Daily Encounter: A Week-day Devotional by a staff of ACTS International.

Friday, February 15, 2019

"Come, follow me," Jesus said [to fishermen Peter and Andrew] and I will make you fishers of men."¹

Some of us have the idea that our life can't make much of a difference. Sometimes we think, "What can one person do?" This reminds me of the man who, when walking along the beach, kept picking up starfish that had been washed ashore. There must have been hundreds of them. One by one he picked them up and threw each back into the ocean.

A stranger watching said to the man, "Why are you doing that? There are so many starfish on the beach. What you are doing makes no difference."

"Makes a difference to that one," the man replied as he threw another starfish back into the ocean.

Robert Kennedy once said, "Many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single person. A young monk began the Protestant Reformation ... It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and it was the 32-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are created equal."

When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in a bus to a white man on December 1, 1955, she triggered the civil rights movement in the U.S.A. In so doing she played a key role that changed a nation.

And it was a motley band of twelve very ordinary men—unsophisticated and uneducated—whom Jesus chose for his disciples to introduce the Christian message to pretty much a hostile world.

You and I may not achieve such greatness but we can make a difference. We do so every time we stand up for what is right, lend a helping hand to a friend or stranger in need, and help communicate the love of God and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Added up, our small ripples blend together to reach ever-widening circles. In so doing, one life does make a difference and can make an impact for Christ in our corner of the world.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, I'm available. Please help and use me to make a difference in somebody's life today. Help me to be as Jesus in some way to every life I touch. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."


1. Matthew 4:19 (NIV).

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