The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

"May I see some identification please..." From making simple purchases to buying a home we present who we are. This verification process is a must when we are transacting any sort of business, important or trivial. Verifying someone identity creates a baseline for a positive outcome in the transaction. You know who I am, and I know who you are-Now let's work together.

How do you really know someone? Do you know how they were raised? What impacted their lives good and bad? Do you know where they came from? Just as important do know where they are going? Where they would like to end up in life? What is really important to them? Where will they go when they die? How do they make tough decisions?

Your Legacy is the past, present, and future rolled into one, and it is this that tells others who you really are. Legacy is a way that we are identified. Both good and bad. What we have done, what are doing now and what we will do in the future is our signature on this life, and many others will see and experience it in the future.

I cant help but think of Elliot Spitzer, the ex-Governor of New York. His life has been unraveled by his decisions to engage with a prostitute and somehow satisfy his cravings for today. This satisfaction carried more weight than the possible implications to him and his family in the future. I would bet that his decisions were not based on the legacy he wanted to live and leave, and if he could take a "mulligan" on those decisions, he would. What is Elliot Spitzer's legacy? What if you were one the many people who will inherit this legacy? How will his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren view him? Just as important, how will they be viewed.

This is interesting...

The legacy I leave, I get to chose; But as for the legacy my children receive, they have no choice whether or not to receive it; They get what they get...

Elliot Spitzer is not the first man to fall to his sinful cravings, and certainly won't be the last. The question is, when was the last time you were defeated by your sin? I am comforted by the fact that the blood of Christ was given on my behalf for the sin I have committed in the past, the sins I commit today and the sins I am sure to commit tomorrow. Elliot Spitzer's life is a mess, and I feel terrible for his legacy...My life would also be a mess if not for the grace of God.

"Then the Lord descended in the form of a pillar of cloud and stood there with him and passed in front of him and announced the meaning of his name. "I am Jehovah, the merciful and gracious God," He said, "slow to anger and rich in steadfast love and truth. I, Jehovah, show this steadfast love to many thousands by forgiving their sins; or else I refuse to clear the guilt, and require that a father's sins be punished in the sons and grandsons, and even later generations" (Exodus 34:5-8).

What sin's will your sons and grandsons have to answer for? So I have to ask, is my signature laced with the things of this world? Or is it laced with the saving grace of our Lord?