Earlier this
year Melissa Fahy and her father were renovating her New Jersey home
when they found a letter in the gap under the stairs. The letter was
postmarked May 1945, apparently written by a previous owner of the home.
It was a love
letter from a woman named Virginia to her husband, Rolf Christoffersen,
a sailor in the Norwegian Navy at the time. Virginia wrote: “I love
you, Rolf, as I love the warm sun. That is what you are to my life, the
sun about which everything else revolves for me.” Somehow Virginia’s
letter got lost beneath the stairs.
But Melissa
Fahy was determined to get that letter to its rightful owner — if it was
possible – even if it was 72 years later. She turned to Facebook for
help, and within hours Facebook users had located the couple’s son.
Rolf Christoffersen is now 96 years old and living in California.
Rolf’s son read the letter to his father. Virginia Christoffersen had
died six years earlier, but the letter was a reminder that her love had
not. *
If you search
around your home, you’ll probably find at least one copy of a love
letter. It’s a love letter from God; it is His Word. It is much more
than a love letter, but the fundamental message is one of love – that
God loves you and wants to save you.
“For God
so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life”
(John 3:16).
This love
letter proclaims the great love of God for us even though we aren’t that
lovable. Our sins separate us from God and destine us for destruction
(Isaiah 59:1-2; Matthew 7:13-14).
“But God
demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still
sinners, Christ died for us”
(Romans 5:8). Because of His great love for us, Jesus Christ died on
the cross so that we can be saved from sin and receive the gift of
eternal life.
“This is
how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the
world that we might live through Him. {10} This is love: not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice
for our sins”
(1 John 4:9-10 NIV).
God will save and give eternal life to those who
place their faith
and trust in Jesus (Acts 16:30-31), turn from
their sins in repentance
(Acts 17:30-31),
confess
Jesus before men (Romans 10:9-10), and are
baptized
(immersed) into Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). The
blood that Jesus shed on the cross for our sins will continue to cleanse
those who continue to walk in the light of His Word (1 John 1:7).
The Bible:
it’s a love letter from God. Won’t YOU read it, embrace it, and cherish
it? Won’t YOU accept and reciprocate the offer of love from the
heavenly Father who gave His Son to die for you?
The core
message of the Bible is the salvation of man through Christ to the glory
of God. Once you understand and embrace that message through your
trusting obedience, Jesus will be the “Son” around which everything else
revolves in your life.
-- David A.
Sargent
* Sources: Associated Press, “Love Letter
Reaches WWII Vet 72 Years Later,” klove.com (5/12/2017) and Bill Ray’s
Illustrations for Sermons (www.illustrationsforsermons.com).
David A. Sargent,
Minister
Church of Christ at Creekwood
1901 Schillinger Rd. S.
Mobile, Alabama 36695
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