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Spiritual

We at the Reno-Sparks Gospel Mission believe that God, through Jesus Christ, is the ultimate answer to any need and that God desires a personal relationship with every man, woman and child.

To the Christian, Jesus is all.

Acting on this belief, the Mission incorporates Christ into every setting in order to foster a personal relationship and equips men and women to advance the Gospel.

Our program clients attend daily chapel services and have access to Bible studies and prayer meetings throughout the week. As clients progress through the yearlong program, we oversee their transition to outside churches and encourage them to participate in their new bodies of fellowship.

RSGM’s intensive residential program, Christian Addiction Recovery and Education (C.A.R.E.), utilizes the Bible in each course. This includes a basic Christianity class, Christian 12-step, relationship and life skills, anger management and discipleship. We also work closely with social service agencies to provide vocational rehabilitation and job training opportunities for our clients.

We believe this Christ-centered focus is vital to preparing our clients for a life free from alcohol, drugs or gambling and to instruct them in ways that are constructive and positive and give back to their families and community.

Statement of Faith

I

We believe that the Bible, consisting of the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, is the Word of God, a supernaturally-given revelation from God Himself; concerning Himself, His being, nature, character, will and purposes, and concerning man, his nature, needs, duty and destiny. The Scriptures are accurate, infallible, and authoritative in their moral and spiritual teachings and record of historical facts. They are without error or defect of any kind.

II

We believe there is one God, eternally existing and manifesting Himself in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

III

We believe that our Lord Jesus was supernaturally conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, a lineal descendant of David. Jesus lived and taught and wrought mighty works and wonders and signs, exactly as is recorded in the four Gospels. He was put to death by crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. God raised from the dead the body that had been nailed to the cross. The Lord Jesus, after His crucifixion, showed Himself alive to His disciples, appearing to them for a period of 40 days. After this time, the Lord Jesus ascended into Heaven and the Father caused Him to sit at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority, and power, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; and put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him to be Head over all things to the Church.

IV

We believe that the Lord Jesus, before His incarnation, existed in the form of God. Of His own choice, He laid aside His divine glory, and took upon Himself the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. In His pre-existent state, He was with God and was God. He is a divine person, possessing all the attributes of Deity, and should be worshipped as God by angels and men. “In Him dwells all the fullness of the godhead bodily.” All the words that He spoke during His earthly life were the words of Jesus Christ, the words of all other teachers must be tested.

V

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ became in every respect a real man, possessed of all the essential characteristics of human nature.

VI

We believe that by His death upon the cross, the Lord Jesus made a perfect atonement for sin, by which the wrath of God against sinners is appeased, and a ground furnished upon which God can deal in mercy with sinners. He redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse in our place. He, who Himself was absolutely without sin, was made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

VII

We believe in the imminent coming of Christ and that this event is the blessed hope of the believer. We also believe that the coming of the Lord Jesus to this earth is in the person – bodily and visibly.

VIII

We believe that the Holy Spirit is a person and possesses all the distinctively divine attributes. He is God. He personally indwells the believer bearing witness to his relationship with God, and imparts spiritual enlightenment and divine power for witnessing and service.

IX

We believe that man was created in the image of God, after His likeness, but the whole human race fell in the fall of the first Adam. We believe that all men, until they accept the Lord Jesus as their personal Savior, are lost, darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, hardened in heart, morally and spiritually dead through their trespasses and sins. They cannot see nor enter the Kingdom of God until they are born again of the Holy Spirit.

X

We believe that men are justified on the simple and single ground of the shed blood of Christ and upon the simple and single condition of faith in Him who shed the blood. They are born again by the quickening, renewing, cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, through the instrumentality of the Word of God.

XI

We believe that all those who receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and their Lord, and who confess Him as such before their fellowmen, become children of God, and receive eternal life. They become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. At death, their spirits depart to be with Christ in conscious blessedness. At the coming of Christ their bodies shall be raised and transformed into the likeness of the body of His glory.

XII

We believe that all those who persistently reject Jesus Christ in the present life shall be raised from the dead and throughout eternity exist in a state of conscious, unutterable, endless torment and anguish.

XIII

We believe that the Church consists of all those who, in this present dispensation, truly believe on Jesus Christ. It is the body and bride of Christ, which Christ loves and for which He has given Himself up.

XIV

We believe that there is a personal devil, a being of great cunning and power. “The prince of the power of the air.” “The prince of this world.” “The god of this age.” He can exert vast power only so far as God allows him to do so. He shall ultimately be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone and shall be tormented day and night forever.