Your Choices Impact Future Generations

Choices lead to consequences.

Good choices have positive consequences; sinful choices have negative consequences.

Those statements are not surprising to us, yet we often forget them, or at least don’t think much about them. We make choices every day, but we do not always see the consequences of those choices. In addition, sometimes we don’t believe that the negative consequences of our sinful choices will be “that bad” compared to the immediate pleasure we receive from indulging ourselves.

That kind of reasoning is not only dangerous, but also naive. There are times in Scripture when choices people make not only impact their own lives, but also impact future generations.

For instance, Adam and Eve sinned against God in the garden. Their sin not only yielded consequences for themselves, but also for every future generation after them. That was evident in their son, Cain, who murdered his brother Abel. Sadly, we see evil consequences throughout the future generations as well.

Consider David’s sin with Bathsheba. His misplaced sexual appetites led him to commit adultery with her, murder her husband, and try to cover up his actions. His sin yielded consequences not only for him, but also in the loss of the child born to them, and in the family discord for the duration of his reign as King of Israel.

Consider also Solomon’s sin in multiplying wives including women from Egypt and the surrounding pagan nations. Many of those marriages were most likely politically and socially acceptable and advantageous to Solomon, yet they were sinful in God’s eyes. His marriages to these pagan women turned his own heart away from God and led to the division of the nation of Israel, and the idolatrous actions of future generations of kings following him.

These, and many other examples, teach us a lesson. If we as parents compromise spiritual truth for our own pleasure, it can have a dramatic impact on our children and our grandchildren and future generations. Our choices matter today. They matter to God, and they should matter to us as well.

Christian parents, we need to make decisions and choices for our families that unmotivated by pragmatism, or cultural acceptability, or emotional and sexual pleasure, choices that are displeasing to God. Such decisions and choices will do great harm, not only to our personal testimonies, but also to the spiritual health of our families, and to the greater cause of Christ.

Christian teens also need to take heed to this principle. The decisions and choices you are making right now in spiritual and moral matters are of huge importance, to your future marriage, to your future children, as well as to your own spiritual health in your relationship with God.

Your choices matter!

Stay true to God and His Word.

• Don’t compromise your faith for the sake of worldly acceptance.
• Don’t compromise your faith for the sake of emotional or sexual pleasure.
• Don’t compromise your faith for the sake of financial gain.

God’s glory and God’s pleasure are more important and are of more eternal value than anything the world could offer you as far as temporal pleasures.

If you want to make an impact on future generations, then stay true to God and His Word today.

Taigen Joos is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Dover, NH. He blogs here, where this article first appeared. It is republished here by permission.