Time Served Ministry is a religious organization that carries the gospel inside the jail and prison communities to reach inmates. Attendees are interested in learning about the hope (love) that Jesus Christ has to offer. We offer Bible studies, reading plans, prayer time, and gospel-centered worship services. Since 2008, TSM continues to bring a Christ-centered gospel message of hope and restoration to the incarcerated, their families, and the nearby communities that have been affected by addiction. *All* proceeds from purchases on this webpage are used to support Time Served Ministry's "Bible Drive" for their weekly visitations. Enjoy!

8.19.2022

“To make a difference in the world, you just have to know ... "


Seven Minutes That Moved a Generation




You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. The people that make a durable difference in the world are not the people who have mastered many things, but who have been mastered by a few great things.

If you want your life to count, if you want the ripple effect of the pebbles you drop to become waves that reach the ends of the earth and roll on for centuries and into eternity, you don’t have to have a high IQ or a high EQ. You don’t have to have good looks or riches. You don’t have to come from a fine family or a fine school. You just have to know a few great, majestic, unchanging, obvious, simple, glorious things, and be set on fire by them.

But I know that not everybody in this crowd wants their life to make a difference. There are hundreds of you — you don’t care whether you make a lasting difference for something great, you just want people to like you. If people would just like you, you’d be satisfied. Or if you could just have a good job with a good wife and a couple good kids and a nice car and long weekends and a few good friends, a fun retirement, and quick and easy death and no hell — if you could have that, you’d be satisfied even without God.

That is a tragedy in the making.

Three weeks ago, we got word at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards had both been killed in Cameroon. Ruby was over eighty. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing eighty years old, and serving at Ruby’s side in Cameroon.

The brakes give way, over the cliff they go, and they’re gone — killed instantly.

And I asked my people: was that a tragedy? Two lives, driven by one great vision, spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ — two decades after almost all their American counterparts have retired to throw their lives away on trifles in Florida or New Mexico. No. That is not a tragedy. That is a glory.

I tell you what a tragedy is. I’ll read to you from Reader’s Digest what a tragedy is. “Bob and Penny . . . took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their thirty foot trawler, playing softball and collecting shells.”

That’s a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don’t buy it. With all my heart I plead with you: don’t buy that dream. The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: “Here it is Lord — my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!”

Don’t waste your life; don’t waste it.



.....

 is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
 





8.11.2022

Search This Blog

Shop Now for our selection of Christian Strong Patriotic Tee Shirts
God the Father

Join the Gospel Tract Club:


*Over 150+ Free Online Courses

Online Daily Devotional
Lookup a word or passage in the Bible


BibleGateway.com
* Brought to you by Time Served Ministry.

Welcome to Wretched's newest special: Breaking Bread!

Voddie Baucham on Abortion:

Contact Form

Name

Email *

Message *

Use above contact form -or- email us at CrossfitMark45@gmail.com