\n<\/p>\n
Dannah Gresh:<\/span> Okay, think big picture here. How can you and I be used by God to bless the world? Pastor\u2019s wife, mom, and grandma Jani Ortlund points to one important way.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jani Ortlund: <\/span>God has given us a great power for good: they\u2019re called \u201cfamilies.\u201d He has positioned you in your particular family for their long-term advantage and for your joy and Christ\u2019s glory. You might feel small, as I often do. You might feel defeated, as I do at times. Oh, those day-to-day routines, they wear us down. But the truth is, we do matter, and we will matter two hundred years from now as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Dannah: <\/span>Jani\u2019s going to show us the importance of building a spiritual legacy for our children (and theirs!) to the tenth generation! That\u2019s today, August 24, 2026, on the Revive Our Hearts<\/em> podcast. Here\u2019s our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.<\/p>\n Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: <\/span>Thank you, Dannah Gresh!\u00a0<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know if you\u2019re a mother, a grandmother, or maybe a spiritual mother to someone. Maybe you\u2019re like me. I don\u2019t have any biological children, but I have nieces, nephews, kids and grandkids through marriage, and unofficially-adopted kiddos all over the place, and I’m definitely passionate about investing in future generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even if you\u2019re single with no kids (as I was for fifty-seven years), you\u2019ll be challenged by Jani Ortlund\u2019s message today.<\/p>\n Jani is married to her husband, Ray, and they do have children and grandchildren\u2014lots of them. Jani spoke in a breakout session at a True Woman conference on the topic \u201cBuilding a Spiritual Legacy for Your Children\u2014and Theirs\u2014to the Tenth Generation!\u201d That’s a long title, but you’re going to hear why that is so important.<\/p>\n There were some technical difficulties with the microphone that day, but I hope you won\u2019t let that distract you from the inspiring and challenging points that Jani shared.<\/p>\n The theme at that True Woman conference was \u201cHeaven Rules.\u201d Without further ado, let\u2019s listen to my dear friend Jani Ortlund.<\/p>\n Jani: <\/span>You may not believe this, but you are a person of great significance! You might think, Oh, Nancy Wolgemuth . . . she\u2019s a woman of great significance, but not me, little old me in my home<\/em>. You might not see yourself the way God sees you.<\/p>\n This world trivializes us; this world wears us down every day. The messages coming through the cultural air we breathe make us feel small, anxious, inconsequential. But you\u2014YOU\u2014are unique! You are irreplaceable! Heaven is ruling in you and through you. You matter!<\/strong><\/p>\n You matter today, and you will matter forever, because God created you with a purpose so big, only God Almighty could have dreamed it up! He prepared your very DNA over many generations.<\/p>\n In your time He arranged for you to be born in a certain place and at a particular time in history. He has invested in you every day along the way, both your joys and your sorrows, so that you can contribute to the better future that God Almighty is building through you.\u00a0<\/p>\n You are the only one on the face of the whole earth who can fulfill God\u2019s mission for you. He has a plan, and His plan includes each one of us! <\/strong>He\u2019s working that plan. In fact, Ephesians 1:11 says He \u201cworks all things according to the counsel of his will.\u201d You are a part of that \u201call things.\u201d<\/p>\n So you see why I\u2019m so sure about this? Your life is not an accident. Your marriage is not a mistake. Your children are no accident . . . not even that surprise baby you hadn\u2019t planned on. God has a beautiful and eternal purpose for your family.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here is why I am saying all of this: a great way that you can follow God\u2019s plan is to build a legacy of faith that will endure into your family\u2019s future long after you\u2019re gone.<\/strong><\/p>\n Now, for my husband Ray and me, this long-term thinking about our own family has been a change. Thinking out, oh maybe two weeks ahead, or maybe even two years ahead, well okay, we\u2019ve done that before.<\/p>\n But thinking out decades ahead, centuries ahead? That was an unexplored thought. Here is what opened up that thought to us: several years ago I was reading in my Bible, just doing my morning devotions and enjoying my time with the Lord. I was just kind of minding my own business when suddenly something jumped off the page of Deuteronomy to me.<\/p>\n It was in Deuteronomy 23 that sparked this thought in my mind. It said,\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n No one born of a forbidden union may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation, none of his descendants may enter the assembly of the Lord. No Ammonite or Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord. Even to the tenth generation. (vv. 2\u20133)<\/p>\n
