Legacy
Dear friends-
I am in the middle of working on a "book"of sorts dealing with revival of Springfield in 1834. (I am tying together the writings of Daniel Morton from 1834 and the current state of affairs. I am hoping to add some additional perspectives from a few of my younger ministerial friends. I read Pastor Morton's opening lines this morning.
I am a legacy person. (Even more so, I just realized only this morning, which should tell you where my head has been. That my $800 car is a Legacy...Now I just need to get the brakes fixed!) That means that I believe we need to leave something behind and it needs to be helpful to the generations to come. Our ceiling must be their floor. The irony of it is, that as I read his first lines, it sounds familiar to what we are seeing and saying.
Many saw the election as a "mistake." Now whether that is your belief or not is not really the question, but what is really upon us is, that as a nation we have enjoyed great prosperity and now we are seeing the difficulties that are following. Is is not so different from Biblical Israel, who would enjoy seasons of prosperity and seasons of the apparent hand of hell being raised against them?
The community I live in once was an extremely prosperous community, witnessed to by the elite sections of the town. Now we have embraced yet another dollar store. The pendulum swings. Thousands have lost their jobs.
I have devoted 13 years to this community and seeing the pendulum swing to the place of prosperity. The toll has been great. As I told a friend, I have followed every rule I know for the seeing of God's hand to move. The recent siege of water and related issues has been difficult, the other day I just snapped. Kneeling in water, with work to do, just telling God(OK-I was yelling it!) "I can not do this anymore."
But... I am determined to leave a legacy of goodness and mercy behind me one day. I will not and can not be one who falls away. Many have suggested curses and judgement(just as they have for those who have lost family and health), but if I believed that I would have left years and years ago. We have a case for leaving a legacy of righteousness as opposed to that of unrighteousness. Had I not become a Christian my children would have suffered. (Certainly more than they have thought.) And while I may not have had control over their "bad decisions" I was able to be available for the returns that each has made. My grandchildren would not have a place to stay...though it is a little wet today! Nor I, the friends I do. My wife and I have housed ex-cons who have raped and killed and stolen and we never had one violation against us.
So many have made decisions that have brought unrighteousness into both their spiritual and physical lineages. Perhaps you have seen this about the life of Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan and Sarah's Luminous Lineage
In 1900, A. E. Winship studied what happened to 1,400 descendants of Jonathan and Sarah by the year 1900. He found they included 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school, 30 judges, 66 physicians and a dean of a medical school, and 80 holders of public office, including three US Senators, mayors of three large cities, governors of three states, a Vice-President of the United States, and a controller of the United States Treasury. They had written over 135 books and edited eighteen journals and periodicals. Many had entered the ministry. Over 100 were missionaries and others were on mission boards. Winship wrote:
"Many large banks, banking houses, and insurance companies have been directed by them. They have been owners or superintendents of large coal mines of large iron plants and vast oil interests and silver mines . There is scarcely any great American industry that has not had one of this family among its chief promoters ."
Don't ever be deceived by what you see today. As I have counseled so many, "the seed of the righteous shall not perish." You are important. Your spiritual DNA is as important if not more to the things to come in this country than you would ever imagine. There is no need for remaining "stuck on stupid." We can so change this. You can affect a nation.
And for me, I am trying to embrace the 1941 words of Winston Churchill.
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Blessings,
Lee
Pillars Of Clouds& Fire Ministries
88 WCFR Drive
Springfield, Vermont 05156
802-384-3993
Building relationships for the goodness of our region.
www.pocafministries.org
I am in the middle of working on a "book"of sorts dealing with revival of Springfield in 1834. (I am tying together the writings of Daniel Morton from 1834 and the current state of affairs. I am hoping to add some additional perspectives from a few of my younger ministerial friends. I read Pastor Morton's opening lines this morning.
