I had wanted to write a personal letter to you for some time as you have been on my heart. I remember our friendship from the past and our common experiences together. I had wanted to finish “My Story” and send you a copy, but how does time speed by. As a result I have decided to send you this letter. Actually, it is a reply to someone who wrote me asking for more information about the organization I am a member of. After writing it, I thought I could use it as a general letter to my old friends. I hope life has treated you kindly. We each have our own experiences which make us who we are and are becoming. I am sorry I am not able write to you personally but promise if you write, I will do.
Here is the letter I sent. It has some thoughts I wanted to share with you, also. Please take time to read it.
Thank you for your letter which I opened today. Thank you for your honesty and sincerity.
I am sorry to say that there is not a TFI office in your area for you to visit, in fact, there are very few TFI offices at this time. I can see two options for you to take at this moment. The first would be that you could start to frequent the new TFI website at http://portal.tfionline.com/. Here you will find as much spiritual feeding as you desire.
Our main goal as members of TFI is to help connect people to Jesus. Dear friend, if you have not prayed the prayer of salvation yet, I would like to invite you to right now. Jesus said he stands at the door of our heart and knocks. If anyone hears His voice and opens the door He will come in and have fellowship with him. (Revelations 3:20) Jesus is knocking at your heart´s door and wants to come in. Our body is of the flesh, but our essence is spiritual. God has created us with a spiritual void within our hearts which He alone can fill and satisfy. That longing that we experience where nothing in this life ultimately fulfills is that longing for God.
Jesus said on the cross, "I thirst." Humanity is thirsting for God, for their spirituality and the answer very simply is that Jesus is the answer. From the time of Adam and Eve in the Garden, man has been fooled into
thinking that eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil would make him wise and become as "gods." All of man´s eating from that tree has only brought us further and further from the simplicity which is in Christ.
God is love. God is a spirit. God is the spirit of love that longs to embrace every aspect of our lives. Jesus was the embodiment of the Spirit of God. He said, "I and the Father are one." He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father, but by me." Dear friend, in all our trying to be good and righteous we fail. We cannot obtain unto God through our own fleshly efforts. We fall short and face our own lacks, impurities, selfishness, etc. We are separated from God and in our own strength cannot reach up to Him.
But God in His love and mercy has given us a way to salvation. God, the creator of the universe of time, space and matter, has stepped into the universe in the form of Jesus Christ, thus fulfilling over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament. Jesus walked among men performing many infallible miracles, the ultimate being His resurrection from the dead. His words and doctrines were not difficult and speak to the hearts of all men. He loves you Dear Friend, and wants to abide in your heart and live and work through you. One day, when you leave this earthly life He wants you to reunite with Him in His Heavenly realm.
You see, my friend, only God can give meaning to this meaningless world in which we live today. Peter said, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."(Acts 16:31) Paul said it on this wise, "If you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in your heart, that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved" (Romans 10: 9, 10&13)
God wants to live and dwell in us and with us and just requires that we willingly ask Him in. John says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9)
Please prayer the following prayer with me, or something similar, if you have yet to experience the love of God in Jesus: "Dear Jesus, Please forgive me for the mistakes and sins I have made in my life. I have hurt others and have been selfish. I have been unable to keep myself holy. I have failed myself and others. Please wash away my sins with your blood from the cross. I now open up my heart and ask you to come in. Dwell in me and live in me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit that I might be come your follower, your disciple. I need you Jesus. Thank you. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen."
Dear Friend, if you have sincerely prayed this prayer, or one similar from your heart, Jesus has come into you as He said He would and will abide with you. He has already given you the gift of eternal life with Him in Heaven for eternity. The battle for your eternal soul is over and you are now Jesus´ forever. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) You now have that everlasting life. You now have Jesus in you.
Jesus went on to say to Nicodemus, "For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn it, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that believes on Him is not condemned: but he that believes not is condemned already.... And this is the condemnation that light is come into the world and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone that does evil hates the light, neither comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are made in God." (John 3:17-21) My friend, as a new born Christian you need to learn to abide in Christ. You need to learn to drink of the sincere milk of his word that you might grow thereby as Peter has said. (1 Peter 2:2)
Jesus said, " If any man loves me, he will keep my words: and my father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him." (John 14:23) As I said earlier you can find much feeding reading on the TFI website.
The second option, if you prefer to read on paper, is the formation course we have available in Portuguese. This formation course includes 7 booklets of approximately one hundred pages each. If you are interested in taking the course I could mail it to you one book at the time at a cost of 20 Euros per booklet including postage. If you are interested in receiving the certification for the course, after each book, I would ask you to write a 500-1000 word reaction answering some simple questions.
For those interested in a Bible course in English, I have available the 12 Foundation Stones Bible Study Course. The course booklet is 30 Euros plus postage. You would need to buy the supplementary booklets from http://www.auroraproduction.com/ which go for about $7. There about 13 optional books although all are not presently available. They also have beautiful music available. A monthly magazine called Activated in English can be subscribed at http://portal.tfionline.com/en/ or at http://www.activated.org/en/. If you prefer reading on line the above link has much feeding reading at Anchor and Director´s Corner and throughout the site free of charge.
The magazine Contato in Portuguese can be read on line on facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/187143591333710/ or type in “a famillia internacional” or order a paper copy from us at a cost of 20 Euros a year. At http://www.contato.org/ you can order additional books and cds for listening.
I hope this has been a help. If you have any other questions, please let me know. I am looking forward to hearing from you again. Yours sincerely, Dennis
PS: You could visit my website at http://fightforyourfaith.blogspot.pt/ or http://www.slideshare.net/DennisMolinski/newsfeed where I have articles in both English and Portuguese.
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