Transcript of ‘Passing the Torch of Legacy’

 Ruth, was someone who left her land and chose the God that we know as heavenly Father to be her God. She promised Naomi, I wanna go where you go. Live where you live and die. Where you die, your God be my God. Good evening ladies. Welcome to Thursday We Thrive. It is the Wild Women of Legacy Book Club, and I am excited to present to you today.

A topic, dear to my heart, leaving a legacy, to the next generation. You know, it’s one thing to live a life well and to do the best that you can in your life. And there are always obstacles and challenges and things that don’t want you to succeed. And might I even say people? That don’t want your success.

So it’s a challenge and I look at our young people today and I have concern for them that they would overcome any challenge and walk through any trouble that’s trying to be in their way. And I want to be a one that’s cheering them on and offering them, a hand of help. The ways that God has shown me to do that.

So, this is a part of what this Women of Legacy book and book club is all about, passing the torch. And this is chapter five that we are have arrived to, is passing the torch of Legacy. And to pass the torch, you have to live the legacy first. Then, see it worthy enough to pass to the next generation.

And so that is what this, book has been all about. Just a little backstory about Women of Legacy. I had written of Wow, women of Worth, and many of you know my origin story of how I was teaching in the jail system with a mentor of mine. She wasn’t a mentor of mine at first, but she became one and I never forgot her.

Even 20 years later, I was still talking about her, what she did for me in my life. It was so, significant that the day before I started with her teaching, I was only supposed to be there for prayer support. Probably wouldn’t even call on me. I was told to say anything, just be there and be prayerful and anything she needed that I could do that, do to help her.

That was to be my role. But the night before that, I started with her, I had a vision and I, dreamed of seeing the Lord Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father. I didn’t see the father, I just saw the throne, and he was seated and he was observing us going into the jail system. And he stood up.

He stood up to see with interest to see what we were doing. It seemed like he was in approval. He was cheering us on. I saw his one side that was, glorious and then I saw the other side that was tethered. Like he had, like the scripture described him that he was beaten so that. He was unrecognizable, from his wounds.

And I saw that side and then I woke up. But I never forgot the significance of starting there with her in that jail system. And that is where WOW Women of Worth was birthed out of that class, she called on me unexpectedly. I swallowed real hard and agreed to fill in for her. I swallowed real hard because that group was, in particular a rowdy bunch.

Some groups that came through, they were, you know, calm and just shuffled in and, out with low self-esteem, But this particular group, they had no problems with their self-esteem, it seemed, they were all loud and boisterous. Mrs. Mouse is what I felt like. But after that day that God pushed me out there and I taught for the first time by myself in maximum security jail.

Mrs. Mouse was gone. She was gone. And those ladies’ lives were changed forever as well. So here we are with a third book and book club for that particular book. WOW! Women of Legacy is the name of the book. So I started out with that WOW Women of Worth. And there were so many others that jumped out.

I felt like they were in competition although I didn’t feel competitive because of how I had received the message. That was the message that God gave me to give those inmates, tell them they’re WOW! Women of Worth, they are my women of worth. And then the Wow, women of Destiny was birthed along with that.

The third message was birthed from that prayer. He communicated to me that he had another message I it through the design work I was doing, the design work for what I thought was going to be a companion

workbook for the two earlier books. I was designing the workbook. I started looking at it and said, this is just too beautiful for a workbook. Why am I designing a workbook this beautiful in my eyes? I’m not bragging. It came from the Lord to him be the glory. But I said, this is just too beautiful.

There must be a message with this. So I inquired of the Lord. And here we are. WOW! Women of Legacy. The third book of this trilogy message that God has given for his women to first of all know that they are women of worth and then to know that they have destiny. He is calling them to every one of us, not just some of us, or not just a couple here, but every one of us has that message of destiny in us and then to know our worth, and then find out our destiny and start pursuing it.

Then here we are with the next generation. We have to be responsible to pass it to our next generation so that they can stand on our shoulders so that they can go that much further than we went, so that God is, um, generational. God, remembered Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or Abraham, Isaac and Israel. And Jacob, we just studied them on Wednesdays in the word.

So I’m, that’s very much top of mind right now. But God is a generational God. He goes from generation to generation. He wants to pass the blessing as well as the torch from generation to generation. So here we are. Preparing the torch. And that is my question, for us today, are you living a life worth passing?

