If you are walking with God, take a moment now to think of those who have walked before you. Maybe previous pastors. A mother or a father. Grandparents. Great-grandparents.

Is your present walk with God your own doing or is it in part because of the prayers of those who came before (or even the prayers of those around you now)?

All through Deuteronomy, Moses recounts the story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Time and time again, they forgot who they were and rebelled against the Lord. Again and again, Moses would plead with God to preserve Israel and God listened.

Then I lay prostrate before the Lord as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed, in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure that the Lord bore against you, so that he was ready to destroy you. But the Lord listened to me that time also.

Deuteronomy 9:18-19 (ESV)

How many prayers have been prayed on your behalf that you don’t even know about. Are you where you are because of what you’ve done? Or is because of what God has done on behalf of the prayers of others?

Don’t take for granted the righteous generations that may have come before you. We will never know how much their prayers have protected us like the prayers of Moses protected Israel.

Daily Bible reading: Deuteronomy 8-10, Mark 12:28-44