Legacy

Legacies.  A legacy is what we leave behind when our time comes, and what we're remembered for.  Legacies tend to reflect how much a person loved God and loved others in life. 

When Jesus was asked which of the commandments was the most important, he answered "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'  There is no commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:30-31).  Jesus boiled down the purpose of our lives to love God and to love others.  He gives us a bit more direction in this in the Great Commission: "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).  This is the kind of legacy we should be living now, leaving behind later, when we join our Father in Heaven.

People remember you for how you make them feel, not necessarily for what you do.  A good teacher is not remembered only because of the knowledge that they passed to their students, but also, often more so, because they made the student feel valued, regardless of how quickly or how well the student learned the material.  A good parent is not remembered for the number of presents under the Christmas tree, but for the times they were cheering at soccer games, for the times their child felt loved and worthy of love.  These are just two examples, but this is true, at least in my life, in almost every situation.

Legacies go deeper than this, though.  You are also especially remembered for the way you react in times of trouble.  "We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.  We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body" (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).  The Message version of verse ten helps us to understand its meaning, "What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives!"  One of the reasons that we face these trials in life is to help fulfill the Great Commission.  Jesus' love for the Father and for His people, us, didn't falter in times of trouble.  Jesus should be our guide in life, and this is His example.  When Jesus was on the cross, dying not because of anything that He had done, but because of our sins, we mocked and scoffed at Him, but He asked God to forgive us, when we deserved it least, "Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).  This is a difficult example to follow, but we can draw strength from Jesus' words.  Right after Jesus gave the Great Commission He also gave this encouragement "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:20).

When we react to trials as Jesus did, we are building a legacy for God.  In all of this, the goal isn't to be remembered as "a good person".  The goal should be to be remembered as men and women of God.  I want to leave behind a legacy that God smiles on.