Key Passage: Psalm 112: 1-3

Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, Who delights greatly in His commandments. His descendants will be mighty on earth; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches will be in his house, And his righteousness endures forever.

The most fulfilled life is the one lived in the will of God, and the greatest legacy a person can bequeath to posterity is the knowledge and fear of the Lord. A godly man is blessed (fortunate, favored and empowered to prosper), because God is always by him to uphold him. But the life of an ungodly man is not so. He is like a shrub in the desert and his posterity is cursed.

A US scholar conducted a case study on the family trees of two Americans who lived in the early 18th Century. One was Jonathan Edwards, a preacher of the Gospel, who gave God first place in his life and married a godly young lady. Out of over 1,394 of his descendants traced over a century, 295 became university graduates, 13 were university presidents, 65 were professors, 30 became judges, over 100 became renown lawyers, 60 were medical doctors, 75 were top military officers, over 100 were renown ministers of the Gospel, over 80 elected to public offices, with one being the Controller of US Treasury, three being Mayors of large US cities, three elected US Senators, three elected Governors of States and one becoming the Vice President of US.

The other was Max Jukes, a contemporary of Jonathan Edwards who lived in the same part of US and married a golden woman, but who had no regard for God. When the lives of 540 of his descendants were traced over a century, it was found out that 310 of them died as paupers, 100 were drunkards, and 150 became criminals, with seven being murderers. Half of his female descendents ended up as prostitutes. By the year 1800, the cursed family of Max Jukes cost the US Government a liability of $1.25 million, an equivalent of $1.2 billion today.

These illustrations show vividly the difference it makes to have God at the center of ones life, and how it could affect the generations after.

Pray: Lord, take away from me anything that takes me away from you. Help me to live a godly life and to bequeath the knowledge and fear of God to the generation after me.

 

Written by – Evangelist Oguazi Onyemobi