GALATIANS 3:13-14 NLT
13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.
GALATIANS 3:13-14 TPT
13 Yet, Christ paid the full price to set us free from the curse of the law. He absorbed it completely as he became a curse in our place. For it is written: Everyone who is hung upon a tree is doubly cursed.
14 Jesus, our Messiah, was cursed in our place and in so doing, dissolved the curse from our lives so that all the blessings of Abraham can be poured out upon even non-Jewish believers. And now God gives us the promise of the wonderful Holy Spirit who lives within us when we believe in him.
Whenever you hear the word CROSS you should immediately think BLESSING.
These two words CROSS and BLESSING are two very important Bible words that everyone who hears them should understand and know what they mean and the power behind them.
To most people, the words CROSS and BLESSING would not necessarily go together. To most people, the word Cross means a religious symbol and the word Blessing a nice sentiment you say when someone sneezes or you bid them farewell.
Nothing could be any further from the truth.
The CROSS is the power of God unto salvation and The BLESSING is God’s supernatural empowerment upon your life for success, favour, and dominion.
To really understand and appreciate what Jesus Christ accomplished for humanity on the Cross one has to first see what was lost in the Great Fall into sin by Adam and Eve.
Firstly we’ve got to see what God did in creation and particularly His greatest creation ‘Man’.
GENESIS 1:26-28 NKJV
26 Then God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
27 So God created man in His own image in the image of God He created him male and female He created them.
28 Then God blessed them and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Look at verse 28 because it’s a key scripture in understanding the power of the Blessing. Notice that GOD BLESSED and then GOD SAID or COMMANDED and to BLESS and to COMMAND are two entirely different things.
A COMMAND is an instruction for you to obey but you don’t have to and it’s an authoritative demand that is spoken but to be BLESSED means you are supernaturally empowered by God and something comes over you to enhance your life.
The BLESSING is on you like it or not. You can’t reject it but you can block it or fail to understand and work it in your life. All Adam had to do to work the power of the Blessing was to BELIEVE in His heart and CONFESS with His mouth and it was done that’s it.
GENESIS 2:7 NKJV “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.”
That term ‘living being’ in the Hebrew is SPEAKING SPIRIT. The ability to function like God through imagination and confession.
God BLESSED Adam first before He COMMANDED him and what did God COMMAND Adam and Eve to do?
1. Be FRUITFUL – To be active in producing.
2. MULTIPLY – To be active in reproducing.
3. FILL THE EARTH – To be active in fulfilling.
4. SUBDUE – To be active in authority.
5. Have DOMINION – To be active in dominating.
This is the God given BLESSING and COMMAND for humanity but it was interrupted by SIN. In GENESIS chapter 3 it tells us the story of Adam and Eve being tempted by Satan into disobedience towards God resulting in Adam and Eve being CURSED and this CURSE came from God.
A CURSE from God is not designed to kill you but it is a heavenly judgment against your act of disobedience towards God’s laws. Adam and Eve by eating from the knowledge of good and evil now understood evil and it became a curse to them producing sin and eventually death something God did not want them to know – evil.
This rebellious spirit continued into their children’s life with Cain murdering his brother Able and the earth becoming completely defiled and overcome by sin, curses and demonic spirits.
GENESIS 6:11-12 NKJV “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 So God looked upon the earth and indeed it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth.”
What was the corruption? It’s an important truth to know because even Jesus mentioned it…MATTHEW 24:37 NLT When the Son of Man returns it will be like it was in Noah’s day.
Well, what was it like? the Jewish Talmud and Commentaries give us insight into this.
1. IDOL WORSHIP – They forsook their Maker and served idols.
2. BLOODSHED – They had become depraved in murder.
3. IMMORALITY – They had become perverted in sexuality.
It became so bad that God pronounced judgment over the entire earth by sending a massive flood that cleansed the earth from all of it’s depravity wiping earth’s population except for 8 people of Noah’s family.
Now humanity lives under the curse and the curse is deadly. God raised up Moses who gave the Ten Commandments and the Laws of God to show humanity what God considers good and evil.
You see the nature of man is not to obey so to keep ‘man’ from cursing his own life Moses decrees the Laws of God to protect man but this was never God’s intention because God wanted man to obey willingly.
The consequences to obedience and disobedience to the Laws of God are all here in what the Jews call the Torah. the ‘fault’ HEBREWS 8:7 NKJV For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
The ‘fault’ of the Old Covenant is that the Laws of God when given to show man’s sinful and the 613 Laws, Commands, and Statues are purposely designed by God for man to be unable to comply to become Holy without a Saviour.
In other words the Ten Commandments real our sinfulness and any attempt to become Holy through the Law os futile because nobody has ever been able to do it except One…God’s Son Jesus.
God promised a Messiah who would come to the earth and save the Jewish people from living under this curse and His name is Jesus Christ.
While the Jewish people waited they offered up animal sacrifices on a yearly basis to atone for their sins but the blood of animals is imperfect and could only cover the sins but not remove them.
Sin is so devastatingly bad in the eye of God that it requires the payment of blood for life is in the blood. We may not fully understand why BLOOD?
But this is how it is because God is so Holy and sin so ugly in His eyes that only blood can redeem a person from sin’s consequences.
