"Take Off" conclusion chapter

I hope that this small book is of any way a help to you to spur you on towards the pursuit of God and the depth of obedience that you need to have to really soar in your life as a believer. It is possible to be a believer and to barely take off; it is possible to watch others from the “ground” and to wish you yourself were like that but to never get on the runway. We must give God everything we've got. We must have faith in God, trusting in nothing less than God Himself. We must have hope in God and all that He promises, and to not settle for hoping only in things that are of temporal concern. Finally, we must love God and people with the love that only God gives, doing this as frequently as we can and praying that the Holy Spirit would show us where and how the Father would have us show this love.
The journey of one's life is much comparable to that of riding on a river. We are born, we get into our boat, and we float downstream. The current carries us along and if we want we can do nothing to get where it's taking us. There are many people on this river, in fact, every human being. Jesus Christ is standing on the banks, calling out, “Don't go downstream! The end is certain death! There is a waterfall coming and then the rocks—no one will survive!” Those who listen must decide whether they will change course or not. They must decide to paddle upstream, and that's hard and it takes all their lives. People float by, looking at them like they're crazy, mocking them and telling them that there's no such thing as a waterfall. While believers do not have to fear the eternity of death in hell, it is very possible that they plug in their Christianity into the downstream model. They follow Christ as it is convenient, attempting nothing for God and thinking that the good life is the easy life. We must believe that the river only leads to peril and a life wasted. We must believe Christ and pursue Him with reckless abandon, giving Him our best and losing ourselves to His purposes. The life of a believer is intended by God to be an upstream passage, going to God in faith though the journey be hard. Through faith, hope, and love, let us travel there with the strength that only God can supply, knowing that this is the life to which our whole being would find true, deep, everlasting joy. The life of a believer is so radically backwards from what the life of the unbeliever is like—at least it should be. The people of this world will never want what we have if we ride the river just as they do while claiming Christ as Savior. This is not change, it's only a labeling of what we find is our purpose. No wonder so many people are saying, “What you believe is fine for you and what I believe is fine for me; we will all get to where we're going.” This problem must be attacked, and the best way we can do this is to live the life ourselves to which Christ calls us.