Scripture: Ruth 4:13-22, 1 Chronicles 2:9-55, 1 Chronicles 4:1-23, 1 Samuel 1:1-8
"The neighbor women said, 'Now at last Naomi has a son again!' And they named him Obed. He became the father of Jesse and the grandfather of David." (Ruth 4:17 NLT)
There are many websites that will compile your family tree for you. A quick Internet search will also yield information about ancestor's marriages and dates of births and deaths. Sometimes we even come across neat tidbits about where our family name originated and what in what country our ancestors were born. But most family trees don’t reveal our spiritual heritage. Scripture, however, does.
The Bible tells us that all Christians are children of God. He is our Father and Jesus is our brother. If we look at the first page of the New Testament, we are given the physical lineage of Jesus—some of His ancestors include King David, a man after God's own heart (1 Samuel 13:14), a Moabite woman named Ruth, and Boaz, a man who honored and obeyed the laws of Lord. Ruth and Boaz lived many years before King David, but he still inherited their godliness. They did not fail to pass it down to the future generations of their family line. We know this to be true by the way David ruled as king.
My husband and I don’t have fine art, a sprawling estate, or priceless jewels to pass down from one generation to the next, but we do something that far surpasses these in value: we possess the timeless treasure of knowledge of the Lord. Every day I aim to pass on this godly inheritance to my children and I pray they do the same for their kids. If someone records my spiritual family tree one day, I hope my descendants will have followed in my footsteps and become men and women after God's own heart. When the lame man asked Peter to heal him, the disciple proclaimed, “I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!” (Acts 3:6b-7 NLT)
I may not have wealth untold, but I do have an insatiable love for and faith in Jesus Christ and an unquenchable thirst for His Word. This is the greatest heritage any of our descendants can receive from us. May our legacy passed down to future generations be a strong belief in God and a love for the Lord Jesus Christ so they can rise up and walk in the ways of the Lord.
What greater legacy could there be?
