Читать книгу Live Forever - Mylon Le Fevre - Страница 27

Even though I never read the King James Version of the Bible, I still quote scriptures from memory in King

James because of all those years of sitting in church. The Word of God was planted in my heart at a young age

and, just as Isaiah 55:11 says, it did not return void.

THE GOSPEL ISN’T BAD NEWS

As grateful as I am for the truth I was taught in church, not everything I learned was right. The "hell, fire, and

brimstone" style of preaching I heard there implied that every time you made a mistake, God was going to get

you. I guess the purpose was to either scare you out of hell or the hell out of you, whichever came first. It’s no

wonder I often left church feeling discouraged! It seemed like all I ever heard there was bad news!

As I eventually discovered, the true gospel is just the opposite. Gospel means Good News or glad tidings. It’s

the message that God is a good God! He’s not mad at anybody. He is not out to get us, He is out to bless us!

Because I didn’t understand how much God loved me, as a teenager I fell into severe depression. I gave Jesus my

sins every Sunday but I never gave Him my life. I asked Him to help me with my problems but I never changed

the bad choices I was making every day. I got stuck in a cycle of failure and frustration.

One time when I was about 13 years old, I realized how pointless it all seemed. A youth evangelist preached at

our church and, feeling conviction for the sin in my life, I went down front (for about the hundredth time) to “get

saved.” After I prayed at the altar with the other sinners, asking God to forgive me, the evangelist told us to turn

around and face the congregation and the front doors of the church. Then he said, “Now I want you to go to

school tomorrow and invite all your friends to church because they really need what we’ve got.”

I remember so clearly looking out at our predominantly poor, oppressed, unhappy congregation and family