A Year with Jesus: 'Investing in God's Future'

What Jesus Might Say

Dear Precious Disciple,

I appreciate your desire to follow Me and put Me first in your life. Your efforts at faithfulness do not go unnoticed. Your work to honor the Father will not be forgotten. Thank you for your courage to live for Me in a world that so often turns away from My teaching.

As you live your life of faith, I urge you to pay attention to Paul's words to Timothy (2 Timothy 2:1-2). He was reminding Timothy that while living faithfully in your current generation is vital, you must also help build the future of God's people by investing in the younger generations around you. Live for your grandchildren - both your physical grandchildren and your spiritual grandchildren - to have faith!

Don't write off or dismiss as hopeless those younger than you just because they are immature or find themselves caught up in a culture different from your own. Just as Paul always had several younger men around him that he was training - John Mark, Timothy, Silas, and Titus for example - you must also invest in loving and training those younger than you. Notice that Paul made clear that this principle wasn't just for men. He challenged Titus to call older women to invest their lives in younger women, as well (Titus 2:4 NLT). This training principle is universal and essential if future generations are going to have faith in Me!

The Father has always wanted us to live for future generations to have faith. I lived that way myself, investing in my apostles and telling them to invest in future disciples by training them to obey what I taught (Matthew 28:18-20).

Even in my crucifixion, I was investing in future generations to have faith. Remember the Psalm that defined my death? Notice how it begins - my agony - and how it ends - my victory declared to future generations!

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
...
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it!

(Psalm 22:1, 30-31)

Please, dear follower, live for future generations to have faith by investing in them, praying for them, and encouraging them in their life of faith.

Verses Jesus Might Suggest

Notice Paul's principle that he taught to Timothy, a principle for four generations of faith:

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.
(2 Timothy 2:1-2)

Our Response in Prayer

O Father, I am convicted by Jesus' call to make disciples and Paul's challenge to Timothy to invest in future generations. Please use me, dear Father, to make a difference in the lives of future generations. Be with my children and my grandchildren - both physical and spiritual - and guard them as I invest myself in them. Forgive me, dear Lord, for not focusing on them as I should. Give me the wisdom to know best how to bless them for their future and Your glory. In the name of Jesus, I ask for this grace. Amen.