August 16, 2019 – Click here to listen
Tomorrow I leave for Waco Texas to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Bill Glass prison ministry. I spent several years traveling around the country speaking at prisons with this ministry and saw many men and women come to know Christ and also served on his board of directors for a while. Over 1.25 million inmates have made decisions to follow Christ and a half million have been trained to lead others to Christ in its 50 year existence. What a legacy. On the surface it sounds admirable to hear the numbers that Bill and his crew have achieved, but if you knew the hardened, bitter, twisted, tortured, lost souls who had lost all hope that found it in Christ through this ministry, you would be duly impressed. Bill has become one of my heroes forever and though he is older now and in poor health he is still active in writing books and working out of his home to serve Christ however he can.
He has followed Words for the Day for years and occasionally writes and encourages me. I treasure those moments. Bill was a football legend – he was all-American at Baylor and all pro in the NFL playing for the Cleveland Browns alongside of Jim Brown when they won the national championship. Billy Graham used Bill’s powerful testimony at his massive crusades and encouraged him to found his own ministry which went from city-wide crusades to exclusively prisons.
Interestingly, as great as he was as a player and as gifted he is as a speaker, had he chosen to enrich himself there is no doubt he could have made it big. Instead he took a small salary throughout his career and received his riches from watching inmates coming forward by the thousands to begin their new lives as new creatures. The homecoming he is sure to enjoy in heaven will be something to behold. I am going to this anniversary gala to shake hands yet again with this great man. I look forward to spending a little time with him at the gala and much time with him in heaven.
One thing I’ve noticed about life is how fast it moves. One day you are in your prime and the next you are old and getting broken down. This morning I was reading Philippians chapter 3 and it reminded me of an inmate that I was witnessing to in a Texas prison one day who loudly exclaimed he couldn’t bring himself to accept Christ because: “I’d have to give up the women, the drugs, and the nightlife.” Incredulously I told him to look around at the razor wire and inmates marching back and forth in the hot sun, the stern faced guards and the hard looks of sociopaths all over the yard. “You’re in prison man! You tell me you don’t want to give up the ‘good’ life. Geez – What are you thinking!”
The inmate considered the wrong things as his assets and didn’t even realize they were a liability. Paul observes that he used to consider his heritage as a Jew and his legalistic observance of the law as his greatest assets. 30 years later as he wrote to the Philippians that he realized the things he’d cherished the most in his old life were actually his greatest liabilities. Christ became his greatest asset later in life and he went on to write, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching for those things ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of Christ.”
It’s funny how the older I get the things of this life that seemed so important at the time have diminished in value and each day my life becomes more and more absorbed in following and serving Christ and less and less about serving the things of this world and me. I hope it is at least a faint hint of a sign of wisdom penetrating my thick skull . . .
Proverbs 3:13
Blessed is the one who finds wisdom, and the one who gets understanding, for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold. She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Long life is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace . . .
Have a great weekend and go to church this Sunday!