As I designed my post-CHA business card, I had to decide what I wanted on my card in addition to my contact information.
I decided to include three things:
Prayer – I want to continue to promote the importance of prayer. So I included a picture of an old man praying at a table with his glasses on a Bible.
Carpe aeternitatum – It is the most cogent forceful expression I could think of to point people to eternity. General Booth, who founded the Salvation Army, said, “Five minutes in Hell will get a person thinking about eternity and Kingdom ministry.” Irwin Lutzer wrote a book entitled, One Minute After You Die. My father, who was a dairy farmer, passed his “cow” business card out to people in over 50 countries. It included the phrase, “Prepare to meet thy God.” I decided to include a similarly direct message: carpe aeternitatem – seize eternity.
John 3:16 – John 3:16 is the gospel in a nutshell. Lord willing, I will use John 3:16 to lead many to Christ. I love the phrase in our CHA Mission Statement, “Lifetime followers of Jesus Christ.” It is another way of saying that at CHA we get our students to focus on Eternity.
This past week I invited a little third grade girl to my office. At the April 13th Easter Chapel I had prayed with her, and as she and her classmate, who had come with her for moral support, sat across my desk from me, I asked her again, Why did you ask me to pray with you? She again said, I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart. I said, Now, in addition to a biological birthday, you have a spiritual birthday, April 13, 2017. Never forget it.
On separate days I invited a fifth grade boy and a sixth grade boy to my office after having prayed with each one of them at the same Easter Chapel. With great innocence and sincerity, each of the boys told me as they did at the Easter Chapel: I don’t want to have a hard heart of stone. Pray with me, Dr. Roth.
I again prayed with them and gave each a little book that I have given to many students, My Heart, Christ’s Home. I asked them to read it and give me a book report. Here at CHA, we are teaching students to seize eternity.