It’s been a while since I wrote about curses on this blog, but I think it is time to do so again. As a technological and “science-based” culture, most people give no credibility to the notion of curses. The idea of curses is typically relegated to fiction and fairy tales. However, it is a very biblical topic and a continuing reality unless you dismiss the reality of a spiritual realm. But even those who believe in a spiritual realm give little thought to curses.

In the church, I frequently see individuals and families who have suffered and failed and experienced loss to an unusual degree for extended periods of time…even for generations…without recognizing that a curse may be operating in their lives for family line. It is also human nature to forget that we collide with a highly active spiritual realm on a daily basis. Part of that realm is working on our behalf. Another part is working tirelessly to undermine our lives and the destiny God has for us as his children.

When the enemy has pushed back against our dreams, our families, our success, our health, or our destiny long enough, we may slip into a mindset that our inability to make headway or experience breakthrough is simply life on planet earth. Once we take on that worldview, we stop fighting and the enemy wins. He is then able to steal our future. As believers, we cannot forget Paul’s admonition to the church in Ephesus…

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians. 6:10-12)

For those who believe we should have no concern about Satan because he is defeated and Jesus protects us, this word from Paul dispels that notion. Certainly, he that is in us is greater than he that is in the world. Certainly Satan has been judged. But we are still involved in an ongoing war to enforce the victory Christ has won and we have a significant role to play in those battles. Otherwise, Paul would have had no reason to issue this warning and directive. Remember that when God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt to the land of Canaan, he did not suddenly eradicate the enemy tribes within the promised land. Instead, he required Israel to fight. The promise was that he would go before them and assure the victory, but they still had to face the enemy and take the land.

The word translated “schemes,” in the passage above, (methodeia) means a logical, systematic and deceptive strategy. The one who is orchestrating this strategy against you is the devil (diabolos), which means slanderer or accuser. The book of Revelation tells us that he (Satan) accuses the brothers and sisters day and night before our God (Rev. 12:10).

How are his accusations and his schemes connected? Through his accusations, Satan is seeking a legal right to afflict or oppress the children of God. The throne of God is established on righteousness and justice (Ps.89:14), which means that the kingdom of heaven operates on a system of divine law that even God submits to because he is submitting to himself and the laws he has established in his own righteousness.

The book of Job is instructive. It opens with Satan coming into the presence of God with accusations against Job. Picture a court room. Satan’s comes in as the accuser, the prosecuting attorney. His complaint was that God had placed a hedge of protection around Job so that Satan could not touch him. His strategy was to bring an accusation against Job, so that the charge would give him a legal right to torment the man. Apparently, the charge was that Job only worshipped God because of the blessings he received rather than because God was worthy of worship regardless of whether life was pleasant or a nightmare. The charge would stand until it was answered in the courts of heaven.

The charge gave Satan the right to change an environment of blessing into a cursed environment in which Job lost children, possessions, and finally his health. In the end, Job relinquished his pride and his sense of self-righteousness and declared God worthy of worship regardless of circumstances. When Job came to that place in his mind and heart, God was able to justify him and dismiss the accusation that Satan had levied against the man. After that, God was free to bless Job again…even more than he had in the beginning. It is always God’s heart to bless his people, but if an accusation stands in the courts of heaven, justice requires that he gives the enemy some access to the one accused.

Satan uses the same strategy against us. He brings accusation against each of us in the courts of heaven. If he can find a legal cause to enforce a curse against us, he will. For some of us, he doesn’t have to look very far. Secret sin, unconfessed sin, unforgiveness, arrogance, gossip, etc. can all give Satan access to us. Solomon said, “Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest (Pr. 26:2). Satan is constantly looking for a something in our lives on which a curse can come to rest. When he finds something, he can oppress and afflict us until the charge is dismissed. That ongoing affliction and oppression is the manifestation of curse that has landed in our lives.

