I grew up in a Christian home and I will always be grateful for that fact, although I really did not appreciate it when I was a teenager, particularly the family altar.

And that was a common practice in our home. And no matter how old my older siblings were and how successful they are

in the world's sense, they had to be home for the family altar. And it's a great privilege and a

great honor as I look back how much that impacted me and impacted my life and impacted my ministry.

But there's one thing I've always

concerned me, particularly as I'm matured in Christ. And that is how I watched my father live a

tormented and a joyless Christian life. He knew the Lord, he loved the Lord, but he never had joy in his life,

in his Christian walk, simply because as a young man, he was taught that he has no assurance of

heaven. He believed strongly that he was saved when he had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as the Savior of his soul

and the Lord of his life. But that would not guarantee him heaven as he was taught. He felt that he

has to earn his daily salvation every day until that day. So if he died on the day in which

he was on a spiritual high and walking with the Lord, then he will make it to heaven.

But if he happened to die in a time when he is in a spiritual wilderness, he would not make

it to heaven.

That's what he was taught.

And I saw the torment and the lack of joy in his life.

I saw in him a perception of a God who is undependable and unpredictable. I saw a perception of God who will love you when you're good,

but he will reject you when you're not. I saw a perception of God as one who gives you a gift

one day, but then he will take it away from you the next.

I saw a perception of God who died on the cross and rose again, but only gives salvation

to those who are able to keep themselves from falling. Above all, I saw a Christian who could never delight himself in the Lord's

keeping power. The Lord's keeping power. I am personally convicted in my own heart that there

...