Rescued To Rescue: Your Role In The Great Rescue MissionSample

Don’t forget who you are

The story goes that there was once a little lifesaving station on a dangerous seacoast. It was just a small building and they only had one boat, but they had dedicated members who kept constant watch over the waters.

They saved many lives — so many in fact that this little station began to draw attention. People began to take notice. And before long their membership grew. The new members wanted to do some improvements to the little operation, and they replaced the cots with beds, purchased new furniture, and expanded the building. The facility was now so nice that the members wanted to spend time there. And it started to become a social club. And instead of the members doing the lifesaving work themselves, they hired it out.

Around that time there was a huge shipwreck off the coast with many people aboard. The hired rescue crews started bringing the desperate passengers into the station. They were hurt, sick, hungry, dirty, and soaking wet. The influx of people began to mess up the pristine “club,” so the members decided to install outdoor showers so victims could clean up before coming inside. 

And some members took it a step further. They did not like the disruption to the club that the lifesaving operations made. So, the club split, and a few members went down the coast to start a new lifesaving station. 

But it only took a few years for the same pattern to happen again. That new lifesaving station also turned into a social club. 

One thing has not changed. Shipwrecks still happen in these waters … but the people once tasked to rescue have forgotten their “why.”

Sometimes we forget who we are … what we were created for. We lose our “why” — it’s no longer about helping people, or rescuing, but just taking care of our own.

As people of faith we are lifesavers, second-chance givers, hope restorers, rescuers.

That’s who we are — that’s what we do.

We can’t just be a “country club” of Christians, looking out for our own, when we're made to be out in the storms of life, wrestling with the waves, throwing out life vests. 

We’ve been rescued so that we can now rescue.