Abraham Serafino

I grew up in a homeschool family attending a house church with other large, homeschool families. My parents taught me the gospel and I was born again at 3 years old. In 2015, I walked away from the Lord and became a Unitarian Universalist for 7 years. I got into witchcraft and my marriage fell apart as a result. In 2022, someone shared a verse with me that led to my coming back to the Lord over a months-long process, where I repented from my sin and asked Jesus to be my Lord again. The Holy Spirit is still healing me from various things, but I feel like I am closer to Jesus now then I have been at any other time in my life. If you were to ask me, "who is God?" I would have to answer that He is Jesus. Jesus came in Person the first time to liberate us all aspects of the human condition: from sin (which is a rejection of God), by living a sinless life in a human body; from the cycle of abuse and revenge, by repaying betrayal and persecution with self-sacrificing kindness; and from death by His miraculous resurrection. I believe that the Christian life is about doing Christ's work of healing and discipleship here on earth until He returns to reconstitute His creation, starting with His temple, the church; and, about cooperating with God's Spirit in His work of restoring our souls to a condition that will be compatible with Christ's glory when He returns to judge the world. I believe that salvation happens when we choose Christ, and His Spirit takes possession of us to begin the life-long process of producing His righteousness in us. I believe that God's Word is the source of all material existence, and that the written record of that Word in the original manuscripts of the 66 books of the Bible is our only infallible source for His official message to mankind. The scholarly tradition was Personally instituted by God for all believers to study and understanding His message to us. I believe that spiritual leadership of the home and church is the responsibility of fathers. The family is a microcosm of the church itself, and was God's original Great Commission for mankind - "be fruitful and multiply." Nowadays, the gospel has become the primary means of producing sons and daughters of God. I believe that we are living in the Last Days. On the _very_ Last Day, I believe that Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, will return in Person, to redeem His chosen people and His church, and to bring about the full restoration of His kingdom on earth. That will be a day of sorrow and destruction for those who persists in rejecting Him, and a day of rejoicing for those of us who have been made citizens of His kingdom. I believe that God has given us minor, kingdom stewardships here on earth today, in order to test and train us for a glorious Work that He is preparing for us in the afterlife. Any "faith" that does not produce such works in us is dead, and any "faith" which is kept hidden or private instead of being lived out in an open community of believers is insincere. No one can ever say for sure what the condition of another person's heart is, but a life devoted to sin instead of to Jesus is a warning sign for perdition. I do not believe that baptism or taking bread and wine saves people. As stated above, God is the one who saves, and He does it in response to a conscious choice on our part to throw ourselves on the mercy of His court. That said, a valid "decision for Christ" must be official and public, and it should take the form of a baptism, at which point we are filled and sealed with the Spirit, Who serves as a sort of collateral for receiving Christ's fullness when He returns. Baptism is also a way for us to symbolically participate in Christ's victory over the human condition. Similarly, regularly breaking bread and drinking wine or grapejuice together is a way to symbolically receive Christ by reenacting His sacrifice on the cross. We don't receive grace or salvation or forgiveness by eating the bread or drinking the wine - instead, it's our acknowledgement of what He did for us and our total dependence on Him. Personally, I feel that the Old Testament sacrifices were, themselves, forward-looking reenactments of the Ultimate Sacrifice - and even those sacrifices were not to be eaten unworthily (11-15). Finally, I think Christians should gather on a regular basis to thank God for specific blessings, to confess their sins to each other, to pray for and encourage each other, to worship God with music and singing, and to study His Word. I personally love the classic hymns, and I suspect most people in the house church movement prefer those as well; but, there is nothing wrong with singing contemporary songs (as long as they are Godly), or playing musical instruments during worship. In fact, I would be absolutely thrilled if any musicians in the group were to volunteer to accompany the singing, or if someone were to read a poem they wrote during the week! It might even be fun to have the Christian equivalent of a "Torah study group," where the fathers could study and debate scripture! Of course, certain boundaries would have to be put into place to keep the discussions from devolving into frivolous or angry disputes. Something to mull over.