Are you living the legacy so that you can leave the legacy? And sometimes we’re, we’re very absorbed in our own problems, our own challenges, our own goals and purpose for life. And, uh, we may miss the opportunity to pass it to. Another generation if we stay that way. But God gives us opportunity to look outside of ourself and see that, that our, that we are making sure we’re having a hand back or under us, or even lateral.

It doesn’t always have to be back, but even lateral, that we have a hand that’s available. To our next generation. And that is a charge that God has given me to give to you as a women, um, a wow woman that is my charge to you. That we not, uh, forget those that are coming up behind us, that are looking to us to lead the way.

And sometimes it may seem like they are. Uh, instead of leading, looking to us to lead the way, they’re looking to us to get out of the way. Sometimes it seems like that, but, uh, when it’s like that we just have to trust God to, uh, help them be patient and teach them, model it for them. If, if we can’t tell them many times, we can’t tell them, they won’t listen to our words, but they are looking at us.

They are observing your life. They are reading Your Epistle. Our Life is an epistle. It is a book that is read most every day by someone. They are reading a chapter in your book about how you are handling life, about how you are handling that trouble that’s in your life, or that challenge, or how you are handling success.

Um, I always forget his name, but the basketball player, uh, forgive me, I, I reluctantly use him. An ex as an example. Uh, he was, had the bad boy syndrome going on, so maybe his good, I don’t remember his name. Uh, he had the bad boy syndrome going on and he was just living him, his life for himself, and someone asked him, well, how do you feel about.

Being a role model for, you know, the kids that are coming behind you, you are a role model. And he responded rather quickly. I’m no role model. And then later he was discovered saying that I was, you know, he didn’t say he was wrong, he just said that he is, he acknowledged that he was a role model, whether he wanted to be or not.

He was a role model. And people watch his success. And, it’s the same way with all of us. It’s all I’m trying to express that it’s the same for us all. We are a role model to someone. I drove up to, uh, a Wendy’s. This was back in the day. Uh, I’m not there now. But I drove up to a Wendy’s in the area that I was living in, and I had a, I had my, my little pants suit on.

I had a, I was driving a Lexus and. I, um, my ring was, you know, just there, and I, I overheard the drive through person go like, did you see that? Did you see that? And I was, I’m laughing because I was so unaware. I’m going like, I’m, I’m really not that successful. I’m not that, I’m not that what you think I am.

I’m struggling in ways that you probably don’t even understand. So I didn’t feel like a role model is all I’m trying to say, but I was to that person, to that person and the way it is with us all. You may be, may think you haven’t accomplished very much at all yet someone is observing your life and they’re thinking, wow, I wish I could be like that.

Or I wanna be like that. So we have to stay aware that someone is reading our epistle no matter where you are in life. As a review, I talk about what we did, talked about last session. We, uh, feature the featured ladies in this chapter, chapter four. Um, was the daughter-in-laws of Naomi and it was Ruth and or.

We discovered in history that they were at the crossroads of their life and Naomi was returning to her Bethel. Her land and their family had moved away during her famine and she had lost her husband and her two sons and her daughter-in-laws were preparing to go with her, and she felt grieved to the point where she says, I don’t want you to go with me.

Even if I were to marry and have a son now, would you wait for them to grow up so that you could marry them? Their customs were like that, and she said, I don’t think so. You will have a better chance, a better opportunity. To marry again and be provided for if you return to your land and your people. And Opa chose to tearfully.

She chose to go back to her land and history tells us the Bible Scholars say that when she went back to her land, she married one of the relatives, uh, the giant. That King David faced as a teenager, you know, uh, Goliath. He was one of the relatives of Goliath and was eventually, um, fought and overcome by one of King David’s, uh, spiritual son.

And so I thought that was really interesting. But Ruth chose to stay with Naomi, and as you know, the book of Ruth is named after Ruth, who was a real person. She, uh, went on to be in the genealogy of Christ and married boas. And even today people say, I married my boas, or I want to marry my boas. Someone that covers you and protects you.

That is what Boaz means symbolically, even today. So she went on to be one of the role models. The Bible for someone leaving their land and choosing the God that we know as heavenly Father choosing him to be her God. She promised Naomi said, saying, um, I wanna go where you go. Live where you live and die, where you die, and your God be my God is what she finalized it with.

And Naomi finally said, well, all right then. So they went on together and the rest is history in the Book of Ruth, uh, in the Bible. So it was an interesting lesson last time and chapter. Uh, we talked about overcoming the giants of your generation, and we encouraged ourselves. I say ourselves because this is also for me and my life.