However, the Blood of the Messiah God’s very own Son was pure, undefiled, and sinless because Adam was not his forefather and Jesus did not have sinful blood running through His veins.
If Jesus had not laid down His life on the Cross He would never have died because He contained no sinful nature of death…think about that. But on the Cross Jesus shed His Blood to not only cover the sins of humanity but to actually removed them once and for all destroying every trace of the curse.
The only condition is that we MUST REPENT of our sins and acknowledge our sinful disobedience and accept Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Saviour.
This is beautiful said in GALATIANS 3:13 NLT “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross He took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.”
And the result of this is verse 14 look at it…
GALATIANS 3:14 LIVING BIBLE “Now God can bless the Gentiles too with this same blessing he promised to Abraham.”
Now GENESIS 12:1-3 NKJV tells us what Abraham’s BLESSING is but it is really an extension and continuation of the BLESSING pronounced over Adam.
GENESIS 12:1-3 AMP
1 Now in Haran the Lord had said to Abram, Go away from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house To the land which I will show you;
2 And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you abundantly And make your name great exalted, distinguished. And you shall be a blessing a source of great good to others
3 And I will bless do good for, benefit those who bless you, And I will curse that is, subject to My wrath and judgment the one who curses despises, dishonours, has contempt for you. And in you, all the families nations of the earth will be blessed.
THE CROSS BRINGS THE BLESSING. The Blessing neutralises the Curse and every trace of it. When you come to Jesus you are not only forgiven but also empowered supernaturally for success.
So my question for you today is: Are you walking in the BLESSING or the CURSE? Here are some ways you can identify a Curse operating in your life.
1. DEPRESSION that is affecting not only the individual but a parent, grandparent, sister, auntie, etc in others. It’s seen in many members of the same family tree.
2. POVERTY that once again is rampant within the household and previous generations. An on-going insufficiency financially. Constant lack and no ownership of any property.
3. SICKNESS is something the scientific world calls heredity when it is seen in multiple members of the same family. Something is in the bloodstream or DNA which causes the same symptoms and illness to reoccur in proceeding generations.
4. ADDICTIONS such as alcoholism, drug-taking, immorality, adultery, and divorce. It’s amazing how many marriages that end in divorce come from divorced families and so the cycle continues.
The list could go on and on. Ask yourself are the struggles, failures, and setbacks that you witness in your life a common occurrence in other family members past or present?
Whenever I am counseling or I see a tragic misfortune that seems to come out of nowhere I always like to counsel the person and ask questions to find out where the OPENING TO DEMONIC AFFLICTION or a CURSE has entered and inevitably I will find it.
A demon can only enter a person if it has the right to do so. Removing this right is foundational to effective and long-lasting deliverance ministry. In other words, we must go to the ROOT CAUSE.
In cases of GENERATIONAL CURSES, you are NOT GUILTY of the sins of previous generations because you are only accountable for your own sins however the consequences and ramifications of the sins of previous generations can continue to afflict a person until the cycle is broken with this there is no question and the evidence in people’s lives speaks for itself.
If a child is sexually molested the guilt lies with the perpetrator, not the victim but the consequences of the abuse will be experienced by the victim in horrendous ways.
The word CURSE appears approximately 300 times in the Bible but the word BLESS over 600 times.
Most people in Churches are totally unaware of the nature of BLESSINGS and CURSES. A lot of people are enduring curses because they have never been taught about them and so what they put down to misfortune or bad luck is actually a curse operating in their lives and they don’t even know it.
The best way to describe what a BLESSING or CURSE is, is they are both vehicles of supernatural power for good or evil.
They can also continue from generation to generation.
You may be struggling with a curse over your life that was released generations ago without your knowledge. The vehicle for curses is usually words spoken, written, or pronounced by a person.
They can also be pronounced inwardly through your own words and they can also be transferred through objects such as idolatrous idols, books, and amulets.
Remember that IDOLATRY was one of the 3 gross sins in the days of Noah that brought upon the earth God’s judgment.
Demons or evil spirits are the agents or carriers of curses this is why Jesus said in JOHN 10:10 NKJV The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.
1 JOHN 3:8 NKJV “He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”
And this is what Jesus did whilst on the earth. He was a healer and exorcist. He dealt with demonic power and curses like no one had ever done before. In fact, this is what He was famous for.
Jesus’ ministry was a ministry to neutralise any trace of the CURSE and He did this via THE BLESSING. He reversed the CURSE with the power of THE BLESSING.
Before the CROSS Jesus BLESSED because He was present. We are now living POST-CROSS where Jesus in the flesh is not present but His Spirit and Word are. The Cross neutralised the Curse so today anyone who looks to the Cross can be BLESSED.
What does it mean to look to the CROSS?
It means you identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. You allow your SELF-WILL to die. You put it to death. The desire for sin. The rebellious nature and disobedient attitudes.
Your blood does not need to be shed because even if it were it would be of no use because it is sinful but the Blood of Jesus is sinless and perfect and for this reason, it cleanse you from all sin. It breaks the power of any curse and releases you into the Blessing.
LUKE 9:23 NLT “Then he said to the crowd, If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way take up your cross daily and follow me.”
The Cross brings the Blessing but you have to come to the Cross and have your sins forgiven and allow the ‘old man’ to die before the power of the Blessing will be manifested in your life.
