When God thinks about you, the relationship he wants with you, who he wants you to become and what he wants you to do, he's thinking about a much bigger story than the story of your life. God is thinking about the generational story he's writing. You are a link in the chain of blessings, power and purpose he wants to release through your your descendants.
And also that comes down from your ancestors to you. God passes his blessings from one generation to the next. Deuteronomy 7:9 in ESV version says, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations."
Following the way of the cross makes you a blessing to your family, your friends, even people who don't know you personally. And it gives you a spiritual legacy. Your children, their children and on through your family line will be blessed by the life you are living today.
Acts 2:39 tells us, "For the promise is for you and to your children." Peter was speaking to a huge crowd on the day of Pentecost. The promise he referred to is the promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. It's not just for you. It's for your descendants. It's for the future generations of all man.
Your choice to live for God, for self or for Satan will change history. Dutch shared this powerful example. He writes in Al Sanders book Crisis in Morality. He compares the descendants of an atheist, Max Jukes, to the offspring of a well known preacher of that same era, Jonathan Edwards.
Max Jukes married an ungodly girl and among their descendants were 310 who died as paupers, 150 as criminals, 7 as murderers, 100 as drunkards, and more than half of the women were prostitutes. Jonathan Edwards lived at the same time and married a godly girl, Sarah Pierpont. An investigation was made of 1,394 known descendants of theirs.
Of these descendants, 13 became college presidents, 65 college professors, 3 United States senators, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and Navy officers, 100 preachers and missionaries, 6060 authors of Prominence, 1 a vice president of the United States, 80 became public officials and 295 college graduates, among whom were governors of states and ministers to foreign countries.
Could any testimony more powerfully make my point? Success, favor and blessing can multiply down through the generations. But you are part maybe the beginning of a generational storyline that God is writing. And it's not just physical children who will carry your favor and your blessings forward. Spiritual mothers and fathers have many, many children.
God calls each of us to grow up to father and mother those who come after us.