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Billy Graham Daily Devotional Today Message

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William (Billy) F. Graham, Jr.
Evangelist and Chairman of the Board

Evangelist Billy Graham took Christ literally when He said in Mark 16:15, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.”

Mr. Graham preached the Gospel to more people in live audiences than anyone else in history—nearly 215 million people in more than 185 countries and territories—through various meetings, including Mission World and Global Mission. Hundreds of millions more have been reached through television, video, film, and webcasts.

Beginning with the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade, which vaulted Mr. Graham into the public eye, he led hundreds of thousands of individuals to make personal decisions to live for Christ, the main thrust of his decades-long ministry.

Born November 7, 1918, four days before the Armistice ended World War I, Mr. Graham was reared on a dairy farm in Charlotte, N.C. Growing up during the Depression, he learned the value of hard work on the family farm, but he also found time to spend many hours in the hayloft reading books on a wide variety of subjects.

Billy Graham Devotional Message

In the fall of 1934, at age 15, Mr. Graham made a personal commitment to Christ through the ministry of Mordecai Ham, a traveling evangelist, who visited Charlotte for a series of revival meetings.

Ordained in 1939 by Peniel Baptist Church in Palatka, Fla. (a church in the Southern Baptist Convention), Mr. Graham received a solid foundation in the Scriptures at Florida Bible Institute (now Trinity College of Florida). In 1943 he graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois and married fellow student Ruth McCue Bell, daughter of a missionary surgeon, who spent the first 17 years of her life in China.

After graduating from college, Mr. Graham pastored The Village Church of Western Springs (now Western Springs Baptist Church) in Western Springs, Ill., before joining Youth for Christ, an organization founded for ministry to youth and servicemen during World War II. He preached throughout the United States and in Europe in the immediate post war era, emerging as a rising young evangelist. Read More