Making a Difference: Where it All Begins

Looking back in my early childhood, I remember wanting to make a difference. I didn't know how I was going to make a difference - I just knew I wanted to. I always changed my mind from one thing to another. Maybe I could make a difference through astronomy, or as a veterinarian, or a missionary to Australia, or a construction worker. On and on I went, changing my mind on what I wanted to do for the rest of my life over and over again. I wanted to know the first step. I thought, at first that the first step was picking your major or getting a job or growing up. I really wasn't quite sure. Turns out I was wrong (as I usually am). Today I realize the first step, and the first step was not choosing a major or growing up - it was wanting to choose a major and grow up.

See, the world will only change if the one that changes the world wants to change the world. That is the very first step. In my early childhood, I wanted to know the first step but I never realized that my wanting was the first step. Now, as a teenager, I realize that I'm still on Step 1: wanting to change the world. I don't know for sure what my major will be in, but I sure do know what I want to be in the future - a man worthy of the Gospel. That's where the heart comes in. Your heart contains all the dreams and the desires of your life and when you let Christ into your heart, He becomes the dreams and the desires of your life and Christ commands us to make disciples and be the change that this dying world desperately needs. In other words, if Christ is the dreams and desires of your heart, then imitating Him by changing the world and making a difference almost certainly is as well.

What about making a difference every day? Well, to put this in the perspective of the heart, it is impossible to make a difference for the Kingdom of God unless it starts there, in your heart. Just wanting to make a difference makes all the difference in the world. I want to make a difference. Therefore, I am convinced that I will. I don't know what that difference I make will be. All I know is that it's there, waiting to be made, and God has called me to make it. And I can't make that difference unless I want to make it every single day and every single moment.

We do not start changing the world with choosing our major, whether it be ping pong or rocket science. We do not start making a difference when we graduate high school or turn 21. We start a making difference today. And the best place to start is your heart. So if you desire to really make a difference every day, make sure you really really really really really want to. Make change the obsession of your heart. I've never been a big fan of sitting around, living for the moment, celebrating the most pivotal events in history only on Christmas and Easter, and bickering about how twisted the world is without giving the time to actually do something about it. If I have said anything, I've said this: you can't change the world until you've changed your heart.

I'll let you go on this final note, if you go to any ministry or revival or church plant or anything that you know is changing the world today, and you go down into their history, I can 100% guarantee that the ministry started in the hearts of few and just spread like... something that spreads real quickly (the only thing I can think of are diseases and weeds). The hungry have been fed, the naked has been clothed, the needy have been given to, the broken have been mended, the imprisoned has been visited, the lost have been found, and the blind have seen, all because somebody's heart wanted it to happen. Every day, that passion for change needs to be implanted in your heart. It needs to be the definition of your dreams and desires. That is how you can start making a difference every day.

For now, I want to set a goal and cast a vision. I have no clue who you want to be, but I sure know what Christ wants you to be. This passage that I'm about to share with you is really close to my heart right now and it really gives me something to live for. Please, if this isn't your vision, make it your vision today and change the world!

But as God’s ministers, we commend ourselves in everything:

by great endurance, by afflictions, by hardship, by difficulties,
by beatings, by imprisonments, by riots, by labors,
by sleepless nights, by times of hunger, by purity, by knowledge,
by patience, by kindness, by the Holy Spirit, by sincere love,
by the message of truth, by the power of God;
through weapons of righteousnesson the right hand and the left,
through glory and dishonor, through slander and good report;
as deceivers yet true; as unknown yet recognized;
as dying and look—we live; as being disciplined yet not killed;
as grieving yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many;
as having nothing yet possessing everything.

2 Corinthians 6:4-10

In Christ,
Paul