What do you want history to say about you? What do you want people to think of you when you are no longer here? That's the question I think we all mill around in our head during our lifetime. Some leadership thinkers refer to it as "legacy." What kind of legacy do you want to leave? We ask it as employees, parents, citizens in a republic engaged in civic duties from civic organizations to political involvement, and we ask it as church. We want to make that difference, and we want it to be lasting.
Yet is that the truth?
Hopefully legacy at graveside will be truthful, the complete and total truth. Hopefully, the pastor will tell the people at the funeral (for my wife I'm guessing, I will be dead and won't care) the truth.
"My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." (Psalm 73:26) Those two things failed me during the prime of my life and at the end of my life, and my only hope in this life was a legacy of being in Christ, the "strength of my heart and my portion forever." We are mere men, and we are fallible men at best, sinful at worst. "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins, and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1)
The only legacy at my funeral should be the truth, that Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection made this day possible for this frail and highly fallible human, and that same promise is here for others. That day should be a day of rejoicing about the promise that even a sinner such as myself can receive that gift of grace in Christ Jesus.
Not that I've been given news to consider this moment in life, but as we sit here each day and reflect about who we are and what we desire out of life, hopefully the biggest and strongest desire is to be with Christ. That desire will not be met by our actions. We can leave a legacy for a brief period but the lasting legacy will be that of Christ and Him crucified and risen.
Pray that we pray for strength for heart and flesh and thanks that Christ gives us that strength necessary now and in eternity.
Hope Men's Ministry
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