In 16 years of being a follower of Christ and now almost 10 years in full-time ministry, I have been very blessed by God to be able to do some pretty cool stuff for Him.  I have personally led hundreds of people into a relationship with Him and during my time with Purpose Driven Ministries, I trained over 10000 pastors how to more effectively reach their local communities.  I share all this for a reason…

None of what I’ve been able to accomplish for Jesus would have happened if not for Marvin Bower.  Marvin showed up on my front doorstep on July 27, 1993 along with Keith Skidmore and the two of them proceeded to share the good news of Jesus with me.  Despite having grown up in a church, none of it had ever made sense to me until that moment.  For the first time in my life I realized I needed to have my sins forgiven and that God didn’t just want an hour from me on Sunday’s but wanted me to surrender my entire life to Him.

Marvin passed away yesterday.  I was just one of many that he led into a relationship with Christ.  Marvin was not a pastor, he was just a lay person who understood that while other companies might pay him a wage so he could pay his bills, his real job…his full-time job…was to help bring people who are far from God into a relationship with Jesus.  In all the years that I knew him, until his health declined, he’d spend at least one night per week going out into the community visiting people telling them the good news that Jesus died so our sins can be forgiven.

Little did he realize that hot summer night that not only was he helping to change my eternal destiny, but also the destinies of the hundreds of thousands of people that my ministry has now influenced.  What a great lesson for us all!  That what we do today is having a ripple effect that will go far beyond our lifetimes.

Marvin has run his race…his impact has literally been world-wide…he’s now heard from Jesus, “Well done my good and faithful servant”.  But what about you?  First, do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?  And then if you do, what are you doing today that will make an eternal difference.

So fix your eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen.  For what is seen is only temporary, what is unseen is eternal.
-Colossians 4:18