Video from Grace to You
"A list of the key elements of Christianity
What are the essential doctrines of the Christian faith? There are differences of opinion throughout the history of the church on this issue. For example, you might find a different group of doctrines at different times from the Catholic Church than you might from a Protestant church. As a matter of fact, as I understand it, believing in the primacy of the Catholic Church was an essential doctrine at one time. Now, not only need you not believe in that, but you don’t even need to believe in any of these six doctrines I’ll list to go to heaven now according to Catholic doctrine. I’m just making the observation that there are differences of opinion abut what is an essential doctrine. I’ll give you what I believe are the essential doctrines, and I will give you the verses that I believe support them.
The first one is that you must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him in order to please God (Hebrews 11). But of course, it is clear that it is not enough to believe just in God and leave it at that because the First Commandment condemns those who have other gods before them other than the true God. So the first essential doctrine is that you must believe in God as He is in Himself. You must have an accurate picture about the fundamental nature of God. I think that entails the Trinity. You cannot deny the nature of God, the God of the Scripture, and still call yourself a Christian. In John 4:24 Jesus says, “God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” Must. Exodus 20:2,3 says, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.." from the article: Essential Christian Doctrines