The Last Lecture

We don’t know if our remaining days on earth are measured in years, months, weeks, or minutes. Our times are in His hands, and our goal is to do all the good we can on our way out of the tent.

Our times are in His hands, and our goal is to do all the good we can on our way out of the tent

Our times are in His hands, and our goal is to do all the good we can on our way out of the tent


The Last Lecture | Devotional

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
2 Corinthians 5:1

When Professor Randy Pausch learned he was dying of pancreatic cancer, he gave a talk to his students at Carnegie Mellon University. His presentation circulated widely on the Internet, and then it appeared in book form titled The Last Lecture.

In an interview with Reader’s Digest, Pausch said that his life was measured now in months, not years, and that he simply wanted to do what good he could do “on my way out of the building.”


That’s reminiscent of Paul’s teaching in 2 Corinthians 5. We’re laboring now in an earthly tent that is passing away, but we have an eternal house in the heavens. Therefore we make it our aim to be well pleasing to Him, “whether present or absent.”

We don’t know if our remaining days on earth are measured in years, months, weeks, or minutes. Our times are in His hands, and our goal is to do all the good we can on our way out of the tent. “Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him” (verse 9).

O Lord, help me to do all the good I can, by all the means I can, in all the ways I can, in all the places I can, in all the times I can, to all the people I can as long as ever I can.

John Wesley

Image of David Jeremiah

David Jeremiah is a evangelical Christian leader, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch in El Cajon, California, a suburb of San Diego.