Introduction

I don’t want to look back someday and realize I wasted my time. I want my life to count for something important.

This world is a very needy place. If my Christian faith means anything at all, I’ve got to figure out what I can do about it.

Honestly, what motivates me is not guilt. I want to help others because I’m so thankful for what God has done for me.

People think that having a “mission from God” is a joke. Not me. It’s what I’ve always wanted.

There are so many ways to make a difference in the world. How do I know what God wants me to do?

What difference am I making with my life? Have you ever asked yourself that? Of course you have! On some level, every human being is struggling to find their own answer to that fundamental question. In fact, I believe the search for significance is the underlying motivation for virtually all human activity. It’s what drives us.

Most people want to make apositive impact with their lives—through education, career, family, service to the community or through accomplishing some notable goal or achievement. Even those who are headed in anegative direction, like criminals or gang members, are still attempting to make an impact with their lives; they want to be recognized and they want to be respected.

While it’s true that we get distracted on our search by any number of contemporary temptations, nonetheless, human beings seem to have a built-in longing to make their lives count for something more. The philosopher Plato reportedly described the human as “a being in search of meaning.” And in more recent times, Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi concentration camps and author of the classic bookMan’sSearch for Meaning, wrote, “Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.”1

But for Christians, there’s an extra dimension. If you are a follower of Jesus, you know that life is more than what you have or what you accomplish or even what people think of you. For Christians, the real question is: How can I make a differencefor God? Jesus gave us the answer in his Sermon on the Mount: “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). That’s our mission statement. Regardless of what happens in this life, all believers are headed to the same finish line, where we’re hoping to hear our Heavenly Father say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21). Isn’t that what you’re really longing for?

A JOURNEY TOGETHER

“Yes, I do want to make a difference for God,” you may be thinking, “buthow can I?” That’s a very important question, and it’s the one I want to help you answer in this book. To do that I want to take a journey with you through the New Testament book of Acts, one of the most exciting reads in the entire Bible.

Let me say right up front, I’m not a theologian or a scholar. So if you’re looking for a heavy doctrinal treatise on the subject, you won’t find it here. I’m simply a follower of Jesus who believes that God’s Word still speaks today, if we are willing to listen. And I believe the book of Acts is the perfect place to start our journey, because it tells the story of how the first Christians, both individuals and small groups, struggled to answer the question, how can we make a difference for God?

THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION

In Acts 22 there is a very significant passage