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Whoa! I stopped reading there. It confused my view of God. I thought, Why should the generations suffer because their mama was an Ammonite or their daddy was a Moabite?<\/em>Is generational exclusion even just?<\/em> I had to ask myself that.\u00a0<\/p>\n And then I had to think, Well, if God\u2019s Word is true and trustworthy, then I need to think this through<\/em>. What insight could I draw from this little verse in Deuteronomy 23? Well, we do know this much: that Moses in Deuteronomy was preparing Israel for their future in the promised land. He knew they would be gathering all together for worship.<\/p>\n So, Moses explained who would be allowed in to worship the Lord God Almighty and who would be kept out. You see, no one can ever just barge into God\u2019s presence, as if we\u2019re all naturally qualified. Everyone needs the grace of Christ for sinners.<\/strong><\/p>\n Whatever else is going on in the Old Testament passage, it prepares us for the New Testament’s good news of the grace of Christ crucified. So even this verse could point ahead to Jesus Christ. Jesus can make anyone \u201ckosher\u201d before God. We see that in Acts 11 and Galatians 2.<\/p>\n As I kept pondering these verses in Deuteronomy 23, asking the Lord for help to see His heart more clearly, a new thought occurred to me, If God excluded certain people to the tenth generation, how much more does He want to include people to the tenth generation?<\/em>\u00a0How much more does God always long to bring blessing rather than a curse!<\/p>\n His eagerness to bless us is all throughout Scripture. Let me read some verses to you. Just listen to the words \u201cbless\u201d and \u201cblessing\u201d in these verses.<\/p>\n Genesis 12:2, way in the beginning: \u201cI will bless you [oh God].\u201d<\/p>\n Numbers 6:23\u201324: \u201cYou shall say to them, \u2018The Lord bless you and keep you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Deuteronomy 23:5 (that same chapter that I was reading in that morning) says this: \u201c. . . instead the Lord your God turned the curse into a blessing for you, because the Lord your God loved you.\u201d<\/p>\n Deuteronomy 28:2: \u201cAnd all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you.\u201d Don\u2019t you love that? So many that they just roll over on us!<\/p>\n Nehemiah 13:2: \u201c. . . yet our God turned the curse into a blessing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Psalm 109:28: \u201cLet them curse, but you will bless!\u201d<\/p>\n Proverbs 28:20: \u201cA faithful man will abound [in] blessings.\u201d<\/p>\n Galatians 3:14: \u201c. . . so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.\u201d<\/p>\n Ephesians 1:3: \u201cBlessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.\u201d<\/p>\n The list could go on! We don\u2019t have time to keep reading, but oh my goodness, blessing is all over the Scripture, much more than curses! The whole Bible keeps emphasizing the blessings of God freely given through Jesus Christ who we receive with the empty hands of faith!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n God is disproportionately toward blessing over cursing. In a sense, God is asymmetrical in kindness over discipline.\u00a0<\/p>\n When we receive Christ, we\u2019re repositioned for historic and eternal blessings from God Almighty! Do you believe that? Do you receive that? Ray and I began to think that through as a couple. It was really encouraging to us! What about us as a family?<\/p>\n If God excluded, say, the Ammonite people back then, how much more . . . Did you notice in some of the verses that I read some of the words: \u201cabound with blessing, every spiritual blessing.\u201d How much more would God joyfully be willing to bless our family today through Christ? Even to the tenth generation. That thought thrilled us!<\/p>\n The generational blessing of God just stretching out over our family into the distant future left us almost breathless!<\/p>\n By God\u2019s grace we can, and we must, think \u201cfuture.\u201d Let\u2019s be women who think beyond today! All those precious people who will appear in this world according to God\u2019s plan and through our marriages will be facing unimaginable challenges! They deserve, and they will need, the best that we can send on ahead.<\/strong> You see why I say you really are a person of historic significance? It changes how we all do family right now. It expands our categories.<\/p>\n For example, Ray and I have started to pray in a bolder way. Maybe you\u2019ll join me in this prayer. Now we pray that the Lord would bless our family by setting each family member apart to Christ, not one excluded but all included in the family of God, with wholehearted devotion to Him.<\/strong><\/p>\n Our audacious prayer lately has been that the whole world would hear about Jesus through our family! Is that crazy? Well, maybe . . . but maybe not! We belong to a big God! Why not pray big prayers about our families?<\/strong><\/p>\n