How Did You Come to Believe What You Do?

[jeffncandace]

I was raised in a non-denominational Christian household. My parents were and are pastors of a small church. Charismatic, Word of Faith...was taught in the literalness of the Bible and everything it contains. Beliefs include praying in tongues (a gift available to everyone), healing (God's will for everyone), developing a personal relationship with God as opposed to religious "going-thru-the-motions". Singing, praying, even dancing in the spirit are not all the time occurances but do happen.

All of my life I was tortured by the idea of a literal hell. As a child I would infrequently suffer panic attacks (unbeknownst to my family because I internalized it) thinking that I had sinned too many times (despite my salvation) and would be going to hell. If I were at the store with my mom and sister and I got seperated and couldn't find them I would literally think the rapture had happened and I got left behind.

I went to Bible school and it was there, by learning about the History of the Bible, that I started to question my beliefs. I could not reconcile my faith with reason, or with what my heart told me was true. This confused me greatly because I knew Christianity was the truth. But the question of hell tormented me.

I threw the whole thing out the window (out of mental and emotional self-preservation) when I reached my late teens and decided to live for Jeff. I partied like crazy and had a lot of fun. It was ultimately empty.

To sum it up a couple of years ago I heard mention that Carlton Pearson (a well known minister in some circles) had "gone off" into a doctrine that taught that there was no hell. Something LEAPED inside of me.

I started studying and found it all to be truthful but it scared me...because now I knew I had no excuse (not that I ever really did, but in my own mind) to not serve God. I had reconciled what I had always known inside to be the truth with my faith. Now it was time to put away my childish things and become an adult.

I put it off, up until late last year. I started reading and searching in earnest (a desire that came about coincidentally at the same time my parents were praying for this exact thing to come about) and came to believe as I do now--that Jesus came to save the world, and accomplished just that.