Reflect: Let’s focus in on verse 28 in the Message version of the Bible, “You’ve heard me tell you, ‘I’m going away, and I’m coming back.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m on my way to the Father because the Father is the goal and purpose of my life.”
Jesus wants His disciples to know that His impending experience on the cross is not the end of His ministry; it is the beginning of His ministry’s final purpose and the completion of God’s will for His life. Jesus was living out His life purpose and leaving a legacy that glorified God.
Jesus left a legacy of fulfilling the mission in life that God had planned for Him from the beginning. God has a plan, a mission for your life and a legacy He wants you to leave too. “It’s in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for,” Ephesians 1:11. A current example of someone who lived out his life purpose would be our 41st president of the United States. On November 30, 2018, President George H.W. Bush, joined his wife in Heaven. It has been said that he wrote his own eulogy with his life. He authored no formal autobiography, but he lived with such courage, patriotism, and integrity that his life became his legacy. This is true for all of us whether positive or negative, our lives become our legacies by the choices we make each day. Billy Graham puts it this way, “The greatest legacy one can pass on to one’s children and grandchildren is not money or other material things accumulated in one’s life, but rather a legacy of character and faith.”