Christian Heritage

Heritage

I don’t know if other countries have official bodies like this, but here in England we have two bodies - English Heritage and The National Trust. Both of these august organisations buy or are given properties, sometimes very substantial properties, often complete with the contents, of superb examples of places of significant national historic interest. We have some quite close by. Places like Isaac Newton’s birthplace, which is a small farmhouse, and Belton House, which is a grand old country house set in hundreds of acres of parkland with herds of wild deer roaming all over the place. These are places of great historic importance to our country – they are part of our heritage.

Christians have a heritage too. It is a heritage, not of properties or things, but rather a heritage of lives lived and often given for the Lord. We even have one such family in our church. Missionaries and clergy going back generations – at least 5 generations – on both sides of the family, and those families having been spread all over the world in their day. Quite well known too, their ancestors were, and these families, the modern day descendants of long gone zealous missionaries and clerics, are very conscious of the heritage in their line. Indeed, one of today’s generation, is returning to the place her Great-Great Grandfather lived for 50 years – it’s her third trip there. She is bravely carrying on the family tradition. There is honour in that family – honour for God first, and honour for their forbears in that this generation is carrying on building upon the heritage they have been handed through the family line.

What is our inheritance from the Church and, more importantly, what heritage are we building for our grandchildren? On the one hand, sadly, the Church is throwing away its heritage by acquiescing to all the modern demands, restrictions, and legislation without much of a fight – if any at all. On the other hand, however, we have a rising generation of young zealots who put many of us oldies to shame by refusing to remain silent on issues important to their religious freedom and the heritage that they have inherited. Many today are preparing to take prison rather than obey a law that is contrary to God’s law – and that’s here in America and the UK. We are becoming, once again, a missionary church in the sense that old time missionaries knew there would be battles, hardship, persecution, and death, yet they carried on with their calling regardless of the consequences.

This, perhaps, is our main inheritance today. This is what we should begin to expect – if we are not already experiencing it. We are having to learn to fight and to suffer for the Gospel of Jesus Christ – just as our ancestors did. It’s not an easy lesson. Worse than that, it is a potentially very costly lesson. Are we about to suffer in the West some of what they have suffered in recent years in the East? There is far more revival in those places where there is persecution because persecution births that burning desire to bless our persecutors. How better to do that than by continuing to spread the Word, and leading their persecutors into the light of Jesus presence on their lives?

Christianity and Christians have never been under so much attack as they are now. Perhaps now we are truly realising the heritage we have and the responsibility to our children and our children’s children. Perhaps it is only in persecution that the Lord can birth revival in us? Either way, the heritage we have received will stand us in good stead as we seek to build on that heritage for future generations.