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"CONCEPTS OF LIFE"
Letter 12
(TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN)
You went on a cruise to get away for awhile and half way home the ship started taking on water. There was great panic as everything electrical went out. Apparently there must have been some kind of a mystical surge of power that burnt out all the communication equipment. As you look for a way off the boat, you come across a backpack survival kit and a small inflatable raft. You then exit the room and a panic begins to erupt. You run outside and suddenly someone runs madly by and you are knocked off the ship, still clinging to the backpack and inflatable raft. The seas are not terribly rough, but it is getting dark. You first pop the tank to the inflatable raft and soon you are inside its floating safety. There are a few dried foods in the survival pack and some water. Looks like you might make it for a few days, then who knows?
The next day the waves seemed a little rougher and you soon realized you are in an ocean current. How long you have been in this current and what direction you are going was not even in your concerns. The only thing you could think about was finding help. A rescue boat, a plane, or even a land sighting. As the morning passed, thoughts of survival began to become evident and you said some prayers. It was hard to pray because you have not talked to God in some time. Thoughts of how you always wanted to have a relationship with Jesus came to mind. You also thought of your family and what they wondered about you. Your family worshipped the Lord every service available and asked if you wanted to join them many times, but you said that you were to busy and would go with them sometime. Now you realize it has been years of excuses and you never went with them. Amazingly they never stopped asking on the holidays and various times throughout the year.
Just about what you thought was 4:00 pm, a small landmass was starting to show on the horizon, so you began to paddle with your hands frantically. At about 9:30 pm you got within a few hundred yards from shore when all of a sudden a coral reef punched a hole in the raft. Already to a point of total exhaustion, fear pulsed through your veins and you swam to shore with your backpack in your arms. On the shore and hardly able to walk, you find a coconut tree and collapse under it and fall fast asleep. Dawn comes in with a crash as the waves of the endless ocean splash on shore. You arise after a few yawns and begin to explore the new home you came to.
Thinking about what it is you are going through, prayer and thankfulness cross your mind again and you thank God for this small island which was a savior to you. Comparisons to the island and to how Christ saves us from the waves of sin make you giggle and you feel like you might be slipping a little from reality. Then you remember the prayer you said the day before to God and how you repented for not giving more attention to your family as they invited you to go to church with them. Now you realize your talk with God was not a thought, but a verbal conversation. You are losing it! Craziness has taken control and now you are talking to yourself and to a God in which you did not respect. You think how much worse and how soon it would be before your mental facilities are totally gone.
The next day, after a night of talking to yourself and your God, you come across a fresh water stream and actually see fish swimming in the shallows. The backpack bag had a knife and a lighter in it. There were also two bottles of water, paper, a pen, and some first-aid supplies. Today seemed a little better after yesterday's questionable sanity but there seemed to be something about today which gave you a little more reassurance about talking to God. Everything you asked for seemed to be happening around you in a miraculous way. Now there was food, water, a cave in the cliff, rubber shoes made from the raft, and a hope of survival for awhile. What could be next?
As the days passed, your personal relationship grew and you felt a presence watching over you. Now there started to be a confidence that you were not going to die, but live. Your thoughts centered on how you were going to tell everyone about your mishap and how God heard you and came to your rescue. How you made it to the island and how there was water, food, and shelter provided there. And tell them how you felt like you were losing your mind and all of a sudden there was a warmth which caressed your heart. How you knew if you died on this island, you would be with your Creator forever, because He promised eternal life with Him, if you believed in him.
Today, I wrote a letter and stuck it into one of my drinking bottles and cast it into the sea. It said, "To Whom It May Concern. I am alone and lost on an island and I do not know where. Please do not be concerned for my life because through this experience I have found the Lord of my heart, Jesus. I do want rescued soon, but if no one can find me, no worries. I am with my Lord!" Signed_______________.
Preview of the book:
"To Live Is To Gain"
(Letter 35)
Exercising Your Faith
We as humans are very unique in all our ways and beliefs. We use powers on earth in which we have no understanding or comprehension of what the end results could become. Everyone, undoubtedly, in some time of their lives has had faith in a hope of some kind. Whether in a healing situation or a financial crisis. It could be in a friendship loss or a love renewed. We have faith in hope.
I want you to realize that there is another hope in which most of us do not even consider and will probably never accept because of our lack of belief. It is a shame that some of us are just to stubborn to actually realize there is a faith in us which, like our own faith, is greater than life itself. Believe it or not, God has faith in us too. He believes in us whether or not we believe in Him. His faith for our redemption never ceases until we breathe our last breath. Always, always, is His faith upon His creation. Because He created us as co-heirs with His son, Jesus. With this in mind, God truly wanted all of us to spend eternity with Him.
If we would for one small moment in our lives, explore the real truth and meaning of our Heavenly Father's love for us. Then we could understand how big and infinite His love actually is. God, Yahweh is His name, did not beat around the bush when He wanted us to know how much He loved us. In the first book of the Bible He began to reveal His infinite love for us, His very own creation. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." This does not say we are gods. It says we are images of God; the one True God! Reflections of Him in the flesh. Given abilities to reflect His love or refuse what was given into our lives from creation. The ability to excerise faith from birth is of our own free will.
God did not take His faith from us, but increased it from our trust in Him. Then as we became older in life, His faith in us began to increase as we grew closer to Him. And as His faith in us grew so also did our faith in His abilities, in our lives, grow. We became like Him in spirit and in truth. Love of all that was, is, and what will be, became born into our hearts. We became undeniably powerful in our faith and love which was given through Him. The gifts of the Holy Spirit became evident in our lives and miraculous miracles of God's power and ability became our norm. Nothing was or is impossible for those who truly believe. As even in the world, those sinners who do not understand the ways of the Lord, see the impossible happen. There is more than likely someone praying for their needs. They just do not know it. God's faith in the saints is fruitful even to the sinners of the world. This is what opened the doors for me to become saved and redeemed again. Thank you, Saints of God, for your faithful prayers to a Faithful Father in heaven.
Until the end of all time will the faith of God be with us. His love for us is eternal and so is His Son's love for us. Jesus, as a part of God's grace to us, is also in the realms of our Father's love for mankind. Jeremiah 33:1 says, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving kindness." God's love and faith in us is also inside Jesus' heart. Jesus had the faith in man, through God, and so He went to Calvary for all of us. He exercised His faith in God the Father and now sits at His right hand. As we exercise our God given faith so shall we be greatly rewarded. As long as our faith is in God, who from the beginning, put His faith in us.
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