How you live your life today is a direct reflection of those who have gone before you.  And just as Nehemiah’s work and influence left a lasting legacy on Jerusalem and the Jewish race, what you do today does have an impact on future generations.  And as a follower of Jesus, one of the greatest opportunities that you’ve been given is to leave a lasting legacy.

• Who has left a lasting legacy in your life and what is that legacy?
• Name someone you think is leaving a positive legacy in our world today and why?

Read Nehemiah 7:1-5 & I Corinthians 9:27.  After the wall was completed, it was critical that Nehemiah remain committed to the work.  Even though the work on the wall was very hard, building a lasting legacy meant recommitting to the hard work that lay ahead as he sought to establish the next phases in the total restoration of Jerusalem and Israel.  Recommitting to the work meant first of all maintaining discipline in being the leader, but secondly beginning to establish future successors to the work already started.  The two things Nehemiah knew were not to rely on past successes to obtain future goals and that success without a successor meant future failure.

• How has discipline helped you in being a person of influence at work or at home?
• Describe a time you relied too much upon a successful past performance in trying to complete a current project, task, commitment or goal.

To build a lasting legacy through your life you must also evaluate or reevaluate the people or things that influence you the most.  You need people who are skilled, educated, wise, full of integrity, and God fearing to help you grow, make right decisions in life, and support you as you become that leader that influences the next generation.

• Make a list of the people and things that influence your life today.  
• In evaluating each of them, are they the right people, right books, right TV shows, etc., to make you a better leader?

Read I Timothy 3:4.  Finally, building a lasting legacy means investing your life in the right people.  Great leaders are always committed to sowing seeds in the present because they expect to reap positive harvests in the future. Nehemiah invested his life and mission into many people, but two of the most important were his brother Hanani, who was faithful, and his successor as commander Haniniah, who was fruitful.  You too are called to invest in your family who God has given you, and into strategic people whom God is raising up.

• Who are the key relationships you are investing your life in building future leaders, future kingdom builders?
• How are you investing in your family/children for life success and a life of faith?
• How will you begin or increase your commitment to investing in your family and future leaders?
• Name a person in which you will begin to invest more of your time and life to build them up for future success.