I looked up the word legacy in the dictionary this morning. One of the meanings is “something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor or from the past.” I have been thinking about legacies since working on my Bible Study the other day. It was the story of Cain and Abel – the familiar story of envy and murder. The emphasis in the study was on Cain’s rejection of God’s offer of forgiveness and the affect it had on his descendants.

After the Lord rejected Cain’s offering He said “…Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6-7) Rather than accept God’s offer of forgiveness Cain decided to kill his brother.

After being confronted by God with what he had done and receiving the punishment, the Bible tells us, “Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord…” The author of my Bible Study commenting on this said, “When Cain ‘went out from the presence of the Lord’, he also left any worship of the Lord or any acknowledgement of the Lord in his daily life….When we look at the names of the children born in Cain’s line, we also discover a self-seeking, self-initiated society.” (From “Praying God’s Way by Rick Shepherd) Cain left a legacy of godlessness to his future generations. One of his descendants, Lamech, was guilty of killing two people.

There was another son born to Adam and Eve, and his name was Seth. The Bible says of Seth, “And to Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.” (Genesis 4:26) Seth chose to follow the Lord and established a far different legacy than that of Cain. Among his descendants we find Enoch – “And Enoch walked with God; and he was not for God took him.” (Genesis 5:24) - and Noah. Seth is mentioned again in the New Testament. His name appears in the genealogy of the Son of Man in Luke 3:38. All the way from Seth to the very Son of God the wonderful legacy was handed down.

In my own family, the legacy began with my Grandmother. My Grandfather became very disillusioned with the church they were attending and just stopped attending. My Grandmother found a little church where they spoke Italian, and she felt at home. My mother and father began to attend that church after they were married, and it was there that they met a woman who shared the message of salvation with them. They were both saved and the legacy began.

It has been handed down from generation to generation. They have had the joy of seeing their great grandchildren come to know the Lord. Not every family member has chosen the same path. Some have begun well and then for one reason or another walked away. Some have rejected the legacy outright. We pray that they will find their way back. But for the most part, the family has embraced this precious legacy. It is a priceless gift from the hand of a loving Father.

It is a wonderful miracle of love, I think, that this legacy can begin no matter what our past has been. We are not all privileged to have this legacy handed down to us, but we have the amazing privilege to be the ones who establish it and then pass it on to our children and their children. Cain could have chosen forgiveness and drawn close to the Lord. How different the legacy would have been if he had. Seth made the better choice to follow the Lord, and he and his descendants were woven into God’s plan to save a lost and dying world. We’ve been given that choice as well. The wonder is, it is never too late to begin.

Blessings,
Linda