2 Corinthians 8:1-5
We all want to leave a legacy; something that we’ll be remembered for. Leaving a legacy hit me hardest in 2023, when both of my parents passed away within seven weeks of each other. My dad passed first. His illness was mercifully short. My mother, fighting both grief and cancer, passed a few short weeks later. To their great credit, several years prior, they had gone to great lengths to ensure the disposition of their estate would go as they had planned. Shortly after my mother died, my siblings and I began the process of working through the trust they had established. It still took nearly two years to formally close their estate, but it happened just as they had planned. And while the disposition of the “material things” went as planned, the most important part of their legacy was so much more. The truest measure of their legacy of 65 years of marriage was us: my siblings and I. That even though we had been living our own lives as adults for decades, we never lost the fact that we are brothers and sister. All we wanted from their passing was to honor them. And while we have never been estranged, our parents' passing brought us closer together like never before. In this verse, Paul is commending the churches in Macedonia for their exceeding generosity despite facing many trials. They were generous and joyful. This is their legacy, and it is forever remembered through Scripture. As Christians, our greatest legacy should not be “we accomplished this or that,” but rather in all that we did, it was to honor Christ. That our lives reflected the primacy of our walk with Christ, through word, deed, and action. The greatest legacy we can leave our children and grandchildren is for them to see the importance of Christ in our lives. So much so that they embrace Christ for themselves, and that in turn becomes their legacy. That is when we face Christ, we hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
We all want to leave a legacy; something that we’ll be remembered for. Leaving a legacy hit me hardest in 2023, when both of my parents passed away within seven weeks of each other. My dad passed first. His illness was mercifully short. My mother, fighting both grief and cancer, passed a few short weeks later. To their great credit, several years prior, they had gone to great lengths to ensure the disposition of their estate would go as they had planned. Shortly after my mother died, my siblings and I began the process of working through the trust they had established. It still took nearly two years to formally close their estate, but it happened just as they had planned. And while the disposition of the “material things” went as planned, the most important part of their legacy was so much more. The truest measure of their legacy of 65 years of marriage was us: my siblings and I. That even though we had been living our own lives as adults for decades, we never lost the fact that we are brothers and sister. All we wanted from their passing was to honor them. And while we have never been estranged, our parents' passing brought us closer together like never before. In this verse, Paul is commending the churches in Macedonia for their exceeding generosity despite facing many trials. They were generous and joyful. This is their legacy, and it is forever remembered through Scripture. As Christians, our greatest legacy should not be “we accomplished this or that,” but rather in all that we did, it was to honor Christ. That our lives reflected the primacy of our walk with Christ, through word, deed, and action. The greatest legacy we can leave our children and grandchildren is for them to see the importance of Christ in our lives. So much so that they embrace Christ for themselves, and that in turn becomes their legacy. That is when we face Christ, we hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
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