The Lord is long suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression; but He by no means clears the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.’ Numbers 14:18
God operates generationally by forgiving and blessing those who do right. On the other hand, the sins of the fathers can affect their children to the third and fourth generation if they have not been dealt with.
We see a pattern of lying that occurred in Abraham’s family line. Abraham lied about his relationship to Sarah to save his life ( Genesis 12). Isaac repeated the same thing with his wife Rebecca (Genesis 26). Jacob deceived his father to get his brother’s blessings (Genesis 27). Then Jacob’s children lied about the fate of Joseph (Genesis 37). When people think that they can get away with sin, they are too short-sighted. Those patterns continue to get repeated through the generations until people are willing to repent and stop the pattern. If these Biblical characters had thought about the impact of their sin on the next generation, they probably would have never done it.
These kinds of iniquities are generational curses where a pattern of behavior continues to get repeated until someone renounces, repents, and walks away from that type of behavior. Generational curses can look different for each family. Some families deal with pride and offense. These families can have a lot of broken relationships because people are not willing to admit their wrong. Instead, they always blame others for their problems. Other families operate in fear and they continually live a life of poverty, insecurity, and suspicion. Generational curses can come in various forms such as false religions, unhealthy thought patterns, addictions, lust, immorality, fornication, adultery, selfishness, anger, diseases, depression, etc.
Generational curses have natural and spiritual dimensions to them. Family members see how their parents or grandparents cope with life, and they learn those faulty coping mechanisms. In addition, the enemy builds a stronghold in people’s lives due to ignorance and rebellion of parents or grandparents who opened the door to a sinful system of life. Therefore, the battle is real and must be confronted!
It is always surprising to me how people claim their parents had major failures in raising them, but they are still influenced either by modeling the same behavior or trying to do it completely the opposite as to distance themselves from it. For example, one claims that their father was an alcoholic and made the house unsafe, but they do the same thing or they become workaholic. It’s important to honor our parents or grandparents, but it’s critical to recognize their ways of carnality and immorality and make a decision not to follow those ways!
Each of us have a responsibility to pray and ask the Lord to expose the generational curses in our families. Avoiding or denying them do not make them go away. We then have to renounce those curses and break off our agreement with them. The blood of Jesus is powerful to break every curse in our bloodline and nullify its power and impact in our lives. We also have a responsibility to recognize those areas in our own lifestyle and come out the familiar pattern of dealing with things in a certain way. Those areas would require our repentance and learning God’s ways to avoid falling back into the bondage of the enemy.
When those generational curses are broken and we come into agreement with God, we begin a new pattern of generational blessings from this time forward that blesses our children and the generations to come. Praise God that He has the power to break every curse, to redeem us, and to begin the generational blessings!
