“Someone will read somewhere that George Foreman put God first”

George Foreman, the two-time heavyweight boxing champion of the world, died Friday night at the age of seventy-six. If this was all you knew about him, you didn’t know what mattered most to him.

Note the priorities of his life as described by his family at his death:

A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father and a proud grand- and great-grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose. A humanitarian, an Olympian and two-time heavyweight champion of the world, he was deeply respected.

However, few would have imagined such a life and legacy when he was growing up in my hometown of Houston.

“I don’t want your money, I want you”

By his own admission, Foreman was a troubled youth. He dropped out of school at the age of fifteen and spent time as a mugger. The next year, he had a change of heart and convinced his mother to sign him up for Job Corps after seeing an ad for the Corps on television. He earned his GED and tried to become a carpenter and bricklayer before finding boxing.

Foreman won a gold medal at the 1968 Mexico City Olympic Games and said later this was the achievement of which he was most proud in his boxing career. He went on to defeat Joe Frazier to become the world heavyweight boxing champion.

I was one of millions who watched his shocking loss to Muhammad Ali on television the next year. Most people thought he would win easily, but the aging Ali’s now-famous “rope-a-dope” strategy depleted Foreman’s formidable power and led to his defeat. Many assumed his boxing career was effectively over.

After a few more fights, Foreman lost a bout in Puerto Rico. Suffering from exhaustion and heatstroke, he stated later that he had a near-death experience.

He spoke of being in a terrifying place of nothingness and despair and pled with God to help him. He said he heard a voice in his dressing room that asked, “Do you believe in God? Why are you ready to die?”

He responded, “Look, I am George Foreman. I can give money to charity and for cancer.” But the voice answered, “I don’t want your money; I want you.” In that moment, Foreman gave his life to Christ and said, “I never was the same man. My life changed.”

Foreman left boxing to become a minister. He went to prisons and hospitals to tell his story, then started a youth center.

Ten years later, in need of money for his ministry, he returned to boxing. Seven years later, he shocked the boxing world by knocking out Michael Moorer, nineteen years his junior, and regaining his world title. Foreman’s twenty years between titles is easily the longest gap in boxing history.

“George Foreman put God first”

Foreman started a church in Houston he led for three decades. He made millions from the George Foreman Grill, but said he was especially proud of the way it helped people lose weight and improve their health: “Success cannot be measured with money when you’re talking about this.”

He starred briefly in a sitcom called “George” in the 1990s and even appeared on the reality singing competition The Masked Singer in 2022. A biographical movie based on his life was released the next year.

He was especially grateful for his wife Mary. “When I speak, they ask me what I consider my most crowning achievement,” he said. “I raise up my left hand and show them my wedding band.”

When a reporter asked him what aspect of his life he hoped would stand out most, he replied:

Most importantly, that someone will read somewhere that George Foreman put God first. I had that experience in Puerto Rico all those years back and it is just as real and fresh as if it happened to me yesterday. People know if you sit down long enough with me, “Oh, he’s going to start talking religion.” And that’s what I really want people to know about me, that I was a church member, and I give my life to Jesus Christ.

“The world is full of people who want to play it safe”

When I “start talking religion,” secular people can easily dismiss my words as coming from a “paid Christian” who is simply doing his job. When you start sharing your faith, however, they have no such recourse. If you use your cultural influence for Christ, others “see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16).

George Foreman touched millions of people who will never know my name. But I have the privilege of knowing people who don’t know his.

So do you.

The Holy Spirit is at work today preparing the heart of someone he intends you to influence tomorrow. The key, in the words of my wise mentor, is to stay obedient to the last word we heard from God and open to the next. We cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

When George Foreman met Jesus in a dressing room in Puerto Rico, he could not know I would be writing about his experience decades later or that you would be reading my words. You cannot know how God will use your obedience tomorrow to touch souls for decades to come (if the Lord tarries).

Here’s the key: If we have a genuine, daily relationship with the living Lord Jesus, we cannot be the same. Nor can the lives we touch.

Our secularized culture sees Jesus as a figure of the past akin to Buddha, Muhammad, and Confucius. But Foreman experienced Jesus as a living, present-tense reality. His life was transformed not by religion but by a personal experience with our transforming Lord. He spent the rest of his life encouraging others to meet the One who changed his life.

Now you and I are invited to follow his example.

In his book Knockout Entrepreneur, George Foreman wrote:

The world is full of people who want to play it safe, people who have tremendous potential but never use it. Somewhere deep inside them, they know that they could do more in life, be more, and have more—if only they were willing to take a few risks.

What risks will you take for Jesus today?

Denison Forum

Why you are alive at this moment in history

If you’re among the millions who are afraid of flying these days, here’s fodder for your fears: the shutdown of London’s Heathrow Airport last Friday not only exposed issues with “creaking infrastructure” at Britain’s airports, but British reporters are now speculating about the dire consequences if Russia was behind it.

