Gene A. Getz - Samuel

O ther books in the Men of Character series:

David: Seeking God Faithfully
Joshua: Living as a Consistent Role Model
Nehemiah: Becoming a Disciplined Leader
Elijah: Remaining Steadfast Through Uncertainty
Jacob: Following God Without Looking Back
Moses: Freeing Yourself to Know God
Joseph: Overcoming Obstacles Through Faithfulness
Abraham: Holding Fast to the Will of God

I consider it a great privilege to dedicate this book on Samuel's life to a man, who for a number of years has distinguished himself as a great servant of the Lord. I'm speaking of Bill Bright, the founder and director of Campus Crusade for Christ International. Bill's influence and contribution to advancing the kingdom of God was dramatically rewarded when he received the Templeton Prize for progress in religion on May 8, 1996a prize valued at $1 million, which Bill immediately dedicated to the advancement of prayer.

Bill launched Campus Crusade of Christ International in 1951, and currently the influence of this ministry literally reaches around the world through more than forty separate ministries. Millions have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ personally through a simple approach to presenting the gospelan approach developed by Bill more than forty years ago. I'm speaking of his Four Spiritual Laws booklet which states:

Law 1: God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life (John 3:16; 10:10).

Law 2: Man is sinful and separate from God. Thus he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life (Rom. 3:23; 6:23).

Law 3: Jesus Christ is God's only provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life (Rom. 5:8; 1 Cor. 15:36).

Law 4: We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives (John 1:12; Eph. 2:89; John 3:18; Rev. 3:20).

Thanks, Bill, for your vision, and for your commitment, which has translated your vision into reality. In my eyesand in the eyes of millions of other men and womenyou're a man of character. You've demonstrated with your life that it's possible to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith (Heb. 12:2). God bless you, my friend. It is indeed a privilege to dedicate this book to you.

Gene Getz

I am grateful that my dear friend, Gene Getz, has dedicated this volume to me, and I am privileged that he has asked me to write the foreword.

His dedicatory words are humbling. I thank our wonderful Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for anything I have been able to accomplish. I give Him all the glory for the worldwide ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.

Gene's words and this book are also challenging. They make me want all the more to be faithful to the Lord's calling, without deviation, and to be a man of faith and character, as are the biblical examples of whom Gene writes.

I cannot say that I have served the Lord since childhood, like Samuel, because I did not come to Christ until after college. Since that time, some fifty years ago, however, I have pledged to serve my Lord joyfully as long as He gives me breath.

After attending college in my home state of Oklahoma, I moved to California and started what became a successful business. I was driven by personal ambition, and I was the center of my own universe. But through the influence of the Hollywood Presbyterian Church and my mother's prayers, I discovered the great Creator God of the universe and what He had done for me through His only begotten Son. My life wonderfully changed, and I purposed in my heart to serve Him forever.

Both my beloved wife, Vonette, and I had been very materialistic in our youth. When we received Christ as our Lord and Savior, however, we began to discover many things that were far more important than making money, living in lovely homes, and enjoying the good life, which I had promised her when I proposed to her.

But within a couple of years, our desires and interests had changed. Vonette was a vital part of everything I was doing, and together we came to the conclusion that knowing and serving Jesus was more important than anything in the world. So on a Sunday afternoon in the spring of 1951, in our home in the Hollywood Hills, Vonette and I got on our knees and prayed, Lord, we surrender our lives to Your will. We will go where You want us to go and do what You want us to do. We want to be Yours completely, irrevocably.

God has blessed us and the ministry He gave us forty-five years ago, Campus Crusade for Christ, above measure. By God's grace, and with help from our wonderful board of directors and supporters throughout the world, Vonette and I and our staff have since had the privilege of working together with millions of Christians in thousands of churches of all denominations and hundreds of missions groups, whom we have helped to train. In helping to fulfill the Great Commission, Campus Crusade for Christ now has more than forty separate ministries dedicated to that one objective; nearly thirteen thousand full-time staff members and approximately 101,000 trained associates and volunteer staff members in one hundred sixty-five countries. We have had the privilege of helping take the gospel to well over two billion people, and tens of millions have indicated salvation decisions. Again, I'm thankful Gene Getz has dedictated this volume to me, and I want to give our Lord all the glory. In turn, I am thankful for Gene and his writing skills, as well as his commitment to pastoring and leading a large body of believers at Fellowship Bible Church North, which is just one of many Fellowship churches he has pastored and helped start. The Men of Character series is a great contribution to edifying the body of Christ, particularly at this time when the Holy Spirit is moving so dramatically among men around the world. This book on Samuel contributes greatly to this whole series.

Dr. Bill Bright
Founder and President
Campus Crusade for Christ International

A Lifetime Serving God

S eldom do we meet men who have served God for a lifetimeeven those who have become our biblical heroes. Samuel beats the odds! He continued to grow in favor with the LORD and with men(1 Sam. 2:26) from the time he was a small child until he went home to be with God at a ripe old age. He bypassed adolescent rebellion and never went through a midlife crisis! He served God and Israel all of his life.

This does not mean that Samuel never faced a crisis in his ministry. As a young adolescent, he may have erred in sending the army of Israel to do battle with the Philistines. Most of the crises he faced, however, were not of his own doing.

Samuel probably experienced his greatest emotional pain when God's rebellious people replaced this faithful servant with a king. Though God assured this old prophet and dynamic leader that Israel had rejected Him instead of Samuel, he still felt the sting that accompanies this kind of rejection.

In spite of this difficult period in his life, Samuel remained faithful to Israel. Though he was set aside as their primary leader, he never ceased praying for his people and never stopped teaching them God's will when the opportunity came his way.