Ps Linda has asked me to teach on the above topic for this friday's women's Encounter (EW). I reluctantly agreed coz I really wanted to teach on the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.
Dont get me wrong, this is an important topic coz it can change your life forever if you believe in it. I just wanted to teach something different this round. Anyway, this is really a subject for believers coz only Christians can break curses or generational curses in their lives with the power & authority given to them by the Spirit of God.
I bet you didnt know that blessings & curses are mentioned more than 640 times in the bible! They are major themes in the bible & both are seldom limited to the individual. Often it extends to families & communities or even whole nations.
Let me just say that curses are not superstitions from the Dark Ages. There are real life experiences where people are shocked to discover that they were not victims of blind chance. Rather, the problem was a curse that might have been inherited from a previous generation.
Let me describe to you what a curse is. It is a dark shadow or an evil hand from the past. It is oppressive, it presses you down, holds you down and trips you & then it propels you in a direction you do not wish to take.
An example is when a person has reached a certain level of progress/success, then something goes wrong. He seems to have all the needed qualifications & for no obvious reasons, his finances, health, career & personal relationships fall apart. It seems to be the pattern of his life & there is no explanation. Almost always, he will see this pattern in his previous generation as well.
There are is a primary root cause for curses in our lives. The primary root cause for curses is not hearing God's voice & not doing what He says.
Deut 28:15 says "However, if you do not obey the Lord your God & do not carefully follow all his commands & decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you & overtake you."
If we fulfil the negative conditions, curses will overtake us. The word 'overtakes' means something will come upon you suddenly & unexpectedly; you dont know what hit you. Some egs of curses in Deut 28 are wasting diseases, festering sores, defeated by your enemies, you will be pledged to be married to a woman, but another will take her & ravish her, build a house but will not live in it, the alien who lives among you will rise above you higher & higher, etc.
However, a life of obedience will change curses into blessings. Deuteronomy 28:1-2 " If you fully obey the Lord your God & carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you & accompany you if you obey the Lord your God."
If we fulfil the positive conditions, blessings will overtake us. What are the blessings? Deut 28 includes blessings on your barns, establish you as his holy people, grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your womb, livestock & the crops of your ground, bless the work of your hands, you will be the head & not the tail, etc.
The bible says that the penalty for generational curses runs into the 3rd generation. Some people may be in the category of this subsequent generation because of the idolatry practised in the previous generation before them. Some may have brought curses upon themselves through their own sins. In the next blog, I will write about the effects of curses & then the causes of curses.
Thank goodness we can be delivered out of these horrible curses through the sacrificial death of Jesus. There is no other way out.Love
Mum