- The history of the Christian church presents a diversified scene. Light and shade, prosperity and adversity, joy and sorrow, revivals, defections and apostacies, follow each other in quick succession. In the apostolic age, a season of "refreshing from the presence of the Lord" was frequently followed by a terrible persecution; sometimes by alarming instances of apostacy; and generally by declensions more or less gradual. What is true of the great community of Christians; is so, in some degree, of individual churches. Unusual prosperity in a church seems to me now like "a handwriting upon the wall," or a signal held out from heaven, "prepare for trials." It is therefore with fear and trembling, that I proceed to give some account of the recent dealings of God with the church and people under my pastoral care.
I am a legacy person. (Even more so, I just realized only this morning, which should tell you where my head has been. That my $800 car is a Legacy...Now I just need to get the brakes fixed!) That means that I believe we need to leave something behind and it needs to be helpful to the generations to come. Our ceiling must be their floor. The irony of it is, that as I read his first lines, it sounds familiar to what we are seeing and saying.
Many saw the election as a "mistake." Now whether that is your belief or not is not really the question, but what is really upon us is, that as a nation we have enjoyed great prosperity and now we are seeing the difficulties that are following. Is is not so different from Biblical Israel, who would enjoy seasons of prosperity and seasons of the apparent hand of hell being raised against them?
The community I live in once was an extremely prosperous community, witnessed to by the elite sections of the town. Now we have embraced yet another dollar store. The pendulum swings. Thousands have lost their jobs.
I have devoted 13 years to this community and seeing the pendulum swing to the place of prosperity. The toll has been great. As I told a friend, I have followed every rule I know for the seeing of God's hand to move. The recent siege of water and related issues has been difficult, the other day I just snapped. Kneeling in water, with work to do, just telling God(OK-I was yelling it!) "I can not do this anymore."
But... I am determined to leave a legacy of goodness and mercy behind me one day. I will not and can not be one who falls away. Many have suggested curses and judgement(just as they have for those who have lost family and health), but if I believed that I would have left years and years ago. We have a case for leaving a legacy of righteousness as opposed to that of unrighteousness. Had I not become a Christian my children would have suffered. (Certainly more than they have thought.) And while I may not have had control over their "bad decisions" I was able to be available for the returns that each has made. My grandchildren would not have a place to stay...though it is a little wet today! Nor I, the friends I do. My wife and I have housed ex-cons who have raped and killed and stolen and we never had one violation against us.
So many have made decisions that have brought unrighteousness into both their spiritual and physical lineages. Perhaps you have seen this about the life of Jonathan Edwards.
Jonathan and Sarah's Luminous Lineage
In 1900, A. E. Winship studied what happened to 1,400 descendants of Jonathan and Sarah by the year 1900. He found they included 13 college presidents, 65 professors, 100 lawyers and a dean of a law school, 30 judges, 66 physicians and a dean of a medical school, and 80 holders of public office, including three US Senators, mayors of three large cities, governors of three states, a Vice-President of the United States, and a controller of the United States Treasury. They had written over 135 books and edited eighteen journals and periodicals. Many had entered the ministry. Over 100 were missionaries and others were on mission boards. Winship wrote:
"Many large banks, banking houses, and insurance companies have been directed by them. They have been owners or superintendents of large coal mines of large iron plants and vast oil interests and silver mines . There is scarcely any great American industry that has not had one of this family among its chief promoters ."
Don't ever be deceived by what you see today. As I have counseled so many, "the seed of the righteous shall not perish." You are important. Your spiritual DNA is as important if not more to the things to come in this country than you would ever imagine. There is no need for remaining "stuck on stupid." We can so change this. You can affect a nation.
And for me, I am trying to embrace the 1941 words of Winston Churchill.
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Blessings,
Lee
Pillars Of Clouds& Fire Ministries
88 WCFR Drive
Springfield, Vermont 05156
802-384-3993
Building relationships for the goodness of our region.
www.pocafministries.org
posted by Servant Communications at 4:15 AM
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