My dear readers,

What inheritance are you leaving behind?

Proverbs 13:22: “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just.”

We all leave behind something or someone when we are called home to glory. What we leave behind is our inheritance for the people we love. The question is, what inheritance?

Proverbs 13:22 teaches us two types of inheritance. We need to choose the right type.

A Lasting Inheritance

If the inheritance is anything tangible (all material things like jewels, stocks and shares of companies, gold, silver, precious stones, etc.) or earthly titles or accomplishments (like the Christian’s good name or buildings named after him or foundations or scholarships in his honour, etc.), know that all these things will perish. Nothing of this earth is forever except the souls of men, women and children and all things pertaining to God, according to the Holy Scriptures, for they are spiritual. 

Therefore, when a good man leaves an inheritance, it will be passed on to his children and their children. Only believers are good men capable of doing good, for the good God makes them good in Christ at salvation. They were not good before salvation. They were like the rest of the world, conceived and born in sin and totally depraved, utterly incapable of doing anything good. Their righteousness was as filthy rags in God's sight. Sinful men’s lives are like dry leaves blown away by the slightest breeze. Isaiah 64:6: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

Christians, as good men, know what is good and bad. They would not be foolish to leave behind all that they know to be bad for their children and ignore the good!

Christians know that the world is reserved for destruction by fire. 2 Peter 3:6-7: “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: ⁷But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” Rubbish and all things that smell and are decaying are deliberately burned by fire. Therefore, Christians should know that all the things of the world are like refuse, smelly and decaying; why would they intentionally leave them behind for their children as if they are real treasures, and fool their children into thinking that these are real gold when the reality is that they are fools' gold? The ruination as well as the foolishness would fall on the next generation.

Christians know that all good things are eternal. Therefore, only all things done according to the Holy Scriptures will last for eternity. The following are some of them:

• Salvation in Christ – Christian parents must pass this on to their children. “Salvation is of the Lord” has often been misunderstood to excuse man from his responsibility to be holy in Christ. Have you heard, read, or even thought of such foolishness: “Regardless of how I behave, these sinners are elected by God to be saved, and therefore, whether I live in sin or holiness, it matters not.” Such a distortion and misunderstanding of God’s blessed revelation has harmed the cause of Christ and stumbled many into hell and many professing believers into being a derelict witness. The doctrine of election is meant to assure and comfort believers as they serve and witness for Christ in this sin-sick world that nothing on earth can jeopardise their salvation, not the devil and his many cunning devices, and not even death.
  
  The sovereignty of God in salvation taught the prophet Jonah that he must bring the gospel to whomsoever God sent him. He must not choose to share the gospel to people he liked and not to people he hated. Sadly, this wonderful truth of God’s sovereignty in salvation has been used as an excuse. Parents are failing as living testimonies for Christ to their beloved children and to bring them up in the fear and nurture of the Lord in a Christian environment in their home. God promises in the Bible that the Christian’s children will be saved if he brings them up in holiness and righteousness according to the Holy Scriptures. Proverbs 22:6: “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Christian parents must begin their holy witness the moment their children are born.
  
  There is no better inheritance to pass on to your children and for the next few generations than God’s salvation grace in Christ through your holy testimony (rather than your carnality), especially when we call ourselves Christians. Do not turn the greatest blessing into the greatest curse.
  
  
• Guide our children – (after they are saved) to find God's will in their lives and to obey it all their days, for all believers are saved and left behind on earth for service. The first aspect of God’s service to prayerfully consider is whether God wants us to serve as full-time servants of Christ in the local church or in the world. When the divine purpose of their existence is known to our Christian children, they will learn to trust God and live by faith as they see it done in their Christian parents’ lives. They will in turn pass this heavenly truth and experience to their children.

This is the spiritual and eternal inheritance Christian parents should leave behind for their children.

With God as their heavenly Father, Christian parents no longer need to worry about their children’s future from now till eternity. The family will be together for eternity as all are sealed forever by the precious blood of Christ. Nothing can separate them as they dwell in heaven in God’s presence.

The children will remember Christ and their Christian faith when they remember their parents!

A Fleeting Inheritance

The wicked will leave behind their wealth for the just. The wealth of the wicked is all material. They cannot leave behind anything else. The god of this world has deceived them into thinking that life is measured by the abundance of what they possess. “Money makes the world go round” has been the lie spun by the devil through the mass media for centuries. Millions have perished because of the ego and greed of despotic leaders who conquered nations to satisfy their self-inflated and foolish pride. Men and women from all walks of life have done the same to themselves as they slogged away their short life and passed this vain life to their children.

Education has become the most critical emphasis in every child’s life, as if education can solve all of life’s problems. Wealth of the wicked can solve life’s issues of food and clothing, but isn’t man’s life more than food and clothing? Has man forgotten that he came into the world naked and will depart the same way, and all that he had considered as wealth are, in reality, vanity, for he will soon die in his sin and be cast into hell? His wealth will be left behind for the just because the just are the only ones who will remain in eternity.

The just have God as their heavenly Father, the Creator of the universe. The children of the just will inherit all that God creates, including the new world which is called the new heaven and earth! Revelation 21:1-7: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. ²And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. ³And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. ⁴And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. ⁵And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. ⁶And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. ⁷He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.”

The inheritance we leave behind reveals who we are, does it not?