Phil, reminds me of a story I heard once.  A pastor was witnessing to
this guy and the guy said he didn't want to be saved 'cause he would
have to give up drinking.  The pastor told him, no, you don't have to
give up drinking.  So the guy got saved and said, I'm not going to drink again.

earlier, Phil Scovell, wrote:
>I went and got my hair cut today.  Louie is nearly 70 years of age, or maybe
>he is by now, but you'd never know it.  Today he told me how he became a
>Christian.  He said somebody must have started praying for him because, all
>of the sudden, preachers and pastors and priests started coming in for hair
>cuts.  Most of them began witnessing to him and most of those that did, told
>him that he was on his way to hell.  None of them made it passed first base
>until a man came in one day and as Louie was cutting his hair, asked him why
>he didn't give up his sinful life style and become a Christian.  Louie said,
>"Why should I?  I have it made.  Every night I play in bars with my friends.
>I work 45 minutes and then get a 15 minute break every hour I am working.  I
>get to play my guitar.  I enjoy singing.  I get to drink on the job.  I get
>paid good money just to have fun.  Why give all that up?"  The man
>encouraged him to go to church anyway because he didn't have to give up
>anything.  Louie was surprised.  He thought, because his grandmother had
>taken him to church almost every day of his life, sort of speak, that you
>had to give up everything for Jesus.  So, Louie told me that he started
>looking for a church.  Nearly all the churches he visited, he found people
>who he felt were no better than the people in the bars.  So, he decided he
>must be going to the wrong churches.  He decided to find a church like the
>one his grandmother used to always take him to and so he did.  Soon he heard
>the Gospel and came to know Christ; making Him the Lord and Savior of his
>life.  It wasn't long thereafter that the bars didn't seem right so he
>turned all that over to the Lord.  His barbershop, at that time, simply
>would not financially survive, he told me, without all the money he was
>making playing the bars.  Soon the barbershop grew.  Now he plays on the
>worship team in his church.  You couldn't pay him enough money to return to
>the life of playing in the bars.  He said something very simple to me but,
>oh, so true.  He said, "You should be willing to give up your life for the
>Lord and live for Him since He gave up His life for you."  There it is, in a
>nutshell.  If we have no other reason to live Godly, with Christ as our Lord
>and Savior, the fact He gave his life for us should be enough.  So how do we
>become personally related to Christ as Lord and Savior?  first, look up
>First Corinthians chapter 15 and read the first 4 verses.  That is the
>Gospel you must believe.  Secondly, look up Romans chapter 10 and read
>verses 9 and ten.  That is how you become born again.  How do you then live
>this out in your life.  Louie wondered that, too.  He found out by becoming
>born again.  The Lord filled in the answers he had about living for Christ.
>
>Phil.
>
>
>Where there is pain, there is belief.  Real Truth is painless.
>www.SafePlaceFellowship.com

John