Often, our part in the battle is to discover the issue that is giving the devil the legal right to hinder God’s destiny for our lives or the lives of those we love or care for. Sometimes the cause rests in us…our thoughts, our actions, or our carnal nature. Sometimes it rests in our bloodlines…the sins of the fathers that are passed down to the children to the third and fourth generations. If Satan can find a cause, he can bring the accusation before the Father and if it stands, he may gain legal access to us and our families, our business, our church, and even our community. We can command the enemy to cease his attack and take his hands off, but if he still has a legal right to afflict someone, our commands may go unheeded or the demons we have dismissed will return soon and take up their assignment once more.

I love deliverance, but our task before deliverance should be to determine the issue that is giving the enemy a legal right to afflict us or the one to whom we are ministering, and then to take the issue before the Lord so that he may submit it to the blood of Christ. Once the accusation is dismissed, we can command the enemy to leave and to never return. There are several steps we may need to take in order to have the accusation dismissed and the legal right of the enemy taken away. We will discuss those in next week’s blog.

Show me, O Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life.  Psalm 39:4

I don’t know how many of us would pray the prayer of David, quoted above. Most of us want to live as if death is for other people, not for us. We don’t want to contemplate our own death. We don’t want to think about how remarkably short our lives can be our how quickly our years are flying by. And yet, the brevity of life in this world is a constant theme in scripture.

David’s point was not a morbid fascination about his own death, but rather a desire to make every day count because life goes by much faster than we anticipate. Making every day count for eternity is the ultimate wisdom. The illusion that we will live forever creates a mindset that we can put off the most important things until life is more convenient.

We keep thinking we will make that phone call later; we will confront the problem as soon as we get it all figured out; we will really press into our relationship with God as soon as our life slows down; we will mend that relationship at a time when we have more emotional energy. We tend to think that we will get around to the most important things as soon as our career is established, our family is grown, or our relationships are where we want them to be. David’s point was that none of us are promised tomorrow on this planet, so we need to prioritize our lives and do the most important things today…regardless of how inconvenient or difficult it may be.

When we think about it, we probably all know that one of Satan’s great strategies against us is distraction. We just rarely think of it or rarely choose to think of it. There is always something that can take our eyes off the most important things in life. In his “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus warned us not to be preoccupied with the material things of life – what we will eat, what we will wear, or where we shall live. He clearly stated that our heavenly Father knows that we need these things and, as a good father, will provide all that we need…if we keep our priorities straight. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you” (Mt. 6:33).

And yet, most of us as believers, still fill our days with worry about those things. We work eighty-hour weeks to provide the “finer things” for our families, stay awake wondering about our 401K’s when the market tanks, buy more car and more house that we need in order to feel good about ourselves, constantly fight over finances with our spouse, chase all over the country every weekend for our kids to play soccer, baseball, or volleyball…so they can feel good about themselves, and then try to squeeze in a little time for Jesus when we can.

The devil’s distractions for believers are typically not sinful things. They are usually good things that we simply give more time and energy to than they deserve. Our problem is that we don’t live with an eternal view. If we are truthful, we might admit that on a day-to-day basis, we may give little thought to spiritual realities. We are prone to only consider spiritual things on Sunday mornings, while we think of this world as all there is, on the other six days of the week. By and far, we spend our time and resources on things that pertain only to this world and not the world to come. However, when we stand before Jesus he will not evaluate our lives based on the size of our house, our vacation destinations, or whether we had a swimming pool. We will not be judged on the basis of whether we drove a Ford or a Lexus. We won’t be praised on the basis of how many miles we logged taking our kids to club ball instead of church.

Again, these are not wrong in themselves but, if we are honest, we often give them a much greater priority than we give the kingdom of heaven. We would probably deny that, but it is true. Our aspirational value is to make Jesus the most important thing in life, but our actual values are revealed by what we do rather than what we should do. Simply add up the time, energy, and money you give to spiritual matters and those you give to material matters and you will get a more accurate perspective of what is truly important to you.

David’s prayer was that he would never lose sight of how fleeting this life can be, so that he would live each day with eternal priorities. That should be our prayer as well. Otherwise, we will die with a long list of good intentions that we never got around to. The illusion is that we will get serious about those more important things…later. Many of those things we put off are promptings from the Holy Spirit. The danger is that we can put those things off long enough that we he stops prompting us. Then, the most important things may go undone altogether.

