This may be the last letter I ever write to you. It may be the last communication we have. Since you have it, I hope you will keep it and read it often. I wish I had many things to say. I wish there were many encouraging words, wise thoughts and insights to help you each time you pick it up. It seems to me that we should keep an arsenal of such thoughts for our daily defense. By keeping such things close to your thinking I will not be far from you at any time. I have a friend who has done that for me. It makes me want to share it with you. Since you are reading this I assume either you are breathing freely and your sun is shining brightly or you are hidden in fear and darkness trembling at what may be next. Both are why I left this last word for you.
The reality of life is that your situation is probably somewhere in between. You may not be on the highest mountaintop you’ve ever known. You may not be experiencing the worst that life can throw at you. Still at this moment, I hope you can think of my smiling facing. I hope that thought makes you smile. Wherever I am, I am at peace, I have joy and I am waiting to share it with you again. So in this writing which I hope you have read and reread many times, is my secret, my wisdom, my knowledge of the who, what, when, where, and why of our life. It is my belief and my reality which I have shown you before. It is the only path I know that works for every circumstance I have encountered.
Let me give you three principle decisions which I have made that I believe will help you. In my mind I see the place, remember the time and rejoice in the moment of the first decision. It was on a lonely road, in a solitary place, with no other influence I was willing to endure. I recall thinking that if there was any other way, any other choice I saw as profitable, I would have chosen to go with it instead. There was not. All I had tried to that point had only brought momentary joy, temporary satisfaction and a facade of accomplishment which I would soon see crumble. The choices we are most often given are long on promise and short on fulfillment.
I had seen others who made choices which were promised to be full of beautiful aromas only to be squashed like a bug. I wanted more. It is only in the center of our innermost being, our soul, where we are naked before ourselves. Everyone else gets to see the persona we chose to portray.
On that day, in that moment my mind is rehearsing now, I found the real naked me and saw the only way out. As naked and honest as I can be, I must admit that I wanted another way. There is no other. The arguments were over, the self justification was done. I had considered the one truth which was laid before me and acknowledged it as right. I am not a chance, a mistake, or a maybe. I am a created being with mind and body and soul. I love. I hate. I breathe and I am responsible for the consequences of my choices. All choices lead to destruction except for the one which leads back to the purpose I exist for.
You see, I believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God Jehovah, is the deliverer of judgment and wrath and salvation. We, you and I and every person on this earth are created, born into our lives for the sole purpose of bringing glory to God our Creator. I believed on that day that I was responsible for offending Him by breaking His laws. We are often reminded that ignorance of the law is no excuse. I may have been ignorant but I was totally without excuse. God created all that is. Even the choice to disobey Him. Just as we do not have to choose to inflict injury and pain upon ourselves, we do not have to choose to disobey Him. Yet when we do He offers us a remedy. The Bible says He is angry with the wicked every day. It also says He will not turn away any who come to Him in repentance seeking forgiveness and restoration.
That is my first principle of restoration. He forgives all who ask. I came to Him in prayer on that day I remember so fondly and said “Jesus, You said if I would ask that You would save me from your wrath. I’m asking right now. Please save me”. He did.
Immediately I was changed although I did not realize it for a time. At the moment my heart cried out openly and honestly that I believed that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died in my place on the Cross, He changed me. I was given hope and more than that I was given a new life. Oh, to be sure, I was still breathing in the same body. I was still physically the same. But mentally, emotionally and spiritually I was a new creature in Christ Jesus. Without quoting the entire Bible it is impossible for me to detail all He has done, so read it for yourself.
The very first thing a person must do to rightly relate themselves to the living, loving Creator of the universe is to believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them who diligently seek Him. He wrote that book through the minds and hands of men He specifically chose to use, so you could know Him and love Him. I love Him. My desire is that every friend I know and every friend I make through writing this last letter might choose to love Him too.
It is a choice. You make that choice everyday of your life. You either choose to believe and be His child or to continue to attempt to usurp His authority and be a false king over a false world you have created in your own mind. You imagine you are in control. But you only control one decision. You only control one choice. Everything else follows as a result of that choice.
Choose life. Jesus is God revealed to us in human form. He was born as a miraculous fulfillment of God’s promise. He died the same way. At the hands of cruel men who refused to believe that the love of God could be freely given to all who would believe. That too is the same choice. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. Saved from the wrath you deserve for offending a Holy God. The last letter you want to receive from a friend or anyone else who is no longer here, is one which reveals the great treasures they have left you.
The tale you desire to read is of the things left for you to inherit, to use, to enjoy and to pass on when your write your last Letter. Here is that great treasure. Not in houses or lands or monies. Not possessions but rather being possessed of Him.
If it is not possible for you to understand the value of what you are offered then ask the author to explain it to you. I am not the author. I am just the instrument through which the offer passes. There is a story in the Bible in which a very distressed father asks a miracle of Jesus. When Jesus says he may have his miracle if he only believes the man gives an astonishing reply. He says “I believe Lord. Help my unbelief”. He was asking the author for help in understanding. You can do the same. When I came to the moment of realizing the truth I was faced with, I needed understanding beyond my capability. He gave it me then and still does each day, each time I ask.
So there are my three principle decisions which I trust will help you. I decided to ask for understanding, to believe the truth and to share it with you. If I left you a million dollars in a bank account and gave you the instructions on how to access it and you did not understand, how would it profit you? If you did not ask for additional understanding, how would it profit you? Even if you reread the instructions a thousand times and did not ask for help, how would it profit you? Jesus has left you instructions on how to access treasures of far more value than money. If you understood the instructions, you would already possess it. My last letter, my last hope for you, is that I would be able to stir up your mind by way of remembrance. It is that you would ask for His treasure of salvation. It is that you would ask for His help in understanding.