Are We Cursed Or Blessed?
The terms 'bless', 'blessing' and 'curse', 'cursing' occur frequently throughout the Bible.
They have opposite meanings.
The Hebrew word for 'bless' means 'to empower one to prosper and increase;' and the word 'curse' includes the meaning 'to diminish, to lessen, to make small.
' Erroneous ideas concerning blessing and cursing, based on an old covenant mentality have made their way into the Church, bringing confusion and misguided focus to believers.
We are led to believe that problems in our lives, or in the lives of our families, can be traced to a curse which we are under and from which we need deliverance.
This teaching suggests that if there is a history of mental illness, chronic sickness, divorce, financial difficulty, suicide, etc.
it is because of some disobedience, sinful behaviour or occult activity.
Furthermore, it is not just we as individuals who may have opened the door for Satan to plunder our lives; the root cause may be traced back hundreds, or even thousands, of years to actions committed by our ancestors in previous generations! What About Generational Curses? This prevalent thinking is based on God's warning to Israel against idolatry, in Exodus 20:5: "...
you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.
" First of all, we need to notice that it is not Satan but God who will curse the idolater throughout successive generations.
Therefore, it is not Satan's curse that needs to be rebuked and broken, but God's! Furthermore, when God said that He would visit the sins of the parents upon their children to future generations it was in the context of the Old Covenant, in fact in the middle of the giving of the Ten Commandments.
When that covenant was broken and became redundant God promised a new covenant.
One of the characteristics of this covenant is, "In those days they shall say no more: 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
' But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge" (Jer.
31:29&30).
In other words those who are under the New Covenant have been set free from any guilt stemming from their ancestor's idolatry.
They are not cursed but blessed.
The reason for this is that those who are born again have a new history.
They are severed from the spiritual roots of their family tree, not just to three or four generations but all the way back to Adam! We are no longer products of our past, but products of the Cross.
Prove All Things I have found that the most effective means of testing the many winds of doctrine which constantly blow into the church is to ask two questions: *Do we see the apostles practising this kind of thing in the book of Acts? *Do the apostles teach this in the New Testament epistles? After all, the epistles are our instructions for living the Christian life.
By applying these basic principles of examining this teaching no one would get caught up with wasting time and emotional energy worrying about whether they are under a curse.
The apostles neither practised nor taught breaking curses over Christians; nor should we.
BLESSED, NOT CURSED We need to remember on which side of the Cross we are living.
Under the old covenant, blessing was conditional upon obedience to the Law, i.
e.
obedience to all the Law all the time.
Failure to keep the Law resulted in coming under the curse.
"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them'" (Gal.
3:10).
Through the death of Jesus upon the cross we are delivered from the Law and its curse.
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree'") (Gal.
3:13).
We are no longer exposed to the curse of the Law because we are not under the Law.
When a person has been delivered from the Law they have been delivered from its curse.
We are not cursed, but blessed.
"So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham" (Gal.
3:9).
The New Testament epistles never once inform us about curses we need to be delivered from.
Instead, its pages are filled with the many blessings which are ours because of Christ.
We have been "...
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Eph.
1:3).
If this is the case, why do Christians get caught up with studying curses? The Holy Spirit was given to us to reveal to us all that we have been blessed with in Christ.
"...
as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Cor.
2:9-12).
Under the new covenant we should be studying blessings, not curses! This is what the Spirit is trying to teach us.
Writing to Philemon, Paul said: "I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus" (Philemon 4-6).
We are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
But we become effective as we learn to acknowledge every good thing which is in us through Him.
They have opposite meanings.
The Hebrew word for 'bless' means 'to empower one to prosper and increase;' and the word 'curse' includes the meaning 'to diminish, to lessen, to make small.
' Erroneous ideas concerning blessing and cursing, based on an old covenant mentality have made their way into the Church, bringing confusion and misguided focus to believers.
We are led to believe that problems in our lives, or in the lives of our families, can be traced to a curse which we are under and from which we need deliverance.
This teaching suggests that if there is a history of mental illness, chronic sickness, divorce, financial difficulty, suicide, etc.
it is because of some disobedience, sinful behaviour or occult activity.
Furthermore, it is not just we as individuals who may have opened the door for Satan to plunder our lives; the root cause may be traced back hundreds, or even thousands, of years to actions committed by our ancestors in previous generations! What About Generational Curses? This prevalent thinking is based on God's warning to Israel against idolatry, in Exodus 20:5: "...
you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.
" First of all, we need to notice that it is not Satan but God who will curse the idolater throughout successive generations.
Therefore, it is not Satan's curse that needs to be rebuked and broken, but God's! Furthermore, when God said that He would visit the sins of the parents upon their children to future generations it was in the context of the Old Covenant, in fact in the middle of the giving of the Ten Commandments.
When that covenant was broken and became redundant God promised a new covenant.
One of the characteristics of this covenant is, "In those days they shall say no more: 'The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge.
' But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge" (Jer.
31:29&30).
In other words those who are under the New Covenant have been set free from any guilt stemming from their ancestor's idolatry.
They are not cursed but blessed.
The reason for this is that those who are born again have a new history.
They are severed from the spiritual roots of their family tree, not just to three or four generations but all the way back to Adam! We are no longer products of our past, but products of the Cross.
Prove All Things I have found that the most effective means of testing the many winds of doctrine which constantly blow into the church is to ask two questions: *Do we see the apostles practising this kind of thing in the book of Acts? *Do the apostles teach this in the New Testament epistles? After all, the epistles are our instructions for living the Christian life.
By applying these basic principles of examining this teaching no one would get caught up with wasting time and emotional energy worrying about whether they are under a curse.
The apostles neither practised nor taught breaking curses over Christians; nor should we.
BLESSED, NOT CURSED We need to remember on which side of the Cross we are living.
Under the old covenant, blessing was conditional upon obedience to the Law, i.
e.
obedience to all the Law all the time.
Failure to keep the Law resulted in coming under the curse.
"For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them'" (Gal.
3:10).
Through the death of Jesus upon the cross we are delivered from the Law and its curse.
"Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree'") (Gal.
3:13).
We are no longer exposed to the curse of the Law because we are not under the Law.
When a person has been delivered from the Law they have been delivered from its curse.
We are not cursed, but blessed.
"So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham" (Gal.
3:9).
The New Testament epistles never once inform us about curses we need to be delivered from.
Instead, its pages are filled with the many blessings which are ours because of Christ.
We have been "...
blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Eph.
1:3).
If this is the case, why do Christians get caught up with studying curses? The Holy Spirit was given to us to reveal to us all that we have been blessed with in Christ.
"...
as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.
' But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.
For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Cor.
2:9-12).
Under the new covenant we should be studying blessings, not curses! This is what the Spirit is trying to teach us.
Writing to Philemon, Paul said: "I thank my God, making mention of you always in my prayers, hearing of your love and faith which you have toward the Lord Jesus and toward all the saints, that the sharing of your faith may become effective by the acknowledgment of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus" (Philemon 4-6).
We are already blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.
But we become effective as we learn to acknowledge every good thing which is in us through Him.