Tag: Legacy

The Gifts of Advent: Matthew 1:16-17

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* Let me offer my apologies on the early and incomplete version of this that went out earlier this morning. One of my major pet peeves when working on a laptop is that you can’t turn off the touch pad. The way I hold my hands when I type I sometimes hit the touchpad with the pad of my hand resulting in the cursor suddenly getting punched in random and unexpected places. With my current laptop that doesn’t happen quite as often, but this morning the cursor happened to be sitting on the “publish” button on my screen. The odds of that are vanishingly small, but there it was. Thankfully, there is a safeguard built into the page so you don’t accidentally publish something before you’re really ready. It asks if you are sure. My fat hand, however, managed to hit the publish button not once, but twice, send it live before I could hit the cancel button. When I went back to actually finish writing, I made sure the cursor was on the complete opposite side of the screen. Here, then, is the full version.

“…and Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary, who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations; and from David until the exile to Babylon, fourteen generations; an from the exile to Babylon until the Messiah, fourteen generations.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Everyone has a story. That’s something our culture today tends to celebrate. What is also true, but to which we don’t give quite as much attention today is that everyone is part of a story. We tend to focus only on ourselves and the chapter we are writing, but our story is only part of a much larger story that has been unfolding for far longer than the boundaries of our lives. As much as this is true about each one of us, it was also true about Jesus. And although His legacy includes some things that ours likely does not, it also includes a bunch of other parts that ours do share. This is all another gift God gives and which we can celebrate in this season of giving. Today, let’s talk about the gift of legacy.

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What Will You Leave Behind?

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This week as we get back into our series, Going It Alone, we’re talking about legacies. How do you want to be remembered? Your answer tot that question matters a great deal. Whatever you might affirm verbally, your behavior will always bear out what you really believe. A strong, good legacy can last for generations…but so can a weak or ugly one. Let’s talk about it.

What Will You Leave Behind?

How do you want to be remembered? What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind after you’ve left this place? That’s a question most folks wrestle with at some point in their lives. It’s something that everybody thinks about whether they are a follow of Jesus or not. Christians don’t have any kind of monopoly on that kind of thinking. In fact, for folks who aren’t followers of Jesus, this is an even bigger deal because if there’s nothing after this life, then the legacy we leave behind is the closest thing to immortality there is. And so, for many, many people, the idea of their legacy is a really important one. But, not only will we leave a legacy behind us, but we are also the heirs to someone else’s legacy. Most of us are the way we are and have experienced the things we have experienced because of what someone else did before us. It may have been your parents. It may have been your grandparents. It could have been someone else as well. It could be that you’re doing the things you’re doing as a conscious effort to continue the legacy of one of these people. It could be that you’re doing them as a conscious attempt to thwart it.

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Morning Musing: 1 Samuel 25:30-31

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“And when the Lord has done to my lord according to all the good that he has spoken concerning you and has appointed you prince over Israel, my lord shall have no cause of grief or pangs of conscience for having shed blood without cause or for my lord working salvation himself. And when the Lord has dealt well with my lord, then remember your servant.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

Abigail was scrambling. She knew that if she didn’t come up with something really good and right on the spot her husband, possibly her older children, and most of the servants under her care were toast. When she heard word that David was coming for war, she put together a generous gift, road out to meet him well before he arrived, and made her pitch. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: Judges 8:33-35

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“As soon as Gideon died, the people of Israel turned again and whored after the Baals and made Baal-berith their god.  And the people of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hand of all their enemies on every side, and they did not show steadfast love to the family of Jerubbaal (that is, Gideon) in return for all the good that he had done to Israel.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

The epitaph for Gideon is presented as an indictment of the people of Israel.  They were so incorrigibly wicked that they turned away from God at the first chance they had and didn’t honor the memory of this great leader.  But, I tend to see this as more of an indictment of Gideon himself.  He may have fulfilled the calling God placed on him to free the people from the oppression of the Midianites, but he was a terrible leader and not a very good person to boot. Read the rest…

Morning Musings: 1 Chronicles 28:9-10

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“And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.  If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will cast you off forever.  Be careful now, for the Lord has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be strong and do it.”  (ESV – Read the chapter)

One of the single greatest duties a father has is to charge his son or daughter to grow to serve and love the Lord.  Everything else we do for them and teach them must necessarily come secondary to that.  But, this is a charge that will only be heard when they see us living it out in our own lives.  If we do not demonstrate what it looks like to be faithful to the Lord in our own lives, they will not likely pursue it themselves.  Through our words and deeds, our actions and attitudes, we must call them to the life of Christ.  We must teach them the faith and how to defend it from those who would call them away from it.  We must show them how to give of themselves for the benefit of others and why that is so important.  We must implant deep in their hearts and minds an unshakable love of the church.  We must make sure they know the love of Jesus because of the way we love them.  Most of all, we must teach them to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.  If we can do all of these things we will be counted successful.  We will be counted successful and our legacy will be one worth celebrating.