Spiritual Legacy


This year has flown by so fast; it’s hard to believe that Ripley (my little ray of sunshine) will celebrate her first birthday next week. Since Teresa and I are older, we’ve had friends and family members alike ask us when or if we plan on having another child. To be honest, we are thinking/praying about it. This past summer, my uncle talked with me about the importance of having a son. I took his talk as a joke at first but he was serious. My uncle is number 11 of 12 children my grandparents have and only few of the grandsons have sons and he is concerned with the legacy of the Thomasson name. This has left me a question in my own mind in what should the legacy be for the people of God?

I see my legacy on earth not in Ripley or any son I may or may not have. I see the legacy I leave are the ones God has put in my path to show them Christ. I’ve been reading through the letters of Paul and I read the words like a father would write to a child. The people he wrote to were children of God and not his but God used Paul to plant His Word which produced spiritual fruit.

We (Christians) are all off-spring of God’s love and of the sacrifice Jesus Christ paid for us on the cross. We are all spiritual fruit that someone planted God’s Word and either the same person or another reaped the harvest of the spiritual seed. Reading Billy Graham’s life story, I know he was a spiritual product of a man who was a spiritual product of Billy Sunday (a famous evangelist of the late 1800’s/early 1900’s). Billy Sunday was lead to Christ by a shoes salesman who taught his Sunday School. If we are able to trace back who won who to Christ, it still all leads back to what Christ did on the cross.

As I pray for the salvation of my almost one year old daughter, I think about the legacy of God and his perfect work. I know that He will draw her to Himself in His time. My job is to show her what He did for her; by planting the spiritual seed of God’s Word in her heart. Lord willing it will either be me, Teresa, or someone else who will reap the harvest of her accepting Christ in her heart; the legacy is still the same-a legacy of God’s love for His created children.

The Spiritual Legacy of any child of God is not his/her legacy to leave but his/her to show. The Spiritual Legacy is Jesus Christ and the sacrifice He paid on the cross for our sins.