Uh. We want to overcome giants that our children don’t have to overcome, and that’s why it’s so important to cultivate a thankful heart for the people that have lived in the generation before us because they face challenges and overcame them, and it’s challenges that we don’t have to face. Even the people in the civil rights.

Movement, they face challenges during that era that we don’t have to face necessarily. There’s a, doesn’t mean everything is perfect, and it doesn’t mean that all problems are solved on that front, but it does mean that we don’t have to face the same challenges and even the generation before that, and we can go all the way back to when this country was formed.

Some of those challenges that they faced, died, and bled for, or bled and died for, we don’t have to face those anymore because they were already taken care of in that day. So we have something to be thankful for and to pass to our next generation. So I encourage the women that, uh, we want to be busy overcoming the giants of our generation so that our children do not have to face the same ones.

It doesn’t mean they won’t face any, but they don’t have to be the ones that we have to face because we overcome them and are ready to pass the torch to the next generation. I start out with, um, that ends my review. I start out with beginning, um, of a leg, beginning a legacy, five glorious reasons to walk in his will and his way.

God says in Isaiah that my ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not your thoughts. The way I think about things is much higher. It doesn’t mean that um, he doesn’t want our thoughts and our ways to be his. He does a kingdom. Another phrase for kingdom is his way of doing things, and the Bible in the New Testament, it says, seek first the kingdom and his righteousness.

All other things will be added to you. So another way with that defining phrase is seek first God’s way of doing things and his righteousness and all other things will be added to you. So we want to be busy with doing things God’s way as a disciple of Christ, as a disciple of Christ. Um, our text for that.

Is so don’t worry about tomorrow, or tomorrow will bring its own worry. Today’s trouble is enough for today, and that’s from Matthew 6 33 and 34. And it, it encourages us to take it a day at a time, even with, uh, those weighty topics that we just went through, you know, the blessing and curses and. The Giants of the generation.

These are no lightweight topics. I remember once, um, years ago, this lady, uh, contacted us and she was saying, I, um, she was saying, I think you guys should be involved in this. We are tackling the. The giant, um, I think she said, call racism, call ra racism. And I’m not laughing at her and no whys, don’t misunderstand me.

But, uh, and our advice, and mostly my deceased husband’s advice was, has God said that you should do that? And she was saying, well, uh. I don’t, I don’t, I can’t say for sure. You can’t say for sure. You don’t tackle a giant like that without God’s leading. It may not be for you to tackle that, and you best make sure it’s for, for you, because sometimes if we take the battle upon ourselves and just say, I wanna fight this because it’s a.

Because it’s there and it’s, um, hindering me in my life. It may not be your battle or it may not be something you should pursue. You can’t do it by yourself. And I’m sure you understand that because you contacted us. But it’s gonna like, no, I don’t think Uhuh, that has to be God ordained. If you feel that.

And let me tell you if, um, Dr. Martin Luther King could weigh in on that, I. He would tell you that, um, it’s no, it’s no joke. It’s no joke. And you better be sure that God is leading you before you march out against something that just because you think it’s wrong and you can do something about it. It needs to be God ordained.

It’s all I’m saying needs to be God ordained. So Lois and Eunice. The featured women, women in this, um, chapter and um, I go back up to the text for the whole chapter was, I am reminded of your sincere faith which first lived in your grandmother Lo and in your mother Eunice. And I am persuaded now lives in you also.

He was talking, that was Apostle Paul talking to Timothy, and we are calling him Pastor Timothy now because he installed him as pastor in a certain church at that time and and he even has two books, small books and the Bible, pastor Timothy does Timothy one and Timothy two. And when he started out, his advice to him was.

Don’t let them despise you because you’re young. You do the work of the ministry and you do what God tells you to do. Don’t let them despise you. And many times we find ourselves, uh, receiving the same advice. Don’t let them despise you because you’re a woman. You do the work of the ministry and you do what God tells you to do.

I don’t let them. Tell you, uh, despise you because you are, uh, another nationality. You’re a person of color. Don’t let them despise you. You carry the gospel just like God has commanded you to do or don’t let them despise you because you are a child. God has called you early. You go, go with him. Follow Jesus.

He’ll lead the way. He’ll lead the way. So there were several points in here that, uh, five, five glorious reasons to walk in his way and his will. The first one is live his way and have a happy life. I could have said, have a happier life. It doesn’t always equal happiness. Happiness, uh, is a choice and it’s a, um.

