It's Hereditary...

Someone asked me a question since my dad's recent heart operation. "Is this hereditary?" I really do not know, but it did get me thinking. I then had a conversation with my older brother about his father, who also had some heart problems at one time. We talked a bit about needing to be proactive in knowing if there was anything that ran in the family.

It got me thinking though, as we talked about family life and what is passed down to our daughters. My spiritual health is also somewhat hereditary. How I respond to life, how I love, how I show compassion, how I live.

Philippians 2:14-18 "Do everything without complaining or arguing. Then you will be innocent and without any wrong. You will be God's children without fault. But you are living with crooked and mean people all around you, among whom you shine like stars in the dark world. You offer teaching that gives life. So when Christ comes again, I can be happy because my work was not wasted. I ran the race and won.

"Your faith makes you offer your lives as a sacrifice in serving God. If I have to offer my own blood with your sacrifice, I will be happy and full of joy with all of you. You also should be happy and full of joy with me."

Do you hear the generational sacrifice in this passage. Paul is talking to the believers in Philippi, but I might as well be talking to my daughter. I know that my faith is what makes me serve, but it is the love of God within me for others, especially those closest to me that would cause me to offer blood on top of it.

Am I healthy? Spiritually? Am I doing all that I can to pass along faith and not fear, action and not complacency; hope and not despair, encouragement and not discouragement; love and not apathy, obedience and not idolatry. "And now these three remain: Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love." I Co. 13

James 4:14,
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