"Renewing of your faith"

David Allen Brown

 "Lovenotes from Above: Breaking down the walls to Heaven"

About a year ago I decided to write a simple book on how to grow as a Christian but I wanted it to be a little different from the rest of the "How to grow" books that are out there. The question is not "how do I do that?" but rather "why would I do this?" The reason is simple. After getting saved, about 99% of us are thrown to the dogs within a couple of days. We all get the same walking orders. Go read your Bible and get into a good church. Within a month or so we are burned out and slipping right back into our old lives again. I decided that we need more.

We need a book that points us in the right direction for years to come. A book that serves more as a mentor rather than a 1-2-3 plan. This book is designed for "Newbies". People who have just turned their lives over to God or those that are thinking about turning their lives over to God. This chapter entitled    is my own personal short story of what happened to me and why I wanted to write a book like "Lovenotes from Above: Breaking down the walls to Heaven". I hope you enjoy and let me know if your story is anything similar to mine. Lovenotes is designed to get all Newbies past the point of burning out and keep them on the path to growth. God Bless, Dave.

                                     " RENEWING OF YOUR FAITH"

There’s one thing we are all born in need of—a friendship with Jesus. I remember with such clarity the day I was saved. I was 12 years old, and I was at vacation Bible school. I jumped off the bus and ran up to the house to tell my mom about the cool experience I had that day.

We had always gone to church and Sunday school, but salvation had never really registered until that week in vacation Bible school. I couldn’t wait to get home. I was excited. I was pumped with a capital ‘P’. They gave me a small pamphlet welcoming me to the body of Christ and explained what the wonderful promise I had accepted meant to me and to the Kingdom of Heaven. It told me that a place was being prepared for me on a street of gold. I was twelve-years-old, and all I could think about was telling everyone I knew.

Twelve is a wonderful age. We get so on fire for things, and if taken by the hand and molded at that age, we could become world changers. The problem is how many people are going to take the time to mentor a twelve-year old? If only someone, anyone, is willing to guide us at that time, then some real good could be accomplished. Lives could be changed forever. People could grow up to be things they never imagined and do things that would change the world.

When I got home, I went upstairs, sat down, and started reading the Bible like they told me to, and in a week…I was bored out of my mind—and then it was back to life as usual. I say back to usual, but it wasn’t really back to the way it was before. I still had a little fire left, but I had no idea what to do or how to do it. There was no one to lead me or books to guide me, except for the one that was so hard to understand and so intimidating just to look at!

I was cool as a cucumber in two weeks, except now I had some things that felt like negatives because I didn’t understand what I was feeling or what it meant. Now I had a guilty conscience most of the time, and it made me feel very, very ashamed of most of the things I did. I didn’t understand why they were wrong, only that I felt sick to my stomach if I stared too long at a pretty girl with the wrong thoughts running through my head.

Mostly because I was too young to get it on my own, and there was no one around to tell me that God loved me and that He wasn’t there to simply punish me for everything I did wrong. Being the grandson of a true Southern Baptist, fire and brimstone, you’re-all-going-to-hell preacher, I was raised on gobs of guilt and constant fear of going to hell. It wasn’t so much about doing well for God and pleasing Him.

It wasn’t so much about going to Heaven and meeting a loving father who forgives me of my imperfections. It was about how “bad” David really was. In a very short amount of time, I was back to worrying, feeling guilty and blaming God for everything that went wrong in my life. How little I truly understood about how God really worked.

Although Jesus is all about faith and love, education plays a vital role in understanding all about the man Himself. If, after all, we don’t really know Him or His words, then how do we get to draw Him deeper into our hearts and our everyday life?