You are going to give your life for something. What will it be – a career, a sport, a hobby, fame, wealth? None of these will have lasting significance. Service is the pathway to real significance. It is through ministry that we discover the meaning of our lives. The Bible says, “ Each of us finds our meaning and function as part of His body.” As we serve together in God’s family, our lives take on eternal importance. God wants to use you to make a difference in His world. He wants to work through you. What matters is not the duration of your life, but the donation of it. Not how long you lived but how you lived. If you are not involved in any service or ministry, what excuse have you been using? Abraham was old, Jacob was insecure, Leah was unattractive, Joseph was abused, Moses stuttered, Gideon was poor, Samson was codependent, Rahab was immoral, David had an affair and all kinds of family problems, Elijah was suicidal, Jeremiah was depressed, Jonah was reluctant, Naomi was a widow, John the Baptist was eccentric to say the least, Peter was impulsive and hot-tempered, Martha worried a lot, the Samaritan woman had several failed marriages, Zacchaeus was unpopular, Thomas had doubts, Paul had poor health, and Timothy was timid. This is quite a variety of misfits, but God used each of them in His service. He will use us to if we stop making excuses.
Rick Warren - The Purpose Driven Life
|
Most of us from time to time buy into the lie that we can't make a difference. That is why the statement above is so powerful.
Consider the following: Let's say that you are a famous public speaker who speaks to approximately 100,000 people per year. Over a 25 year period you would have spoken to approximately 2,500,000 people.
But if we were to invest regularly and deeply into the lives of two different people (a very achievable number) each year for the next 25 years and we tought each of those people to pour their lives into two more people each year, etc, etc. we would together reach more than 30 million people in that same 25 year period.
|
YEAR |
Public Speaking (Addition) |
Life -on -Life Investing (Multiplication) |
|
1 |
100,000 |
2 |
|
2 |
200,000 |
4 |
|
5 |
500,000 |
32 |
|
10 |
1,000,000 |
1024 |
|
15 |
1,500,000 |
32,768 |
|
20 |
2,000,000 |
1,048,576 |
|
25 |
2,500,000 |
33,554,432 |
From the Book Plan A and There's no Plan B by Dwight Robertson
|
|
