, we will experience the Eden experience of complete reciprocal love permeating all of creation. War, sorrow, broken homes, and neglected children will be a thing of the past. In this utopian realm, all will be restored to order.
The empire of selfishness will eventually come to an end because without love, all things perish. God does not initiate the destruction; selfishness itself is the harbinger of death, destruction, deception, and annihilation. Consequently, the reign of sin will finally be vanquished.