This time of year, one of our family’s favorite things to do is watch Christmas movies! We watch exactly the same ones every year – “Elf”, “A Christmas Carol”, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, “Holiday Inn” (it ends at Christmas, so it counts), and more. But, one of my favorites is “White Christmas” with Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.

The movie begins on Christmas Eve 1944 during WWII somewhere in Europe. Like all good musicals, the boys are putting on a show – right behind enemy lines of course! Their General, General Waverly is being replaced by a younger and more strict commander. Emotion always overcomes me when the men sing a song about and to the General about his influence on their lives and his leadership over his soldiers. The words go like this: “We’ll follow the old man wherever he wants to go…because we love him.”

THIS is a tribute to legacy! For the rest of the movie, these same men work to help this retired general save his inn in Vermont! Why? Because he has sacrificed himself for them, so now they want to give back and do the same for him! We know we have a legacy that will last when those we have led continue the kind of leadership we strive to offer, the level of sacrifice that we make, the depth of love that we show!

At Christmas time, we really are celebrating legacy – the impact and life of a baby named Jesus, who gave up his place in Heaven for the sake of those whom He chose to love, those for whom He would ultimately give His life for. Philippians 2:6-8 says this about Jesus:

“…Who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

In a sense, WE believers, WE followers of Him and WE soldiers of His cause are Jesus’ legacy! When we love and serve and sacrifice and even die for the sake of the Gospel, then we carry out His command to live like Him and for Him. Verse 5 of this same chapter give us the orders from our Commander Jesus:

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus...”

I wonder what each of our legacies will be. 

I wonder what each of our legacies will be. Will there be men and women who are followers of Jesus because of us? Will there be those whose marriages are better, whose walk with Christ is deeper, whose lives are like Jesus because we loved and served and sacrificed? Will there be those who will stand and declare their love for us – and more importantly their love for Jesus – because of us?

We love because Jesus first loved us! Let’s build on and continue His legacy for generations to come!