Curses
A curse is primarily one of two things—either a prayer or spiritual wish of harm to a person (such as those from witchcraft or other pagan religious rituals), or simply a belief that causes great harm or misfortune in your life. The former often results in a spiritual assignment against a person, which we must take authority over. The latter often comes less intentionally, resulting in an internal belief that becomes a stumbling block for us later in life.
Curses that carry a specific spiritual assignment (such as those from witchcraft) can often be much harder to identify, even though their source is very direct and intentional. The problem is, we don’t often know about these curses until God or someone else reveals them to us. God has revealed to me (Matthew), in the strangest of ways, curses placed on me before my birth by those practicing witchcraft in my family. But it’s no reason to be paranoid. We mean it—if you don’t know of it, don’t worry about it. God will bring up each thing that you need to deal with as you are willing and ready, and when He is ready.
When these curses arise, they need to be dealt with promptly and directly. “We are not those who shrink back in fear” (
Hebrews 10:39), but we carry an authority as sons and daughters of God to tear down strongholds (
2 Corinthians 10:4).
In the next section, we’ll get to specifics of how to deal with a curse in your life, but first let’s look at the other kind of curse—the kind that stems from a belief, which becomes a source of harm and misfortune. These curses are things that people have placed on you out of their own misunderstanding, for their own protection, and from their own inability to show love.
Examples of this type of curse include things like, “You’ll never amount to anything,” “You idiot!,” “You’re always screwing everything up,” “You’ll never get married,” “No one will ever love you.”
There are even times that you may have put these types of curses on yourself: “I’ll never be good enough,” “I’m destined for failure,” “I’m dirty,” “I’m not loveable.”
Whether from yourself or someone else, it’s the same message being repeated over and over again, as the enemy tries to point you toward disaster. Lies come in one after another to keep you from the abundant life you’ve been promised—to steer you away from the path of freedom—and to cause so much pain and turmoil to make you forget who you are in God’s image.
Eventually, we start to believe that these lies about ourselves are true, and they start to become part of our identity. They become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We become bound to them, and out of our belief, find ways to validate and prove them in our lives.
The more we feel we are not loveable, the more we separate ourselves from those who would love us the most. The more we feel we are an idiot or that we’re screwing everything up, the less we try. The less we try, the more we fail, and so the prophecy of the curse is fulfilled.
These curses, too, can be difficult to identify. When we’ve believed something for so long, it becomes hard to remember or attribute those beliefs to a certain moment (or moments) where it all began.
As I said before, God will bring these things up in His time. It often happens when you’re exploring a memory or painful experience. You’ll be sifting through a memory, and suddenly you’ll remember that curse where all this trouble began. Sometimes the curse doesn’t even seem related to the pain you’re dealing with, but it’s keeping you from being able to deal with that pain. Whenever it comes up, remember
Hebrews 10:39 and deal with it right away.
Continue to Breaking Curses ->