In the last few months, two people I admire have passed away. Both of them did a wonderful thing for their family and friends. They wrote a “love letter” to them, sharing what was the most important thing in the world (and in the next world) to them, their faith in Christ. This Sunday, I’ll share Walter Smith’s letter with you, and next Sunday it will be Peggy Powell’s turn. As you read these, I hope you’ll join me in going ahead and writing your final love letter while you can.

Walter Loclon Smith, III, passed away on Friday, July 4, 2025. He was born in Baton Rouge, LA, on March 20, 1952, just 14 days after me. Walter and I became friends at Glasgow Junior High and then attended Robert E. Lee High School, where we both met our future wives, Barb and Carol. We all went to LSU (AKA “Harvard on the Bayou”), where Walter and I were in the same fraternity. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from LSU in 1975 and Juris Doctorate in 1980 from LSU Law School, graduating near the top, if not at the top of his class. Thereafter, Walter was in private practice of law until his retirement in December 2019. Walter had an abiding faith in God through Jesus and was not afraid to leave and go to the other side.

Walter L. Smith, III

Here’s his letter:

I have been a fisherman many years but I should have spent more time as a fisher of men.  I have been blessed with parents, a wife, sons, daughters-in-law, siblings and many friends who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior and are filled with the Holy Spirit.  However, I fear I have some friends who haven’t and I offer these words as a final gift of love.

You must honestly ask yourself if you are a child of God filled with His Holy Spirit.  Do not be deceived, you are either moving towards God or away from Him.  I know this because of Scripture and my own personal life experiences.  Which way are you headed?

Do you understand the things of God or do you find them foolish?  1 Cor 2:12-14 “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.  This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.  The man without the Spirit of God does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

The solution to obtaining salvation (eternal life in heaven) and the Holy Spirit is to first understand you cannot earn it.  It is a gift from God’s grace you accept by faith.  Ephesians 2:8 – “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.”

Finding God is not a mystery.  God promises in His word that if you seek Him, you will find Him.  One example is Luke 11:9-13:

“So I say to you:  Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.  Which of you fathers, if your son asks for fish, will give him a snake instead?  Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?  If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

I shudder to think that people I care about will spend eternity separated from God.  Please seek God so we can meet on the other side … the paradise.

Walter, I’m planning to see you there, old friend.

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