The fire that engulfed a nearby substation Thursday evening caused Europe’s busiest airport to shut down the next day, disrupting more than 1,300 flights and 200,000 passengers. A British official said Friday that there is “no indication of Russian involvement” in the fire, but intelligence experts state that the inferno had “all the hallmarks” of Russian sabotage.

The shutdown came as Russia’s disruption and sabotage operations in the West are continuing to escalate. A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies showed that transportation and critical infrastructure are some of the primary targets of Russian attacks, which have often utilized explosives.

Whether Russia or another actor was behind the power outage, the fact remains that such a crisis could be the work of terrorists in the future. In a world as interconnected as ours, a single act of sabotage could affect millions or more.

Add China’s deep-sea cable cutter that “could reset the world order” and renewed fighting in Lebanon and Gaza over the weekend (more on both in tomorrow’s Daily Article), and we could be forgiven for wishing we had been born in a different century. However, when confronting massive challenges, we can find hope in this fact: if God could not use us effectively at this moment in history, we would not be alive at this moment in history.

Vetting before I went to East Malaysia

Despite what secularists say, you are not here by chance. You are alive today by the creative act of your Creator. It is by his providence that you were not alive a hundred years ago or a hundred years from now (if the Lord tarries).

And God makes no mistakes.

I spent the summer before my senior year of college serving as a missionary in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. Before I was selected for this assignment, mission officials put me through rigorous vetting to be sure I had the requisite capacities for the assignment. They did not want to send me where I could not be effective, and they knew much more about the position than I did.

Our omniscient Father is far better at employing his children than humans could ever be. If you did not have the requisite capacities to be assigned this moment in history, you would not be living in this moment of history.

Of course, this fact can feel like a compliment we’d rather not receive. Mother Teresa admitted: “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that he didn’t trust me so much.” You might feel the same way today.

“If you had been here, my brother would not have died”

If so, let’s consider a familiar story with a surprising insight.

In John 11 we read that Lazarus had fallen sick and his sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, he whom you love is ill” (v. 3). Verse 5 emphasizes the depth of their relationship: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.”

Then comes the surprise: “So, when he heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (v. 6, my emphasis). So translates a Greek word meaning “therefore” or “consequently.”

How can it be that Jesus stayed where he was because he loved Lazarus and his sisters?

Martha had the same question when he eventually arrived: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (v. 21). As did her sister Mary, who repeated the assertion verbatim (v. 32), perhaps indicating that they had discussed their confusion.

“The reason why the crowd went to meet him”

Jesus’ delay ensured that he would arrive in Bethany four days after Lazarus’ death (v. 17). Here’s why this matters: Rabbis taught that the soul hovers over the body of the deceased person for the first three days. If Jesus had raised Lazarus earlier than he did, this could have been seen as a resuscitation rather than a resurrection.

By delaying, Jesus showed himself to be not just a miraculous healer of the sick (cf. v. 37) but one with the power over death itself (vv. 43–44).

As a result, “Many of the Jews” who saw what he did “believed in him” (v. 45). Later we read that a “large crowd of the Jews” came to Jerusalem “not only on account of [Jesus] but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead” (John 12:9).

In fact, “on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus” (v. 11). The next day, they met Jesus as he came into Jerusalem on what we now call Palm Sunday, greeting him with “branches of palm trees” and shouting hosannas of praise (v. 13). John adds: “The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign” (vv. 17–18, my emphasis).

Here’s the point: Jesus’ delay in responding to Lazarus’ sickness, which made no sense to Lazarus’ sisters at the time, led to a providential miracle that changed history and demonstrated his divine status for all time.

It is always too soon to give up on God

This story is preserved in the Bible because it is as relevant today as when it first occurred. Our secularized society views Jesus as a figure of the past, but he is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). Anything he has ever done, he can still do.

Our broken culture desperately needs the witness of lives transformed by the living Lord Jesus. So, where do you need his life-giving power today? If you name your need, give it to your Lord, and trust his timing, you’ll experience his providence in ways that will mark your life and empower your influence.

It is always too soon to give up on God. Max Lucado reminded us:

“Peter was in a storm before he walked on water. Lazarus was in a grave before he came out of it. The demoniac was possessed before he was a preacher, and the paralytic was on a stretcher before he was in your Bible.”

What “grave” will you trust to your Lord today?

Quote for the day:

“Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence.” —St. Augustine

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Denison Forum

Have we reached “end-stage capitalism”?

Zeynep Tufekci is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University and a New York Times opinion columnist. Her latest Times article is headlined “We Were Badly Misled About the Event That Changed Our Lives.” In it, she describes in great detail the lengths taken to discount the possibility that the COVID-19 pandemic began in a research lab in Wuhan, China.

For example, a paper in the journal Nature Medicine written by five prominent scientists declared that no “laboratory-based scenario” for the pandemic virus was plausible. However, Tufekci writes, “While the scientists publicly said the scenario was implausible, privately many of its authors considered the scenario to be not just plausible but likely.”

