Don’t you love to learn both the background and ending of a good, true-life story? God designed us with curiosity to wonder what really happened to people and places we’ve heard about or known. Some readers might recall how years ago, columnist and commentator Paul Harvey made a career of telling “the rest of the story.” That’s exactly what we’ll discover in Heaven again and again—the rest of the story. We’ll be stunned to learn how God orchestrated the events of our lives to influence people we may have forgotten, or never even knew.

Occasionally, we’re given a small taste of what we’ll learn in eternity. Our ministry experiences this when we receive emails, messages, and letters from those who’ve been helped by our resources, like this reader from Scotland:

I lost my lovely wife to cancer and was destroyed with grief. I had lost my mum two weeks before and my brother two weeks after. I searched online and found your books and along with my Bible, I devoured them. Your books Heaven and 90 Days of God’s Goodness gave me such different perspective on our glorious hope ahead. I walked hundreds of miles with you speaking into my soul on my iPhone.

EPM also sends thousands of my books to prisons across the U.S. each year. One former inmate wrote:

Your ministry has got me through a lot of hard times when I was incarcerated, by novels and prayers. I am trying to find study groups around my area and a good church too. I am so excited for God’s love and am very eager to learn more and maybe even go to school for the Word.

And a young woman from Belize who found our videos online wrote this:

I was listening on YouTube and have struggled for many years to know how to really believe that Jesus is enough for me to be saved. I always felt like I had to work, work, work for it and your message helped me realize that I only have to believe. I was searching for truth and saw some messages by Randy Alcorn and decided to listen and it was great.

These letters remind me of the countless great stories that await us in Heaven—many of which we may not hear until we’ve been there a long time.

How many thousands, perhaps millions, of people around the world have been impacted by EPM’s books, blogs, videos, and social media posts? Countless others have been helped by the almost $8 million in book royalties given to other worthy ministries who feed the poor, advocate for the unborn, translate Scripture, and spread the Good News of Jesus. In the vast majority of those cases, we’re not in the position to know what God has done in people’s lives and how their stories end. But one day, we’ll find out.

As 2017 draws to a close, would you prayerfully consider supporting EPM and being a part of this eternity-shaping ministry? As is true for many nonprofits, the donations we receive in December are vital to support our work in the coming year. (I encourage you to give generously this season. It certainly doesn’t have to be to EPM. We’re here to serve everyone without cost. As Jesus put it in Matthew 10:8, “Freely you have received, freely give.”)

Please know that those of you who’ve partnered with our ministry through both giving and prayer play a vital role in our outreach, and it will be credited to your eternal account (Philippians 4:17). We’re deeply grateful for you. Few things excite me more than knowing that together, we’ll find out the “rest of the story”—all to God’s glory and praise.

“He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6–7).

By way of reminder, a tax-deductible online gift in 2017 must be received by 11:59 p.m. PT on December 31. 

Photo by Liana Mikah on Unsplash