We believe that walking the Scioto Mile on a warm summer night with someone you love is a pretty good way to spend an evening. On the other hand, a smooth slice of chocolate-peanut butter pie runs a pretty close second. We believe that witnessing birth of a child is one of life's greatest moments, while loving and raising that child to confidently find his or her place and purpose in the world presents one of life's greatest challenges. 

 

In other words, we are people just like you who believe it's important to enjoy life's pleasures, yet we all certainly have to deal with our share of difficulty, disappointment and doubt. We believe that life isn't fair and we all have the experience to prove it. And what's more, we believe that God is not fair either, but for us that's really a good thing. Why is that?

 

Here's why: The Bible tells us that God "does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities... as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103) Most people would agree that human beings, you and me included, are a mixed bag. There's some "good" and some "bad" in every single one of us.

 

The problem is that God is all good, 100 percent, and his good nature requires him to eradicate the bad, all of it. Undoing all the bad in the world is definitely a good thing until we face the fact that "bad" includes... us. Although God appreciates the good in us, as it's the imprint of our Creator in his creation, he cannot ignore the bad, evil and sin found in all of us. And the Scripture teaches that "The wages of sin is death". (Romans 6:23)

 

The good news is that God loves us enough to overcome this problem that keeps us separated from Him. We believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the only purely good person who ever lived. The Scripture teaches that God the Father poured out all of His wrath, anger and punishment for our sin and evil upon his Son as he died on the cross taking on Himself the punishment that we deserve for our sins. Thus, God has not treated us as our sins deserve, but has instead treated His own Son as our sins deserve.

 

This is unfairness at its finest. This is the beauty of grace. God's remedy to Romans 6:23 above is now Romans 8:1, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus". This is good news, indeed. Jesus' resurrection from the dead provides all the proof we need to put our faith in Christ, to follow Christ and to trust that the forgiveness and grace of God is real and true. At Covenant we believe grace trumps everything else. We have experienced God's grace and we love him for it. Our hope and prayer is that you will experience it too. In a nutshell, this is what we believe.