I have that same scripture as a reference about don’t worry about today, uh, tomorrow. Don’t worry about tomorrow because we have enough trouble in the day itself. Just be concerned about that day. If you are worrying, pray his way and get answers to prayer. When we align our prayers with God’s word, we are, we can be certain of an answer.

It may not always be the answer you want. But you will receive an answer when you align your words of your prayer with God’s word. He said, this is the confidence we have, that if we pray according to his will and his will is his word, then we know we have the answer from him. We know we have it. I think his thoughts learn his ways and fulfill his plans.

I say. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways, my ways declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your and my thoughts? Than your thoughts For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and did not return and do not return there without watering the earth and thinking, uh.

Making it bare and sprout and furnishing seed to the soar and bread to the eater. So will my word be, which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty or void without accomplishing whatever it sent to do. So when we, um, align ourself with his ways and his thoughts, we can be guaranteed of success.

Again, it may not always come when we think it should come, but it will come. All of God’s promises are yes and amen. Noah’s way is to, uh, trouble those who trouble you. And this, uh, speaks to the NCE word that we have been teaching on and another, um, time of teaching. I’ve allotted it all this year for. On Sunday, we’ve been teaching about God’s recompense, his payback, and his, uh, vengeance is his, he will repay.

It says, uh, to know that God is a balancing God. He seeks to balance all of our situations, to work all things together for, for good, for those who are called according to his purpose and that love him, essentially, his people. He’s called to work all things together for the good of his people. Commit your way to the Lord and trust him to receive his way, his plan, his destiny for your life.

And when we commit our lives to him, he is busy about, um, bringing to pass what he has spoken over our life. He is busy. Uh, he’s always at work. It’s in the, the Waymaker song about God making a way. He’s always at work and we can know this. So that ends that section. Um, the next section we talk about the hope of heaven, but what do you believe about heaven?

I, this chapter is a rather long, and essentially I talk about what we as Christians believe. Heaven. And one thing we believe that when we confess Christ, it is an inheritance heaven, is we inherit heaven, we become heirs to heaven, and we can be assured of having made heaven. Um, we confess Christ. Um, some of the re recent deaths in my life.

Over the years has it caused me to, uh, examine again, what do I really believe about heaven? Do I think my loved ones are in heaven? Do I really believe that? And now is always a good time to decide what you really believe about heaven. So Jesus, one of Jesus’, um, instructive or directives to his disciples was, I go to prepare a place for you.

I go ahead to prepare a place, and his disciples were, well, where are you going? And he says, you can’t come. Well, where are you going? That we can’t come right now? And he was speaking of heaven in my father’s house. There are many mansions. And if it were not so, I would not have told you. I would not have said it.

So he, um, went to prepare a place. He is there waiting to welcome us as we transition from this life to into eternal life. And um, so it is an inheritance. Heaven is a part of our inheritance as Christians. And I mentioned a heavenly home for each believer. He says he has many mansions there prepared for us.

So that’s one thing we can believe about heaven. He assures us if it were not so he would not be telling us. And it’s a place where we can expect to live forever. We can expect to live there forever. And so if you have, uh, the Bible instructs us that we don’t have to grieve, like others that don’t know price or don’t know where they’re going, or don’t know where their family member has gone.

We don’t have to grieve that way, we can be sad about it, about missing them, and, but when they have no Christ, we can be assured that they have gone to a better place where there are no tears, where, um, a place that they, uh, are gonna reside forever. We can expect to see them again when we get there. So it is a hopeful existence that we are expecting in life after death, eternal life, which is one of the reasons why it is so important, that choice that I’ve been talking about in all of our teachings, that the choice between eternal death or eternal life.

There is a choice to be made. And for those that don’t believe their choice has already been made, if you don’t believe so, um, we’re always, as a Bible teacher or preacher, we’re always encouraging you to believe and make that choice for heaven. So I, I have two sections on that, and that’s all I’ll say about that.

And then we go on down to, uh. 10 more ways to walk in his glorious wheel and his way. And so I, I’ve only allotted 30 minutes or less for each of these teachings. It’s kinda like, um, an excerpt teaching of the chapter. I was, uh, pleasantly surprised when God called me to write this third book that I thought I was just gonna have sketchy information, you know, just a few.