She adds:

To this day, there is no strong scientific evidence ruling out a lab leak or proving that the virus arose from human-animal contact in that seafood market. The few papers cited for market origin were written by a small, overlapping group of authors, including those who didn’t tell the public how serious their doubts had been.

If you’re thinking that this issue is relegated to the past, think again. Tufekci refers us to a recent paper in Cell, a prestigious scientific journal, reporting that researchers have taken samples of viruses found in bats and experimented to see if they could infect human cells and pose a pandemic risk.

Many of these researchers work or have worked at the same Wuhan Institute of Virology where many now believe the COVID-19 pandemic originated. The scientists did this latest work under conditions that are “insufficient for work with potentially dangerous respiratory viruses.” According to Tufekci, “If just one lab worker unwittingly inhaled the virus and got infected, there’s no telling what the impact could be on Wuhan, a city of millions, or the world.”

From farmers to consumers

This story combines two issues, both foundational to the flourishing of our nation.

The first concerns trust in our media, which the Founders considered vital to a functioning democracy. In 1972, 68 percent of Americans told Gallup they had a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in the mass media. Today, only 31 percent express such confidence while the percentage who have “none at all” has grown six-fold.

The second concerns trust in our government, which is clearly foundational to a participatory democracy. In 1958, three-quarters of Americans said they trusted the federal government to do the right thing almost always or most of the time. Last year, 16 percent said the same.

In both cases, a significant factor relates to the capitalistic system by which our economy functions.

There was a day when much of what Americans consumed and owned came from their own hands. At the time of the American Revolution, 95 percent of us were farmers; today that figure is less than 2 percent. Today, we purchase nearly everything we own and use, which makes us consumers in nearly every dimension of our lives.

And consumers are conditioned by advertisers to want more than we have and to tie happiness to consumption. As advertisers utilize ever more sophisticated algorithms to target customers, this materialistic message has become ever more effective.

As a result, Gallup reports that the percentage of Americans who say money is “extremely/very important” to them has risen from 67 percent in 2002 to 79 percent today. At the same time, the percentage who say religion is “very” important to them has fallen from 70 percent in 1965 to 45 percent today. And the percentage who say they are “extremely/very proud” to be an American has fallen from 87 percent in 2002 to 67 percent today.

What is “end-stage capitalism”?

An Atlantic article describes “end-stage capitalism” as the cultural devolution to the place where “nothing has any value or meaning other than its sale price.” A secularized “post-truth” society has no measure of meaning beyond what we happen to want today and are willing to pay for it.

This citizen-as-consumer trend ties directly to today’s conversation in that both media and politics now function through this lens.

As I have written, a media that exists to “sell” consumers what they want to consume is transactional rather than informational. Its purpose is less to report the news as objectively as possible than to appeal to the specific demographic it targets and its advertisers seek to reach.

Similarly, in a deeply partisan democracy, leaders are elected and empowered by appealing not to the broad electorate but to their specific demographic base. When each side sees the other side as the enemy, the purpose of government is less to serve the common good than to advance what “our side” wants.

And, once again, we become consumers more than citizens.

One of Satan’s most subtle strategies

This issue applies not just to media and government, but to evangelical Christians as well.

We believe that all people need to trust in Christ as their Savior to receive eternal life and spend eternity in heaven. However, such a decision can be transactional at its heart: Have faith in Jesus not so much because of who he is but because of what he will do for you. Read Scripture not simply because it is “God preaching,” as JI Packer described it, but so God will bless you. Pray, worship, give of our time and money, serve in the church—each can be our attempt to earn God’s favor and provision.

This is one of Satan’s most subtle ways of leading us away from an intimate daily communion with the living Lord Jesus. In Screwtape Letters, CS Lewis gives voice to the tempter’s strategy:

We do want, and want very much, to make men treat Christianity as a means; preferably, of course, as a means to their own advancement, but failing that, as a means to anything. . . . “Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.” That’s the game.

The antidote is to focus on the foundational fact that “God is love” (1 John 4:8). By definition, his love for us has nothing to do with what we can and cannot do for him. His Son has already died for every sin we have ever committed and will ever commit (John 10:11). No religious transactions can make him love us any more or less than he does at this moment.

“The things of earth will grow strangely dim”

As a result, you and I are free to love God because he loves us, not so he will. We are free to love our neighbor whether they love us or not because we are already loved unconditionally and passionately by our Father.

This changes other people from commodities into sisters and brothers for whom Jesus died. It changes the material world from commodities into creation to be used to glorify and serve our Creator.

When we make this shift, as the old hymn says, “the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.”

This is the invitation, and the promise, of God.

Quote for the day:

“Believe God’s love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but the sea.” —Samuel Rutherford (1600–1661)

Our latest website resources:

• Redemptive love and healing after abortion
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Denison Forum