Although we don't always like to think about it, there will come a time when every one of us will be leaving this world. With that in mind, I would ask a question: "What do you want to be remembered for?"
Last week, a great Christian leader and hero died. Chuck Colson was famous in the Nixon White House as a difficult and savvy politician. You did not want to get in his way. And when Watergate took place, Colson fell along with many others in that White House. During the time he was in prison, Colson committed his life to Christ. He emerged from the prison experience a truly changed man.
For the past 35 plus years, Colson served as a tremendous Christian leader in our society. He established a ministry called Prison Fellowship in which he worked hard to help prisoners have an opportunity to turn to God and begin a new life themselves once they came out of prison. His ministry there has helped an enormous number of folks leave the criminal lifestyle and become new men themselves.
Colson has also served as a Christian speaker and apologist, addressing our current culture with the truths of the Christian faith. For many of us, he has served as an educator, helping to understand how we can defend and live our faith in a world that is often unfriendly to it.
To others, he has served as a challenger. As they would stand opposed to the teachings of Christ, he would challenge them with the truth put in a powerfully positive way that would at least make them think, if not make them change their view of faith completely.
Although never fully escaping the memory of his White House days, Colson will be remembered for the tremendous impact he made on the faiths of so many as we have looked to God. His voice and leadership in the Christian community will be missed, and it will be a void that will be hard to fill.
As a minister, I do more funerals than I really desire. In my years, I have heard many say what they remember folks for. Some are remembered as party-goers who are the life of every party. Some are remembered as family men or women, giving of themselves to make the lives of their family members better.
Thankfully, there are many who are remembered as men or women of faith who have lived out their faith and demonstrated to all of us what it means to follow Christ in the world in which we live.
What will you be remembered for? You will be remembered for what you are doing in your life today. It will be too late to change things at your funeral.
Let me encourage you to live out your life of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in the world in which you live right now. You might not make the kind of difference in the world that Chuck Colson did, but you can make that difference in someone's world.
Let me encourage you to worship God in the church of your choice this Sunday.
Mike Gresham is the pastor of First Baptist Church of Port Lavaca.
