What Will Be Your Legacy?

There are 3,237 people mentioned in the Bible. We are given details of the lives of only about one hundred of them. Of the one hundred, only one-third finished well. Of the two-thirds that did not finish well, most failed in the second half of their lives.

How will you finish?

Here are some key words to help you finish well.

Endure: “Thou therefore endure hardness” (II Tim. 2:3). Jesus endured the cross, knowing the enjoyment was before Him afterward (Heb. 12:2).

Love: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart…all thy soul…all thy mind” (Matt. 22:37). Motivation is not what you get, but what you have been given.

Trust: “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart [not head]; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:5,6).

Obey: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?” (Rom. 6:16)

Do it!

Overcome: “To him that over cometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame” (Rev. 3:21). Seven times to seven churches He promised rewards to all overcomers. Overcome obstacles and you will not be overcome. If you fall seven times and rise up every time, you will not fail (Prov. 24:16).

Faith: Hebrews 11 names twenty-three “by faith” followers and follows their names with a verb showing the actions of their faith. “By faith Abel offered.” Faith fades fear, fretting and failure. “For by it [faith] the elders obtained a good report” (vs. 2).

My goal is to live to be one hundred and finish well. Paul desired to finish well. He did not fear men or kings; but his greatest fear was becoming an unprofitable, unused castaway (I Cor. 9:27).

“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). He pressed toward the mark without ever arriving—but he enjoyed his journey. In his last legacy letter he wrote, “For I am now ready to be offered… I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness” (II Tim. 4:6–8).

An inheritance is what you give to others. A legacy is what you leave in others. His legacy lives on (Rev. 14:13). He finished his course without remorse. He was absent, then present (II Cor. 5:8) to hear, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant…enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Matt. 25:21).