As you all may already know, a GENERAL in the Kingdom of God here on earth has transitioned into his eternal reward. Evangelist Billy Graham passed away this past February 21st at the age of 99, after preaching for decades and reaching over 200 million people. Although I may had never known this General personally, by seeing him on my screen and reading about him, I was able to gather a few things that I want to share with you.
3 Lessons we can all learn from the LEGACY of Evangelist Billy Graham:
1. JUST PREACH JESUS: Evangelist Billy just preached Jesus and him crucified. He proclaimed GOD’S WORD and not his own feelings or opinions. He had no hidden motive or agenda, but simply preached The Gospel of Jesus Christ unashamed. Sometimes, we can get so caught up with the happenings of the world that we use our platforms to share how we feel about certain things or what we think about certain things and this is definitely not how we should use the platform God has afforded us the opportunity to have. Everything that we say must connect with the standards, principles and teachings of The Word of God. We must boldly preach the unadulterated and uncompromised Word of God. We must move ourselves, opinions, what we feel or how we think, out-of-the-way and JUST PREACH JESUS!
2. INTEGRITY: Evangelist Billy, lived a holy and righteous life before the Lord. He lived what he preached. His messages lived through the way he interacted with the highest of them to the lowest of them, his attitude and the way he handled life’s challenges. I cannot recall a time where Evangelist Billy was caught up in any scandal or problem that would have negatively impact the ministry God had entrusted into his care. Rather, Evangelist Billy, simply fulfilled the mandate of God. Not allowing himself to mix up in the things of this world that would distract and lead him astray. His world was the countless of hours he spent in the presence of God.
3. HUMILITY: With the millions of people Evangelist Billy had the opportunity to minister to, he never allowed it to fill his head, to the point where he saw himself higher and better than people. He always kept a humble spirit and saw himself like everyone else, a Child of God, nothing more, nothing less. (God use us to minister to five people and we want to become Chief Apostle, but I’ll leave that right there…) Evangelist Billy remained low as God exalted him throughout the years. He never showed off the favor of God on his life but humbly accepted and enjoyed them without the world having to see. It was never about Billy, it was always about Jesus. Evangelist Billy always pointed upwards to Jesus to show people who is truly deserving of all the glory. One of the things that struck me about Evangelist Billy, was his casket. Despite his affluency, he purchased a casket made by the ones who are considered the worst of the worst in our society, prisoners. However, Evangelist Billy did not look at them that way, he saw them the way God sees them, as his own.
Evangelist Billy’s race might be finished, but those of us who remain, our race continues. Let us therefore, continue to work while it is day and run the race that is set before us. So we too, like Evangelist Billy, can one day, enter our eternal rest, in Heaven, with our Lord.
What a LIFE, what a LEGACY! The world was so blessed to have a General like Evangelist Billy Graham!
Raphael R. Roker 