Chapters to fill out, to round out the series. I don’t know specifically all of what I was thinking, but I wasn’t thinking that it was gonna be a full fledged, uh, full size book. I thought it was gonna be more like a very thin book for the end. And I’m chuckling because when God calls you, you don’t necessarily know what he’s gonna say because we think we know.

But you don’t know what he’s gonna say until he says it. He’s that kind of guy. And lo and behold, I’m like, I think this is thicker than the the other two. And so I was pleasantly surprised that God, in my little small waking way of thinking, or my little portion that he’s given me to, uh, impart to the women, uh, that was my thinking, but.

God is an awesome God. He did not hold back, is all I’m trying to express. He did not hold back. He gave us something to sink our teeth in and say, oh man, even when our loved one goes to heaven, I found myself thinking differently about heaven. I thought differently about it. It wasn’t some farfetched thing or farfetched idea.

Of what heaven is. It was like I had a new curiosity and so I enjoyed doing this study about the hope of heaven and I hope you will have enjoyed reading it or, or get to read it, um, about the hope of heaven. It is a glorious hope that we have of Kevin being a better place for us. One of our, um. Leaders.

Years ago, one of our leaders, uh, died in a, a drunken driving, uh, accident. And one of the visions of the member, one of the members had a vision that she was turning Somers salts, I guess real, it’s real, it’s real. And excitement and, uh, that she was going to heaven was all I’m trying to express. It’s, it’s a real place.

Heaven is a real place and those golden streets are real golden streets. So I was, uh, looking to see if there was anything else I wanted to mention about heaven, and I’ll go through here quickly. It just a place of worship to God. Heaven is a place of worship and I have the scripture supporting it in the book where we are entirely righteous.

We are holy and made as Jesus. He has a glorified body, um, in heaven, and we will become like him when things are new. It’s, it’s new in heaven. It’s, it’s new. The former things are gone. A place where peace and joy, resigns or rain, peace and joy rains there. There’s no more sorrow there. A place for the humble, not just the rich and famous to be, um, made wealthy if the streets are made or gold since the streets are made or gold, uh, there’s no lack in heaven.

There’s no lack. And this it, uh, I have here. Don’t depend on. Own understanding, but trust God. And when you want to know more about heaven, ask God to show you. You may be surprised what he shows you. You may be one of the ones that gets to visit heaven. There are ones that said, God chose me. I don’t know why he chose me to, uh, visit heaven and come back and tell others about heaven.

And many have, uh, come back and. Said that the main, uh, thing that he wanted me to commun communicate is he is coming again. And one person, uh, specifically said, well, Jesus, they, they know you’re coming. And he was very firm and stern. No, they don’t know, like they need to know. Tell them I am coming again.

And so that for many, that is the reigning message that they have after visiting Heaven. So, um, like I said earlier, this is an excerpt teaching. I did not do an exhaustive teaching on Kevin, but it is, um, a large subject that could be talked about for a very long time. But I hope it will be a comfort to you and.

As of more like an appetizer to find out more about heaven. And finally, it’s a place, place where we reverence him and God bids us to proclaim it to our children. Have a conversation with your CH children about heaven. What are they thinking and feeling about heaven so far? You know, you may have you, you may be surprised at some of their answers.

They may tell you that they’ve already seen heaven and just hadn’t talked about it, but I encourage you to have a conversation with your children about heaven. So, uh, the rest of that chapter is, uh, talking, encouraging you to, uh, prepare your life as a legacy to pass to the next generation. And whatever way God leads you to do it, he may lead you to.

Write a book, write a journal of your life, less lessons, or he may lead you to speak to others, especially our young people. Speak to others about, um, your life, lessons that you’ve learned that are very important, that will help others, uh, achieve what you’ve achieved or achieve what they are desiring to achieve your life lessons.

Are important as, um, especially to the people you influence. They’re important and many times our next generation will suffer for it if you don’t pass it or if you don’t find some way to communicate it for them. So I encourage the women that, those that choose to, to write down some of those life lessons.

I say up to 10 at least. 10 life lessons that you have learned in life and write them down either in a journal, you can write ’em in a journal or a diary. If you don’t, if you’re not, um, book oriented, or if you’re more speaker oriented, prepare a speech with those life lessons. Do something to communicate what you’ve learned in your life.

Amen. Well, that’s it for me today. I. Pray that you’ve gotten something out of this lesson that will encourage you and help you out in your journey of leaving a legacy. See you next time.

End of Blog

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