A CURSE is a word uttered by a bitter person because of perceived injustice and has supernatural power to harm a person or a place.
Curses can come because of our own sin, sins of our forefathers, sins of a nation or a community. They are only effective if there is guilt. Proverbs 26:2. Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse will not land on its intended victim.
Bloodline curses have roots in sin or some form of disobedience that was committed in a past generation but the consequences are borne by latter descendants.
Lamentations 5:7 Our ancestors sinned and are no more, and we bear their punishment.
Deuteronomy 28:10. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.
Click on this link to read a related post on how to identify a curse. How do I know am under a curse?
The Lord sends curses
A knowledge of generational curses can help you understand why there are failures that present themselves as invisible barriers and how to overcome them. You could be fighting something that did not begin with you!
Most of the time, we think it is the devil doing it, but it is God sending “the curse” because of the sin.
Deuteronomy 28:14-15. Do not turn aside from any of the commands I give you today, to the right or to the left, following other gods and serving them.
However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you.”
Here, God is warning us of the punishment for idolatry, the worshipping of other gods and the transgenerational punishment that touches the descendants to ‘third and fourth.”
Deuteronomy 5:8-9. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
Exodus 20:3-5 .You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.
Numbers 14:18. The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation.
Jeremiah 32:18. You show love to thousands but bring the punishment for the parents’ sins into the laps of their children after them. Great and mighty God, whose name is the Lord Almighty.
A curse can extend for four generations as is mentioned in Exodus 20:4-6.
You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
READ ALSO: Where curses get their strength
It means the curse is in the bloodline of a family and will affect, the children, the grand children and great-grand children of the guilty parents will stay there with its negative consequences affecting the family until it is broken.
Bloodline curses in a family can manifest in early death-no one lives beyond the age of 50, family feuds, poverty, chronic inherited sickness, barrenness, unemployment, broken marriages and even accidents.
Thank God, the Bible gives us the knowledge, and, Jesus, the authority (to every believer) through His finished work on the cross to break every curse!
Praise God that in His love and unmatched wisdom, He has provided a way out of the curses inherited from our fathers.
Freedom from curses along with other benefits of the kingdom are the right of inheritance of those who believe in Jesus and are co-heirs in the kingdom of God
It is important for us to understand a how the doorway of an inherited generational curse opens and gives Satan a legal right to harass us.
Equally important is to know how God has solved this problem for us and to appropriate the blessings for curses.
Galatians 3:13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.
Jesus became a curse for us. He died for salvation from sin and deliverance from the curse. Salvation comes first-to take away sin.
Deliverance from curses then follows, to set you free to walk in victory. Both are received by faith.
Click to read: Expect these 4 during spiritual deliverance
Break the curse over your life
To break a curse over your life, the first step is to turn to God in repentance.
Most Christians, unknowingly, turn to Satan when they have prayed and do not get answers, not knowing that he is not the one who brought the curse.
It may have come down the generational bloodline because of the sins of the forefathers, particularly of worshipping other gods.
Click on the link below to watch a video on pastor Nellie’s teaching on how foundations and deliverance.
When we turn to God in repentance and seek His forgiveness, we do so as part of a lineage that committed the offence.
You may not have rebelled or done the wrong neither directly involved in committing the offence nor were you there when it was committed, but you are part and parcel of a generation that rebelled.
The Bible explains that you were in your forefather’s loins when they sinned , so you sinned along with them!
Hebrews 7:9-10. A person might even say that Levi [the father of the priestly tribe] himself, who received tithes (the tenth), paid tithes through Abraham.
For he was still in the loins of his forefather [Abraham] when Melchizedek met him [Abraham].
Now ask God to forgive you, for your own sins and the sins of your forefathers, in accordance to Daniel’s Prayer in Daniel chapter 9.
Daniel in Babylon
When Daniel found himself in Babylon, he repented on behalf of his ancestors who had disobeyed God and brought the punishment of the curse upon an entire generation.
Daniel 9:4-6. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong.
We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws.
We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.
Daniel had not done wrong but he knew he was part of a bloodline that did wrong.
This is the reason why he says -we have sinned, we have rebelled- and goes on in Verse 16, to ask God to turn away His anger from “our sins and the sins of our forefathers.”
To break the curse and stop it from affecting your life and the lives of your children, you turn to the Cross of Calvary.
Click this link for a related post on how you can stop the generational curse. Generation to generation: Don’t pass it on.
Just as you accepted you were a sinner in need of forgiveness and redemption from Christ, and you had to do something.
Romans 10:9-10. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Something you must do about the curse
There is something you must do about the curse, as well.
You must accept there is a curse in your family line, when you see the patterns of defeat and failure, confess and repent by turning away from the evil your forefathers did.
When you engaged your faith through a simple prayer (the sinner’s prayer) it turned your fate from hell to heaven.
It is the same faith you apply for breaking and renouncing the curse according to Galatians 3:13.
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.
When we break the curse we put it on the Cross of Calvary.
You must have a relationship with the cross first through salvation., then repent of the sin that brought the curse , renounce it verbally and believe it is broken and will not continue affecting your life and the lives of your children.
Curses from man
When a man or woman speaks forth bitter words out of anger due to a sin committed against them or someone else, a curse is released.
The curse will have effect only if the person is an authority figure like a husband, parent, teacher, boss, doctor, pastor.
The tongue has got power to bring about supernatural events like death, accidents, unemployment, poverty or even sickness.
Ephesians 4:29. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.
Proverbs 18:21– The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
James 3:6– The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
That’s is why the Bible exhorts us in James 1:19- My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.
In Genesis 49:1-7. we see how Jacob cursed his sons in anger. In Verses 2 and 7, Jacob cursed Reuben that “he would no longer excel”. He also cursed Simeon and Levi for not being able to control their anger.
A personal curse
There is a difference between a generational curse and a personal curse.
A personal curse is directed towards an individual, while a generational curse is directed towards a lineage of descendants.
Unfortunately many people suffer from individual curses they have inflicted upon themselves with their own mouths by speaking defeat, “ I will never make it…I will not get healed!”
READ ALSO: 3 reasons why God rejects prayer altars.
The Bible however, tells us to make more positive affirmations, “Let the weak say I am strong, and let the poor say I am rich.”
Parents also are guilty of pronouncing individual curses on their children when angry: You will never make it in life, you are the most stupid child…! Bless and don’t curse.
Doctors can curse their patients by telling them they are going to die. Teachers can curse students, husbands can curse their wives and pastors can curse their congregation by making solemn utterances that have a negative impact on their lives.
The curse of disobedience
There are curses that God reminded Moses (Leviticus 27:16-26) that would come upon the Israelites if they disobeyed. Anybody who did these detestable things would incur a curse;
1.Dishonour of parents
2.Stealing from one’s neighbours
3.Leading the blind a stray-misleading someone because of their ignorance about something
4.Withholding justice from those who deserve it
5.Sleeping with one’s father wife
6. Bestiality
7. Incest
9.Sleeping with a mother-in-law
10.Accepting bribes to harm the innocent
11.Failure to obey God’s commandments
Whoever committed these sins was individually liable for a curse and the punishment that the curses came along with, for example, if a man slept with his father’s wife both were to be killed.
Leviticus 20:11. If a man has sexual relations with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
