There’s a teaching seeping into even what we call the evangelical Christian church that is belittling the fact that Jesus died for my sins. They say that he died only as an example or some such thing. I don’t honestly know how they explain away the fact of his penal death on the cross as our Savior or what they actually believe instead of the Truth. In fact, I don’t know how they can call themselves Christians if they don’t believe that “Jesus died for my sins.” For me, that’s the basic fact of Christianity. Jesus died for my sins. And this to me is solid fact. And whatever else happens in anyone’s Christian life, whatever the problems or difficulties, this one thing is certain: The illustrations in this hardcover, glossy book are lovely, depicting a wide range of colors, children and emotions. My daughter (4.5 years old) really loved flipping through the book on her own. When we read it together, the story was short and entertaining enough to hold her interest. It also sparked several great conversations! I had never deserved to be forgiven in the first place when I Was converted. I could do nothing to merit God's favour, His grace, His love. If all I had ever known was unmerited and undeserved grace, how could I then forfeit that which I never earned?... Was I too proud, in some strange, inverted way to humble myself to accept an unmerited forgiveness? I know that it was all of grace, yet my inner being wanted to right to do something to merit it. I was trying to work out my own salvation, to earn God's forgiveness, to prove the sincerity of my repentance...At last I knew that it was true. It was not based on my feeling or on my emotions. It was no dependent on my faith or my obedience. In no way could I merit or deserve it. He loved me. He knew me through and through, better than I knew myself, and yet still, He loved me. Christ died on Calvary to tell me that. Christ lives in Heaven, an unceasing intercessor on my behalf to make that love real to me in my experience.”

Lagerborg, Mary Beth, Though Lions Roar: The Story of Helen Roseveare: Missionary Doctor to the Congo, (Faith's Adventurers), ISBN 978-0-87508-663-7.I tend to say that on that night sixty years ago I fell in love with Jesus. I’m just overwhelmed by the fact of his love for me. The lady in charge of the house party where I was saved gave me a new Bible. The man who’d been leading the Bible studies — Dr. Graham Scroggie, a great Bible teacher in the UK during the first half of the last century — wrote a verse from Philippians in my new Bible, Philippians 3:10: “that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto him in his death” (KJV). And then, within half an hour of having been saved, Dr. Scroggie signed me up for a four-year Bible correspondence course! It was through his tutoring, as he mentored me through those four years, that not only did I fall in love with Jesus, but I fell also in love with his Word. Afterwards, I went up into the mountains and had it out with God. “O.K. God, today I mean it. Go ahead and make me more like Jesus, whatever the cost. But please (knowing myself fairly well), when I feel I can’t stand anymore and cry out, ‘Stop!’ will you ignore my ‘stop’ and remember that today I said ‘Go ahead!’?”

So when the boy assured me that if we could get to his father’s village, they had a 400-liter drum of gasoline and would be able to fill my car up for the return trip, we set off together. He sat beside me in the cab, and we talked. Oh, good talk. I was talking about our Lord Jesus. We shared together, and I was telling him stories about Jesus. As we drove along we came to a fork in the road, and he would say, “Go right,” so I went right. We came to a crossroads, and we turned, and I went on talking to him. Suddenly the car spluttered, coughed, and came to a halt. I looked at the gas gauge — we’d run out of gasoline. The boy looked around. “Doctor,” he said, “I don’t know where we are. I’ve never been here before.”You no longer want Jesus only, but Jesus plus . . . plus respect, popularity, public opinion, success and pride. You wanted to go out with all the trumpets blaring, from a farewell-do that you organized for yourself with photographs and tape-recordings to show and play at home, just to reveal what you had achieved. You wanted to feel needed and respected. You wanted the other missionaries to be worried about how they’ll ever carry on after you’ve gone. You’d like letters when you go home to tell how much they realize they owe to you, how much they miss you. All this and more. Jesus plus. . . . No, you can’t have it. Either it must be “Jesus only” or you’ll find you have no Jesus. You’ll substitute Helen Roseveare. The words spoken at the end of Helen’s funeral were: ‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory’ (Revelation 19:6-7). Do I love to read his Word and soak in it, more than any of the other newspapers, magazines, or whatever else? Is God’s Word honestly precious to me? We’ll become like Jesus more by reading the Word than by reading the daily newspaper! Every year between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day I seek to have time alone with God and to ask him for a particular verse for the coming year. For 2006 he gave me a phrase out of Ephesians 1:17: “that [I] may know him better” (NIV). That has been the longing of my heart all year. When Paul wrote that phrase, he was at the end of his life, imprisoned in Rome. He’d been a missionary for years. He’d been serving God with all his heart for years, and yet still this prayer came out of his heart: “that [I] may know him better.” He Gave Us A Valley". worldmissionbooks.com. Archived from the original on 2016-12-21 . Retrieved 2016-12-09.