Imagine if you will.  You’ve falling from a great height.  As you fall you realize that below you is water.  Turbulent and dark it appears to be deep.  In your mind you know that if you hit the surface wrong that your death will surely be the result. The fall feels like it is stretching on forever.  You somehow know that straightening your body feet down and pointed, your chin high and arms to your sides is the way to enter the water.  This will minimize impact surface area and the water’s surface tensions effect on you. You feel that perhaps you might survive the entry.  Your swimming skills aren’t sufficient for this, your mind offers for your concern, but that isn’t negotiable you realize, you’re in this regardless. Before the surface you take in the deepest breath you possibly can.

Suddenly you plunge through the surface.  The pain of impact was intense and injuries are most definitely a possibility.  However, they are not the primary concern you realize.  The depths you’ve reached since entering the water are incredible and are still increasing. That breath you took is wholly insufficient you realize and panic begins to assault your being.  The pressure of the depth seems it will crush you.  Your body and organs are squeezed.  It seems as if every ounce of air is trying to leave your body.

You must slow your decent so you somehow deter panic and force your limbs to spread and your body and all the pain in it to turn creating a water break at the expense of your senses.  The pain seems that it will overtake you.

As you begin to struggle ascent begins to occur.  You’re heading in the right direction now but you know time is not on your side.  You begin moving your arms and legs trying to grab the very water, the very substance of the incredibly deadly prison you’ve been thrown into.  Your heart seems like it’s beating out of your chest, like it may just explode.  Your eyes feel like they’re coming out of your skull.  The cold of the water makes every movement burn as if you were dunked in acid.  Your breath is gone and the surface seems so far away.  Blackness begins to encroach at the edges of your vision and you begin to despair of death.

Just before your vision goes black you feel a surge upward.  You have no idea what it is but it shoves you towards waiting hands.  The dark is the shadow of a boat hull.  Salvation is at hand.  You are grabbed from behind though, and pulled up and into the air where you involuntarily take in the deepest sweetest breath you’ve ever taken.

Your mind reels. What were the other hands I saw doing?

Fighting the effects of narcosis, you struggle to open an eye and you see beside you a man you’ve never met.  You think you recognize him from above.  The people around him are working frantically to revive him.  He’s not responding.  You’re heart speeds up and you struggle to rise just as the people helping him begin to slow and shake their heads thinking that this man…  A man you’ve never known is dead.  You begin to despair.  How did this happen, who is he, why was he there with me?

What seems like hours pass, while in reality it’s only seconds.

Suddenly, the man’s head turns and expells a gush of water.  He coughs and sucks in air.  He sees you and smiles.  As he relaxes he mutters the words.

Welcome to your new life.

Hours later in a hospital room you awake to see the man in a bed across from you. He’s awake and alert.

You struggle at first for words.  Finally, you find your voice.  Who are you man? Why were you there with me?

We were on that cliff with a tourist group looking out over the sea, when you, for reasons I can’t explain, ran and jumped off.  I had heard you talking to your friends.  I realized from that, that you’d never heard of Jesus.  So I did the only thing I could do.  I jumped after you.

Your eyes widen and your brows rise. What?  That makes no sense.  I remember now.  I’d been drinking with my friends.  I was disgusted with myself because of their successes and my failures.  I was ready to end it all.  That is until I had already jumped.  But wait?  No matter what I did.  Why would you jump after me?

The man exhales deeply.  Man, I’m a sinner saved by the grace of Jesus. You are a sinner who is not.  I couldn’t let you die without trying to tell you about him. So I jumped after you.  I’ve cliff dived before, albeit not from such a height.  I somehow knew that you’d survive the entry.  I assume God was telling me.  I knew you’d need help getting to the surface.  So there you are.  I helped.

Your mind reels again.  Wait.  That surge upward at the end.  That was you?

Yes. I gave my all to push you up.  I swallowed a lot of water and sucked I some into my lungs in the process.  I also prayed that someone would share the Gospel with you.

Tears welling up in your eyes, you ask the only question that comes to mind.

You were willing to die?

For me?

The man smiles.  Jesus died for me and you.  He rose again 3 days later.  He offers us salvation and eternal life.  I’m saved because I believe in Jesus.  How could I let you die without telling you that?

You hear the Gospel.  Will you respond?

John 3:16-17 CSB  

[16] For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. [17] For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  

For the non Christian.

Which breath is more important?  The one you just took or the next one you will take? 

How hard will you fight for that next breath?

I’ve been there. I get the despair, the fear. Jesus offers you salvation today for free. Don’t wait.  There’s not much time left. No one knows the time for sure but His return is coming and I love you too much not to tell you.  Find a Bible believing Church and ask someone.  Please!

For the Christian.

The question is the same but the reaction is what is to be considered.

Which breath is more important for the lost?  The one they just took or the next one they will take?

Make no mistake. They will take another either in this life or in eternity.  In either Heaven or Hell.

To what extreme are you willing to go, to effect that?

John 15:12-13 CSB  

[12] “This is my command: Love one another as I have loved you. [13] No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.  

Love in Christ  

Colby