Your Legacy

Legacy.  One word, so much power.  What kind of legacy do you want to leave for your children?  What do you want to be passed down from you to your great great grandchildren and beyond?

I think about this often.  The most important focus for me is that my husband and I leave a Godly legacy.  My husband and I were both raised in church and in homes where God was in the forefront.  My Grandpa and Grandma passed down a Godly legacy to my parents.  My parents passed down a Godly legacy to my siblings and I.  We are passing down Godly legacies to our children.  My husband's mom and step-father passed down a Godly legacy to my husband and his sister.  They are passing down Godly legacies as well.  

The decisions you make and how you raise your family are a domino effect to the following generations.  The dominoes can go one of two ways - good or bad.  I have watched my parents develop and grow their own legacy from what my grandparents planted in them.  I have watched and have had the privilege of seeing first hand God develop my parents into the people they are today.  My husband comes from divorce, while statistics show that children who come from divorced families are 60% more likely to divorce, my husband and I have took the stand and have chosen to stick it out.  We have chosen to leave a legacy for our children.  I do need to mention that I understand there are times when divorce happens and I do not judge anyone who divorces.  

Monday night we saw another domino in our legacy fall.  Our middle child asked Jesus into his heart!  We were eating dinner and he started asking questions, he decided he was ready to be saved.  Our oldest child was able to lead him in prayer to ask Jesus into his heart.  This is not something we forced, but through the way we live our lives we allow an environment of Godliness and openness.  

There are things my parents did with me that I have passed down to my children.  Some of them are:- On the way to school in the mornings we say who we are in Christ.  My parents did this with my siblings and I throughout our school years.  As a teenager I would roll my eyes and act like I hated it.  As an adult I am able to easily remember who I am in Christ.  Below is a link of verses of who you are in Christ:  Who am I in Christ?- My parents would pray with us every morning and every night.  My parents still pray with each other every morning and every night.  - Every day things would be used as a Godly lesson.  This was not a freaky thing, it was just the way it was.  For example, during junior high there was another student who was horribly mean to me.  I would go home and cry to my mom, begging her to take me out of school, asking to be home schooled.  My mom told me to start praying for the other student.  I did, and by the time we were seniors in high school we were best friends.  

Building your legacy comes down to making your home what you want your legacy to be.  The outside world will be what it is. Society will say what it does.  But, in your home you have the opportunity to build your legacy.  You have the opportunity to make a difference.  Make what you want your legacy to be a daily part of your life.  Make it important.  Don't let it be an after thought.

Below are five essentials to leaving a Godly legacy.  I found this on Family Life and it is written by Dennis and Barbara Rainey.

1. Fear the Lord and obey Him. Your legacy begins in your heart, in your relationship with God. Psalm 112:1-2 reads: "How blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who greatly delights in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; The generation of the upright will be blessed."
On our first Christmas together, Barbara and I gave a gift to God first. These sheets of paper became title deeds to our lives—to our marriage, to our hopes of having children, to our family, to our relationships, to our rights to our lives, to whatever ministry God gave us—we gave everything to Him.

2. Recognize the world's needs and respond with compassion and action. In Matthew 9:36 we read: "And seeing the multitudes. He [Jesus] felt compassion for them." You and your mate need to leave a legacy by being committed to doing something about our world. Many Christians today are walking in the middle of the road; they're so focused on what other people think that they are unwilling to take any risks in order to make an impact for Christ. In light of this, Jamie Buckingham wrote, "The problem with Christians today is that no one wants to kill them anymore."
When you fly over rows of houses, do you wonder how many people in those homes know Jesus? This year thirty million people will die without hearing the name of Christ. Hundreds of millions will pray to idols. Someone needs to reach these people with the Good News.John F. Kennedy, in Profiles in Courage, described the need for courageous people: "Some men show courage throughout the whole of their lives. Others sail with the wind until the decisive moment when their conscience and events propel them into the center of the storm." If you want to leave a lasting legacy, you need to act with courage to reach out to those in need.

3. Pray as a couple that God will use you to accomplish His purposes. As recorded in 1 Chronicles 4:10, Jabez prayed, "Oh that Thou wouldst bless me indeed, and enlarge my border, and that Thy hand might be with me, and that Thou wouldst keep me from harm."
What did Jabez ask God to do? Bless him. Give him new turf and enlarge his sphere of influence. Keep him from temptation. Stay with him. Pray this prayer with your mate, and at the end of the year, see how different your lives will be.

4. Help your mate be a better steward of his gifts and abilities. Help your spouse recognize how God has used his gifts and abilities in the past. Serving others? Teaching the Scripture? Advising a Christian Ministry?
Help him plug into the local church, which needs committed laymen and women who have strong, godly character and a vision for their communities.Help him recognize his convictions. Thomas Carlyle says, "Conviction is worthless until it can convert itself into daily conduct." Help your mate determine what he is willing to die for so he can ultimately determine what he can live for.

5. Ask God to give your children a sense of purpose, direction, and mission. The challenge here is to leave your children a heritage, not just an inheritance. As someone once said, "Our children are messengers we send to a time we will not see.""

You can do this!  Choose what legacy you want to leave your children and begin living it now!