Proverbs 14:18 The simple inherit folly: but the prudent are crowned with knowledge.
Confucius said, “If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees. If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children.”
A hundred year plan in this “I want it now” generation might be hard to plan for. It is not necessarily this generation’s fault. They are bombarded with “you can have it now with no money down” advertisements on a twenty-four-seven timeline and live-streaming on all of their communication devices.
This next generation needs to be able to make it through their lives and get through it with the right choices. By saying this I might sound like an old guy with the normal anxiousness about the up and coming generation, but I am trying to help educate the next generation toward righteousness. I am attempting to leave them an inheritance of Godly value.
Keeping our minds steadfast and contemporary at the same time can be difficult because of the fast acceleration of change going on all around us. However, the principles of God’s word do not change. The word of God can be counted on to meet the needs of any generation, right now and going forward into the long and distant future. Heb. 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
This next generation needs to be able to make it through their lives and get through it with the right choices. By saying this I might sound like an old guy with the normal anxiousness about the up and coming generation, but I am trying to help educate the next generation toward righteousness. I am attempting to leave them an inheritance of Godly value.
Keeping our minds steadfast and contemporary at the same time can be difficult because of the fast acceleration of change going on all around us. However, the principles of God’s word do not change. The word of God can be counted on to meet the needs of any generation, right now and going forward into the long and distant future. Heb. 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
As I get older I have reflected on what it was that gave me hope for the future I am now living in. Rightly so I did not have the massive amounts of choices and diversions available to young people today, but I still had to allow God entry into my soul. What I did have was the word of God helping me make prudent choices as I progressed through life. Did I get everything right? Absolutely not! There were some very big mistakes made along the way, but God’s grace was there to help me through it all. I did learn a few things that are important to God and now to myself.
Leaving an inheritance of blessing to the next generation can be difficult if they do not want what we have. If I cannot get the next generation interested in a one year plan of victorious righteous living, then how can I ever get a ten or one hundred year plan going? If we are trying to convey the importance of righteous choices, then we had better have some fruit in our own lives that show what we are saying is truth and worth having. Talk is cheap, but victory is powerful. Prov. 8:21 That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.
It is said that children suffer the consequences of their parents’ actions. If this is true in a family setting, how much more in a state, province or national setting? We have got to offer the next generation something of substance and worth that builds character of heart, rather than just more of the everyday fluff. We must show them the value of seeking God first in their lives. Matt. 6:20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
Is who you have become in Christ worth sharing with the next generation? Do you have real joy in the Lord or is what you have an irksome existence? Are we translating the love of God and the fact that God is worth our whole world? Unless the next generation clearly sees the fullness of God working in our lives, why then would they want what we stand for? We need to complete each other and not compete with each other.
We have a great and wonderful inheritance in Christ that was given to us all by grace. Eph. 3:7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Surely we can hand this gift over to the next generation with the same grace. If we live our lives in honest covenant with the Lord our Savior, then the fruit of that relationship will be coveted by others who are looking for something real. Leave a real inheritance for the next generation that they can count on to give them life. Blessings.
We have a great and wonderful inheritance in Christ that was given to us all by grace. Eph. 3:7 I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power. Surely we can hand this gift over to the next generation with the same grace. If we live our lives in honest covenant with the Lord our Savior, then the fruit of that relationship will be coveted by others who are looking for something real. Leave a real inheritance for the next generation that they can count on to give them life. Blessings.
Precious reminder Norm. Myself I am passed 40 which is considered the generation that is to nurture the younger generation. I think you nailed it by leaving an inheritance that is based on the evidence of fruits. The reality is that we as leaders struggle with sin and even worse sometimes up to the very top of church leadership as it has been brought to light in front of all children and far beyond. We think we get away with it but many because of having experienced such thing they reject everything. In 1 Corinthinas 4;15 "Even if we have ten thousand guardians in Christ we have few fathers"
Just this morning I spoke to a friend asking him the simple question if he knows the definition of true success respectively how to become truly successful. While the world brainwashed our children of what success means, that definition does not require Joshua 1;8 "Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful" Many financial super wealthy people, may even vast majority, does not study the word of God at all. True success on the other hand requires great mediation in order to know Gods purpose (will) for our live and to be empowered to fulfill it.
The same applies with love, we ask what true love is and the responds is this "wonderful" tolerant love, based on feelings of what the world betrays. But true love is rather defined in the obedience to the Father's will in Heaven, so finally children can be drawn to fathers and fathers to children. We exchanged the gospel for a religion that spares us from hell, but the work that goes beyond that transforms nations we stripped of and call it grace or leave it up to a few elites. We have greatly sinned because we feared men more than God, have limited the gospel to salvation rather than the Good News of the Kingdom of God.
We too have been carried it over chaff from our forefathers standing on their shoulders instead of going back standing on the foundation of Christ and his Apostels. But glory to God there is great shaking everywhere. I have come to the conclusion that this very shaking is actually the love of God. As brutal it can be its what drives us back to God or turns our heart cold, eliminating the lukewarm sphere that he so hates. We live in a very special time, where children are actually seeking for the truth! Their problem is they are having problems in finding it, but if they pursue they will! Glory to God!