Ted Turner Lost. Jesus Won
Ted Turner's recent death reminded me of some things he said about 25 years ago. I truly hope he changed his mind since then. Death has a way of filtering someone's life, doesn't it? And we can use the lessons of the dying to learn how best to live.
Jesus wins.
Always.
You can deny His glory. You can totter with your trinkets. You can play with His children instead of loving them.
But in the end, Jesus wins.
Death has the final say, and Jesus is the only victor over death.
I’m not writing this column with any glee at all. I really, truly, hope Ted Turner changed his mind about Jesus before he died. I wrote about Ted a couple of decades ago when he was arguably one of the most accomplished men of his generation. He re-shaped televised news by founding CNN and its 24-hour headline news sister channel. As a sportsman, Turner won yachting’s America’s Cup, and as a team owner, his Atlanta Braves won the 1995 World Series. As a philanthropist, he gave one billion dollars to the United Nations. At the time, he was the largest individual private landowner in the entire United States; when he died recently, he had slipped to number four.
Few people could match his resume in one area; taken together, his accomplishments and achievements were truly phenomenal.
But now that he’s dead, what would he say about his life now? That’s the question that matters for the rest of eternity. I do this not just with famous figures; ever since my dad died, I ponder, “What would my dad tell me now? Seeing things as he sees them, what would he tell me to do?”
