Jake returned to his rundown tent after countless hours of tending to the ill villagers. Having spent eight months in this small village hidden deep within the Amazon, Jake is a missionary doctor. People would first think that he was raised in a good Christian family and was well educated in the path of Christ. However, Jake has only been saved for about 8 years of his 49 years of living. He wasn’t raised in a Christian family, and he did things that are too horrible to mention.
Being born in a rich family in New York, it seemed that little Jake would be set for life. He was treated like a prince by his servants although they hated him. As the years past, Jake grew to be a horrible person; lying, stealing, torturing “friends”, and even causing physical injures along with mental scarring. Jake was never satisfied even when he did all those terrible things. Hating his parents, he ran away at the age of 15. Having stolen a large amount of money from his parents, he was somehow able to get to England.
Using the money he stole, Jake was able to live in luxury for about 3 years. However, he soon lost it all due to all the gambling and partying over the years. Having very little money, Jake resorted to stealing from small shops and drug dealing. After a few years of doing this, at the age of 21, Jake was caught by England police and imprison for 10 years. Well, it was suppose to be only 5 years, but Jake caused so much trouble in the prison that his sentence was extended. Finally after the 10 years of being in prison, he was released and sent back to America.
However, instead of being sent to New York, where he was born, he was sent to Florida. Having no money, Jake had to resort to hitchhiking and stealing in order to survive. You would think that he would learn by now and try to return home knowing his family was wealthy but there was that feeling of hate and rebellion in Jake’s heart. However, this all changed one dark and stormy night. After 3 years of wandering around, Jake had to resort to an old house he thought was empty to get out of the storm. However, it wasn’t empty, but was occupied by an old couple. Yet instead of calling the police to turn him in for trespassing, they let him stay.
Due to their kindness that he hadn’t experience for such a long time, Jake stayed with them and although he never once did anything good toward others, he tried to repay the couple. This couple was Christians and treated Jake as if he was their own son and every week invited him to church. However, he refused every time. Then after about 3 years, the old man passed away from a heart attack. Feeling bad for the old widow, Jake decided to go with her once to church. This was a life changing moment in his life. That one time sparked something inside of his heart. Not knowing what this was, Jake continued to go to church and after another year, Jake was saved at the age of 28.
Now that he was saved, Jake realized that all his life, he had been a terrible person and only caused trouble for everyone. Feeling this guilt, Jake decided to return to his family in New York. However, he couldn’t just leave the old woman that had taken care of him for the past 4 years, so he stayed back for another year in which she passed away. Now he headed back to New York, only to discover that his parents had passed away 13 years ago and that they still left everything to him since he was their only son. Yet instead of living the life of luxury again, Jake decided to instead repay all that he had stolen and even enter the medical field so that he would become a missionary doctor to people that were suffering without the knowledge of God.
As you can tell, Jake was able to follow his new dream and although he cannot change his past, he gives his life for Christ so that others could know God, and make the wise decisions that he failed to make in life. Although he did have the chance to live a life of luxury, he gave it up but instead of giving it up for freedom for himself, he gave it up to help others find true freedom.
~The Christian journey of sin, punishment, repentance, forgiveness, and restoration
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