What I am writing today was inspired by a story one of my good friends told me. He spent twenty-one years in maximum security prisons and part of that time was spent on Florida’s death row, which at the time held about five-hundred men and was the largest death row in America. Jack says that when he was on death row the only television was a little twelve-inch black-and-white outside the cell. You could barely see it.
He has been out of prison for over thirty years now and is happily married. He says his wife has a death-row TV in the kitchen. In his rec room, he has a sixty-inch latest-state-of-the-art television. Now, you can watch the news on the little tiny death-row TV, or you can go into Jack’s room and watch the news on the big screen. Hey . . . it’s the same news, but it’s a different experience watching it on the big screen. You can watch the game on the little black and white in the kitchen or go in the other room and watch it on the big screen. It’s the same game, but a different experience—surround sound, latest-state-of-the-art graphics, sixty-inch flat screen, high definition. Wow! When the Nextel Cup race comes on, you can watch it in the kitchen on the death-row or you can watch it on the big screen. It is the same race, but a whole different experience on the big screen.
You can go through life without Jesus and do well, even be extraordinarily successful as the world measures success. You can have a high paying job and your spouse an even higher paying one, you both can have a 401-K plan, lots of money in the bank. You can have CD’s, and IRA’s and be putting away tons of retirement funds. You can own a fancy car, or several of them, take two or three vacations a year, have a place at the lake for weekend getaways, a condo in Colorado for your ski trips and be doing fantastic. There are many people doing just that and it’s working.
But one thing is certain. Without Jesus Christ, at the very best, your life will be a black-and-white experience. No matter what you have achieved, it will be a black-and-white experience without Christ. Wouldn’t you like that big screen, high definition, surround sound experience with Him? Ask Jesus to take control of your life today. Seek a relationship with Him first and all these things will be added unto you (Matthew 6:33).
In HIS grip,
Bill Corum
II Corinthians 5:17
