You Can Make A Difference Series

You Can Make A Difference

Jason Hill – June 30, 2002

Have you ever looked around at the world, your town, your work, your neighborhood or any other place you may frequent and wish that you could make some changes?

Isaac Asimov once said, “It is change, continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today.” And Charles Kettering said, “The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress”.

How would you change the world? You look at the world in which we live and know that if you had your way things would be different; people wouldn’t get away with killing others, countries wouldn’t be able to harbor terrorists, criminals would be punished correctly and swiftly, everyone would have enough food to eat and issues such as the pledge of allegiance being unconstitutional would not be an issue at all.

You think to yourself that if you were in charge of the company for whom you work that policy would change and the worker would be taken care of and not abused for the sake of the customer. You look around your town and think that if you could control it all that things would be different. But so often, many of these ideas of change are just that, ideas.

There have been many people just like you and me; everyday average Joe and Jane’s who took their ideas and thoughts of change beyond the confines of their hearts and minds and made them a reality, and those ideas and thoughts of change made an impact on our society and our world that changed things forever.

He was a young boy from Milan, Ohio. Like many children he was hyperactive and suffered from what we now call, Attention Deficiency Disorder. He was hard of hearing and his teachers deemed him mildly retarded. Yet this boy grew into a young man with an insatiable appetite for knowledge and the skill of intense concentration. And in 1879, Thomas Alva Edison, this boy who was deemed mildly retarded by his teachers in school, invented the first incandescent light bulb, an invention that changed society and the world forever.

Skinny, shy and awkward, he seemed an unlikely successor to his overachieving parents. His father was a prominent attorney, and his gregarious mother served on charitable boards and ran the United Way. While he showed enormous talent for math and logic, he was no one’s idea of a natural leader. He dropped out of college in his junior year and set out to pursue his heart’s desire. In 1974, young Bill Gates got his big break and Microsoft was born. I don’t think I need to mention the impact that this man’s invention has made on society; he has revolutionized business into what it is today.

These are just 2 examples but there are many more. People who are just like you and me who made a great impact on the world. They weren’t child prodigies or anything like that, they were just average, everyday people who had an idea and made it a reality and that reality just happened to change the world.

While the ideas and inventions of Thomas Edison and Bill Gates certainly are two of the greatest contributions to our world; two inventions that probably have made the greatest impact on our modern society and in our world through the past century, I want to tell you that there came 2 men long before Mr. Edison and Mr. Gates who made an even more significant contribution to our world, the greatest contribution in the history of mankind.

He was born out of wedlock by a teenage mother. On the surface there was nothing special about this child. He worked with his father as a boy and at the age of 30 began to talk to people about God and His love for them. At the age of 33 He made the most significant impact on the world that anyone has ever made and it will never be matched. On that dark Friday afternoon in Jerusalem, Jesus Christ gave His life as a sacrifice to pay for the sins of the world so that anyone who would accept this gift would have their sins forgiven and they would have a place in heaven.

Many people think of Jesus Christ as a myth, and some maybe even believe He existed yet they don’t believe the rest of the story. However, in the January 2000 issue of TIME Magazine, Jesus Christ was named the most influential person in all of history.

Then, a few years later there came a man who was very learned and scholarly. He was one of the most highly educated men of his time and hated anyone who believed the message of Jesus Christ. He was the last person you would think of when you think of total commitment to Christ. Yet, this man named Paul, who made a living killing those who belonged to the “Way” and were committed to the teachings of Christ, out side of Christ Himself, made the greatest impact on the world for the sake of the gospel and teachings of Jesus Christ.