I’ve been thinking a lot about what will my legacy be when I’m gone. Will the stories they tell in the years after I’m gone be stories of me being kind or unkind? Cranky or loving? Faithful or unfaithful?
A big part of our legacy is about how we handle our relationships with our family, with our friends, with strangers. What kind of footprint are you leaving for others to follow? We can’t expect to leave a Godly legacy by managing our pasts, but rather our present. It is in the “right nows” that we decide what legacy we will leave.
What will your legacy be? What will you leave behind? In Psalm 71:18 says, “
Even when I am old and gray-headed, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come.
I’d like to share three of the things I want to leave to my children and grandchildren, but first I want to show you the precious people in my life to whom I want to leave a Godly legacy.
- A clearly demonstrated faith
I want my walk to match my talk. Without that, my witness or my legacy won’t mean much. We need to have a balance in which both our walk and our talk are in harmony with each other. That kind of faith will keep us going no matter what the circumstances we encounter.
So what can derail us from following that path daily? What can make us take a different road?
Here are a few things that can hurt our legacy.
- Disappointments
- people
- circumstances
- Detours
- Mistakes/wrong choices
- Deficiencies
- We might think we don’t have the right personality for that;
- car accident; disease in family;
- not getting the job you want, not being as talented as you want to be –
These are all perceived deficiencies
- Deprivation
- not enough money,
- not able to have children,
- I’m not enough.
These can distract us from our focus on following the Lord. We cannot demonstrate our faith in God if we let such things impede us. We need to be unstoppable if we want to leave a legacy of value to our children and grandchildren.
If we walk and talk our faith, we can pass that on to our families. The reverse is also true. People who live ungodly lives pass that on as well. We have seen that time and time again. It follows generation after generations.
The nineteenth-century Englishman Robert C. Chapman wrote, “Seeing that so many preach Christ and so few live Christ, I will aim to live Him.” His good friend J. N. Darby said of Mr. Chapman, “He lives what I teach.”
It was said of the popular nineteenth-century English author William Arnot, “His preaching is good. His writing is better. His living is best of all.” Would that it could be said of all Christians that their living is best of all.
Faith is the key to succeeding in this adventure called life. It is by faith that we are saved. It is by faith that we please God. It is by faith that we have access to God. It is by faith that we are overcomers.
- A much traveled path
Have you ever seen a clear path that perhaps cattle have trodden to get to the watering trough or the feed trough? That path is clearly defined because it has been traveled many times, perhaps daily.
When it is my time to go home to be with the Lord, I want to leave behind the path so well-trodden leading to heaven that my grandchildren can clearly follow that same path. I want my footprints to be clear to those behind me.
What does it look like daily?
Daily we need to:
- Recognize sin is always present. (thoughts and actions)
- Recognize it is not about you. (or me) learn to listen, ask questions, don’t always bring the conversation back to you.
- Recognize our need to put on the whole armor of Christ.
The Armor of God Ephesians 6:10-18
10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.
Our “right nows” happen every day of every week. Not just Sundays or Christmas. So I need that armor every day!
I heard a story long ago about a mom and her little boy. Mom was washing up the dishes after dinner when her son came to the back door and said, “Mom, come quick!” She said, just a minute I’m almost finished here. He returned a second time and said, “Mom, really you need to hurry!” She said, “Just a second, almost there.” When she went to the door, he was standing there all sad and dejected. She said, “What is it that you wanted me to see?” His reply was “sunsets don’t wait.” Live in the “right nows”.
Psalm 27:4 says, “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.” It is a privilege to go to the Lord’s house.
What can cause us to detour off that path? I think the same answers apply here, 1. Distractions, disappointments, deficiencies, detours.
Finish well ladies. Even if you have not been as faithful to the Lord as you wish you had, start now and finish well.
Reminder:
- A clearly demonstrated faith
- A much-traveled path
III. A well-read Bible
Have you ever noticed a friend’s Bible or perhaps your own is this way? I have a friend who has a Bible that looks like it is falling apart. What does that tell us? That she has read and studied that Bible. It is a testimony of someone who set aside every task of the day and spent time with the Lord. It is important each day to clear your heart and your mind of the things of the world, the cares of your day, and lay them on the Lord. What better way to begin your day than in God’s Word?
One of my greatest joys is to hold a grandchild in my lap and read them from a Bible designed for children.
Psalm 119:11 says, “I have hidden Your Word in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” As I’ve gotten older it is harder and harder to memorize Scripture and retain it. I recently figured out that I can memorize Scripture if it is set to music.
Martin Luther said this about the way he studied his Bible: “I study my Bible the way I gather apples. First, I shake the whole tree so the ripest fruit will fall. Then I shake every limb and every branch and each twig, and after they are shaken, I look under each leaf.” Perhaps he meant he looks at the Bible as a whole, then as a book, chapter, verse, and phrase. If we study our Bible that way, we will leave behind a well-read Bible.
If you are a student of the Bible, share it with others you encounter. It seems to come more naturally into the conversations of the day if I am in the word every morning. God brings those verses to mind and what He has shown you that day so that you can share that with your family, your friends and others you encounter.
