The other day the sad news was quickly reported that Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter accident.

A lot of you would know or now know who he was – an all-star basketball player who was third on the all-time scoring list, among his many other accomplishments.

He will be inducted into the basketball hall of fame and will be referred to for generations to come.

There will be some who remember him for accusations against him and for some bad moral decisions that he made. But honestly they need to be compared to how he addressed them and moved forward in a positive way.

For several years now, his marriage appeared strong and he and his wife raised four beautiful children. He was also an inspiration to basketball players coming in behind him.

The truth is, we all will come to this place of death, hopefully from old age, but there is no guarantee. Another truth is most of us will be remembered by others for how we lived, things we said, or how we invested into the lives of others and our other accomplishments.

It’s great for people to say nice things about us when we pass and to even have done such good works that it will result in some tangible recognition.

What’s more important than all of this is a spiritual difference that we can make in this world we live in. It’s allowing Jesus to come in to our lives and change us and then taking on the responsibility to lead others to him.

We need to remember that all of the good deeds we perform will only bring about temporal fruit while changing lives will produce eternal fruit.