Daily Devotional for Monday, October 10 

Cleave unto the Lord 

When we die, all of us leave a legacy behind. Even the most seemingly insignificant life leaves one. No person lives in a vacuum; every life lived touches other lives. We usually mark a life when we mourn the passing of a person; a funeral is often the place where we see this. Almost without fail, speakers at a funeral attempt to share with mourners what the absence of a person will mean to those gathered. Sometimes, this may be easy, and some people leave memories that are positive and meaningful. The list of lives touched in good ways is long. Sometimes, the legacy is cloudy or even negative and finding the words may be hard in those cases. 

With Joshua, there is little doubt the legacy is powerful and positive. Joshua was a man of great faith, bravery and skill. Emboldened by God he led the people to conquer the Promised Land. Any search of Scripture would find not a single negative mention of this hero of the Bible. Given God’s willingness to share even the negative about His saints, this is quite impressive! Later, in Joshua 24:15, we also see Joshua’s desire to see his faith passed on to later generations, starting with his own household, when he told the people “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). 

What will our legacy be? Will later generations see that we were saved by the grace of God and then served Him faithfully? Or will they see that we lived for ourselves and our worldly desires? Even worse, will we show them that rejecting Jesus is the right way? The legacy we leave matters.

JUST A THOUGHT: If we do not think sharing Jesus with generations who follow us is important, then we might need to be worried about what our own eternal destiny really is.

Wally Fry