The Ultimate Inheritance

 In Blog, Charles Cavanaugh

As someone who has worked in the financial services industry, I am familiar with the concept of building personal wealth and the transfer of wealth from one generation to another.  As the first decade of the 2000s began there was virtually nothing but optimism about the financial future.  I heard in one meeting that we were about to witness the greatest transfer of wealth ever seen. The 80s and 90s had seen unprecedented financial growth.  It was certain that the 2000s would be a great financial decade.

 

But the 2000s did not unfold as predicted.  The market and IRAs went south.  There was 9/11 and the war on terror.  What most thought would be a financial boom was a boondoggle.   The great transfer of wealth became the great disappearance of wealth.  The truth of Proverbs 23:5 was vividly illustrated.  “… Riches make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle to heaven.”

 

Of course we know that it is unwise and even unbiblical to ignore the financial future.  We should make wise financial decisions for the present and the future.  But this is not where certainty and security lie.  There is only certainty and security in eternal things.  And the one thing that is certain and unchanging is the gospel.

 

The one thing we must not fail to pass on to our children and their children is the gospel.   As we learn to live the gospel, as we embrace and proclaim the gospel, as we passionately follow the Christ of the gospel, we leave a lasting legacy and an inheritance for the generations to come.  The gospel is not merely a free ticket to heaven; it’s about new life in Christ.  As I heard one man say, “We never move beyond the gospel, just deeper and deeper into it.”  The gospel is about the love of the holy God for sinners.  It is about redemption, forgiveness, grace, mercy, forbearance, justice, and righteousness.  It is about the reality of these things lived out in the lives of those who know the saving power of the gospel.  And it is ultimately about the glory of God in these things.

 

As you live these things before this generation, as you passionately embrace Crist and His gospel, you leave a lasting inheritance.  We cannot decide for the next generation, but we can model for the next generation a life transformed by the gospel.  “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” (Proverbs 13:22)

 

What will we leave to the next generation?

 

That the generation to come might know Christ,
Charles Cavanaugh

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