Punishment or Blessings: What Are You Passing On To Your Children?
Reading God’s Word with Purpose
Exodus 34: 5-7
“Then the Lord came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.”(NIV)
What spoke to me?
God is describing himself to Moses. He lists out how compassionate He is, how gracious He is, that He is slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness but then goes on to proclaim that He will not let the guilty go unpunished. He also states that God punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation. I had to ponder on what this really meant. We know that we are only held accountable for our own sin and would not be held responsible and punished for something our parents did. I saw this commentary and thought it made a lot of sense :
“The implication of Exodus 34 is that children are akin to their parents. A new generation will tend to repeat the sins of their parents. Therefore, God “punishing the children” is simply another way of saying that the children are repeating the fathers’ sins. The tendency to repeat the mistakes of your parents is especially strong. Children raised under the bad influence of sinful behavior have a tendency to follow in their parents footsteps and repeat the same bad behaviors. The affect of one disobedient generation can take root so deeply that it can take three to four generations to break that sinful pattern. The continuation of this sin would therefore cause multiple generations to be punished for the same disobedience.”
How will this truth change the way I live my life?
As I thought about this passage, I thought about how everything I am doing today, will affect not only my children, but my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. My children and my grandchildren are watching me. They watch how things in my life affect me…they watch how I handle conflict in my life…they watch how I handle it when people mistreat me…they watch how little or how much importance I put on my relationship with God. Whether I want to admit it to myself or not, I am teaching them and training them with everything they see me do. What is my life teaching my children and grandchildren? What sinful behaviors am I possibly passing down that will cause my children and grandchildren to do the same thing and ultimately be punished for that same sin in their lives? Definitely gives me a lot to think about…
My Prayer
Lord I pray you would give me the wisdom to see any sinful behavior in my life that I am ultimately passing on to my children and grandchildren. Help me to rid my life of these sins - sins that may have possibly been passed down to me, and break those iniquities in Jesus name, so they will not be passed on to one more generation. Amen