In my moments of clarity, I want to number my days as David did…making each one count from heaven’s perspective. I don’t always do that, but I find questions are often a good way to help me evaluate my own actual priorities rather than my aspirational priorities and make needed adjustments. Maybe these will help you as well, if you are serious about eternal issues.

1. What is the Holy Spirit prompting me to do that I keep finding reasons to put off?

2. What am I giving my best time, energy, and resources to…other than God?

3. What activities or career issues do I often choose over church, spiritual family, or ministry?

4. If I am honest with myself, have I been more interested in the approval of men lately or the approval of God?

5. If people looked at what I do more than what I say, what would they believe is the primary source of my identity, my significance, and my satisfaction? Would they see it as Jesus Christ or something else?

6. What values am I modeling for my kids with the way I spend my time, money, or energy? Would they see me giving God the first fruits of my life or simply the leftovers?

7. What do I need to change or let go of in order to genuinely live with a view towards eternity rather than the pleasures and promises of this world? What am I lying to myself about?

May we, like David, learn to live each day with God’s priorities so that every day is lived without regret and stores up for us, and our children, riches in heaven.

The Apostle Paul had a fascination with sports. Church tradition suggests that he was anything but athletic, so perhaps he idealized what he was not built for. At different times in his writings he references wrestling, boxing, and, of course, running. Perhaps, this was also influenced by his two year imprisonment at Caesarea Maritima. This was a beautiful city on the Mediterranean Sea where Pontus Pilate lived at times. It was a cultural center but also a place where athletes trained for the Greek Olympic games. it is very likely that Paul spent much of his time watching them train and thinking of parallels between athletes and the spiritual life of believers.

In his second letter to the church in Corinth, Paul wrote, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize” (1 For. 9:24-27).

Perhaps, Paul had Solomon in mind when he said that he would keep his body or his flesh in check so that he would not be disqualified for the prize. Solomon started out well. When God offered to give him anything he wanted, he didn’t ask for power or wealth but for wisdom to govern God’s people. God was so pleased with his request that he gave him all three because these were gifts that could only be stewarded well by a humble man. In the years ahead he was given power, glory, wealth and wisdom that government officials from around the world came to hear.

The problem was that after years of peace, honor, and getting everything he wanted, his zeal for the Lord wained. The numerous foreign wives he had taken seduced him into worshipping their god’s at the high places of Israel. In the end, Solomon died as a foolish idolator. Many other spiritual leaders in scripture also began well, but faded in their last years. Many of the great evangelists of the 19th and 20th Centuries had the same experience. They had amazing ministries but ended with mental health issues, sexual sin, and financial scandals.

I think there is a profound warning in these examples for all of us who are over 60. At least in America, we are programmed to think in terms of retirement once we get to age 60 0r 65. Others strive hard for early retirement around age 50 or 55. We define retirement as the years in which we get to take our foot off the accelerator, de-stress, and coast to the finish line. It’s a time when we think we should be able to do as we please without answering to a boss or a board. If we have done well financially, we feel satisfied and self-reliant.

Here is the caution. Many people, who have served the Lord well for years, take a retirement stance in the kingdom as well. They unplug from both the office and the church, and go to the lake or go to live close to the grandkids and that orders their lives.. There is certainly nothing wrong with going to the lake or investing in the grandkids…as long as we don’t begin to coast spiritually and develop the mindset that we did our tour of duty in the kingdom and now it’s our time to relax and let others serve.

The apostle Paul would have raised his eyebrows at the thought of taking a twenty year sabbatical from serving in the church or sharing the gospel because it was time to relax. Retirement is an American concept, not a kingdom concept. Paul instructs us to run our race as believers, like one who is running in the Olympics. One of the firs things you learn in competitive track is to never slow down as you complete your final lap and close in on the finish line. You are coached to run as hard as you can, never slowing down, until you are well past the finish line. If you have watched much track and field, you have seen numerous examples of someone in the lead who slows down just a few steps before the finish line only to be passed by another runner or several runners. On several occasions, I have seen runners in the lead who thought the race was won and so slowed down only three strides before the end, only to be passed by several at the last second, so that he or she didn’t medal at all.

