Dale Longanecker recently turned 57, the mandatory retirement age for firefighters employed by the U.S. Forest Service. He spent his last day on the job jumping from an airplane.

Longanecker was a smoke jumper for 38 years. He has parachuted into fires in remote places in the western United States ever since he was 19. The Forest Service says that his 896 jumps is a record that might never be broken.

Jesus was sort of a smoke jumper. He left his home in heaven and came down here to save us from the fires of hell.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”—John 3:16.