Examples of those who left behind a lasting legacy
Susanna Wesley became the mother of 19 children. She insisted on family devotions, prayer and Bible reading in their home. She told her husband that if he did not wish to lead in this, she would do it. He turned it over to her. Two of her sons became famous. 6500 hymns are attributed to Charles Wesley, many of which are in our hymnals. “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling” and “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” are two examples. Another son, John Wesley was a fervent preacher of the Gospel. He said “The world is my parish.” He didn’t feel he had to resort to some local area, the entire world was his parish.
President Woodrow Wilson said of John Wesley, “The church was dead and Wesley awakened it. The poor were neglected and Wesley sought them out. The Gospel was shrunken into formula and Wesley flung it fresh upon the air in the speech of the common man.”
Another example of leaving a Godly legacy is Louis Lawes who became warden of Sing Sing Prison in 1920. The inmates existed in wretched conditions. This led him to introduce humanitarian reforms. He gave much of the credit to his wife, Kathryn, however, who always treated the prisoners as human beings. She would often take her three children and sit with the gangsters, the murderers, and the racketeers while they played basketball and baseball. Then in 1937, Kathryn was killed in a car accident. The next day her body lay in a casket in a house about a quarter of a mile from the institution. When the acting warden found hundreds of prisoners crowded around the main entrance, he knew what they wanted. Opening the gate, he said, “Men, I’m going to trust you. You can go to the house.” No count was taken; no guards posted. Yet not one man was missing that night. Love for one who had loved them made them dependable.
Do you have people in your mind that have left a lasting Godly legacy?
What a lasting legacy Susanna Wesley and Kathryn Lawes left.
I think about Don and Linda Collins, Jerry and Sue Kidd, Bobby and Nettie Bowman, David and Shelly Dickson, Jack and Latrell Bateman, just to name a few. These couples served the Lord faithfully, some still doing so in our work.
We also can pass on this legacy to our children and grandchildren, but it takes devotion. It takes diligence. It takes delighting in the prospect of so doing.
We know we cannot do this in our own strength. My prayer is that we will daily ask “God, help me to leave the kind of legacy that should be left behind.”
There is power in the example of an ordinary life lived with an awareness of God’s presence—seeing Him in everything and doing all things for Him. This is the mark of the mature soul, quietly and humbly going about ordinary tasks, living in joy, and leaving behind the fragrance of Jesus’ love. We have to be intentional in our actions and decisions.
Ladies, pay attention to the “right nows”
Good morning ladies! What a beautiful group of ladies we have today! I imagine you all looked in the mirror this morning before coming to CBC. What did you see? If you are female, you probably saw things you wish were not there! Like wrinkles or lines, or blemishes, or gray hair or hair that is too curly or too straight, or too long or too short!
We do that don’t we? We see the imperfections when we look into a mirror. What if we could look into our mirror and see more of Jesus and less of ourselves?
John the Baptist said of Jesus in John 3:30 “He must increase and I must decrease.” So John was saying there needs to be more of Jesus in me and less of himself.
Do you see in your mirror someone who sometimes says things that you later have to apologize for? Or sometimes has wrong thoughts about another person?
Think about this:
Jesus never looked with lust; He never uttered a hasty, unkind, untrue, or frivolous word; and He never entertained an impure thought. He was never accused by conscience, never inflamed by wrongful passion, never out of step with the will of God. His time was never wasted, His talents never debased for selfish ends, His influence never bad, His judgment never wrong. He never had to apologize for anything He did or retract a single word He said. He was never too late or too soon; never upset; never shallow or afraid. He lived on earth approximately twelve thousand days and every one of them was a marvel of holiness. He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” according to Hebrews 7:26.
So ladies, I exhort you this year to strive to be holy ladies, ladies who are more like Jesus.
How do we do that? First of all, I believe we need to allow the Holy Spirit that resides in us as God’s daughters full access to every part of our lives. We need to learn to “abide” with Him at all times.
What is the correct meaning of abide?
- 1 : to remain stable or fixed
- 2 : to continue in a place
- 3. to conform to abide by the rules.
Love in the Splash Zone
When our boys were younger, we went to Sea World a couple of times. There were so many fun things to do and see, but the most amazing to me were the shows. To think that people could train these animals to do tricks.
I remember a couple of shows had splash zone areas. These were areas, designated by painted lines and usually closer to the front, where the audience was sure to get wet. Well, really not just wet, some people got soaked.
I also remember that some people walked very quickly towards these areas, while others sat as far away from them as possible. Each audience member wanted to see the awesome show but not all of them wanted to “participate” in the water activities!
You will see this as you splash God’s love around. Some will welcome the refreshing shower of love. Others will try to stay away from it. They may say thank you or give you a hug but they just don’t get the joy of Christ’s love. They do not want to be in the splash zone.
Just like the animals at Sea World, don’t let that make you stop splashing. There will always be those that are hesitant to join in the splashing. But I have also noticed that sometimes those that don’t want to join in the splashing in the beginning will eventually warm up to it. They just want to see what it is all about before getting soaked.
God loves everyone and he wants all of us to join him in his Heavenly Kingdom. So, splash away: sing his praises, share his love, testify to his goodness. I pray that those around you will run to the splash zone and soak in the showers of his love.
John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another.