SERIES INTRODUCTION        
My mum makes the best sponge cake. She inherited the recipe from her mother and I will inherit it from her. However, for me to learn how to bake this sponge cake I need to watch how she makes it. The recipe alone does not show how to fold the flour in a particular way or how to sift the dry ingredients. We live such a full life that scheduling time to do that with my mum does not seem to be happening. While I have a fair idea of what I need to do, it is in the actual baking of the cake that I will learn to make the family sponge. I so value having her with me when I try to bake this cake because she guides me through the process.

I want you for this week to think of inheritance and legacy in the following way: Inheritance is something you receive after someone dies—i.e. the sponge cake recipe handed down to my mum from my nanna.
Legacy as something you learn while living alongside someone else—i.e. the baking skills my mother learned alongside her mother.

The dictionary says that inheritance and legacy are synonyms, but for this week humor me and play along. Legacy is what receive while both parties are living. Inheritance is what we receive after someone else has died.

So here is the thing: While I cannot yet bake the sponge cake I want to learn because I love that cake.
Because my mum loves me, she encourages me to keep going even though I fail. Even though I have not perfected the sponge, with each fail I learn something new that adds to my experience. I keep trying because I love the cake and I want to do what my mum and nanna have done. What we love or fear determines what we do. What we do shows who we are. Who we are shows where we are from.

So for this week, let's look at how we do our everyday lives. Are we baking from God’s recipe or our own?
In our failings is there success? And for those who are doing life with us, are they learning to live a life of love?  If not love, what do you think they are learning?

Thank you, Jesus, that believers are made joint heirs adopted into the family of God. —Romans 8:16-17