Can You See Your Future?

October 10, 2011 Monday Message:

Last week, 56-year-old Steve Jobs succumbed to persistent pancreatic cancer. His visions touched your life and my life, and made things easier, faster and more fun. I will miss most learning what this creative visionary genius thought should be our next thing.

He possessed an uncanny knack for looking into the future. He saw a need for personal computers, and started building Apple 1’s in his parents’ house. Nowadays everyone has a personal computer. Some of us have several. Computers used to run on cryptic coded instructions, but now we point and click with a mouse on a graphical user interface; Mac was first.

Steve Jobs put an entire music library in your shirt-pocket with the iPod (275 million.) The biggest check record companies receive comes from the iTunes store. The iPhone (100 million) raised the bar for what a handheld personal electronic device should do. The recent introduction of the iPad (25 million) launched a new category of “notepad” computers. Talk about successful — this past summer Apple had more cash reserves than the U.S. treasury, and Job’s personal net worth hovered around $8 billion.

Tragically, Apple’s website tells us that Jobs was a Buddhist. I can only hope that he, having been raised in a Christian nation, at some earlier time might have worked things out with Jesus.

This is why it’s so important to carry the message of salvation to our loved ones. Their days and our days are numbered, but we never know how many. Heaven is a gift from Jesus, and cannot be bought for $8 billion. No amount of success, prominence or notoriety can open the door. But Jesus is preparing a place for all who call him Lord. "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

In Christ,

Norton Lawellin