The truth is that when I unplug from church, from ministry, and from the weekly fellowship of other believers or when I feel I am spiritually mature enough that I no longer need to be challenged and motivate by sermons or lessons or testimonies, I will start to lose ground spiritually. Spirituality is like a muscle. If I fail to stretch it, tax it, and exercise it on a regular basis, that muscle will atrophy.

Paul’s perspective is that we should all want to finish strong, not coast to the end. God gives us time on this earth and that time is a gift must be stewarded. If we simply use our last twenty years to indulge ourselves because we feel we have earned the right to do so, we may have a hard time explaining how we used that twenty years faithfully to continue to bear fruit for the kingdom.

Believe me, I recognize that as we age we don’t always have the energy or stamina we once had. Paul put it this way. “Although outwardly we are waisting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Paul recognized that the years take a toll physically, but our spiritual life such continue to grow, be enriched, and bear fruit more than ever as we approach the finish line.

There is something spiritually dangerous about our latter years and our latter years are being extended as the average American can expect to live much longer than previous generations. The scriptures and history testify that many (not all) men and women who were amazing in the kingdom of God finished their race poorly. Because of that, we should be thoughtful about those “final-lap” years and intentionally position ourselves to stay connected to a healthy church and to ministries in which we continue to bear fruit.

God has ordained that believers live in connection with one another. We are commanded to love one another, encourage one another, serve one another, pray for one another, admonish one another, etc. If we are not in active relationships with one another in the church, we cannot fulfill those commands. We have a responsibility to the body of Christ to stay actively involved. The writer of Hebrews warns , “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (Heb.10:25). I don’t believe the electronic church fits God’s design for our lives and his church unless circumstances will not allow us to leave our homes.

Here is my concern. At a time when the church needs every faithful believer fully engaged, our most mature and potentially most productive people are simply phasing out. I know from personal experience, that if I am away from my spiritual family and my commitment to ministry for any extended period, my spiritual life suffers. I know that if I retire so that I disconnect from the church in meaningful ways, I will not finish strong and when the Lord returns and asks me what I did for Him with the last years of my life he entrusted to me., I may not have an adequate answer.

I simply want us all to finish strong and to think about those years when we will have more time, more resources, and more experience than the rest of the church. What will we do with those? Be prayerful, be thoughtful, and be intentional. As great as Solomon was, he died an idolator. He asked for wisdom to govern God’s people and he was the most politically astute ruler of his age or, perhaps, any age. He should have asked for spiritual wisdom – wisdom to live well for God – because in that he failed. So when we start to make retirement plans, let’s submit those to the Lord and just to our own desires, so that we steward well all that he has given us.

The prophet Isaiah spoke of the coming Messiah when he said, “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isa.61:1).

As we have just celebrated our national day of independence from British oppression under King George, I want to reflect on the theme of freedom in scripture. The passage from Isaiah above declares that Jesus would have a three point mission when he lived among us. First of all, he would preach good news (the gospel) to the poor. The gospel is a message of freedom from the tyranny of Satan who holds all men in bondage until they respond to the gospel and accept the ransom that Jesus paid for each of us on the cross. In a sense, the gospel gives us positional freedom in Christ. By his blood, we are given a legal standing in heaven that declares we are justified as our sins are forgiven and the record of them in heaven is wiped clean. That is definitely good news and takes away the legal right of Satan to to afflict us and oppress us at his discretion.

However, there is more. Even though we have a legal standing in heaven of righteousness, there is still our fallen nature (the natural man) and our brokenness that must be dealt with. That belongs to the rest of Isaiah 61:1 where the word declares that Jesus will heal broken hearts and set both captives and prisoners free. Nearly every human alive comes to Jesus with a broken heart…obviously some more than others. A broken heart unattended will always limit our ability to be all that Jesus wants us to be.

A broken heart speaks of shattered emotions: shame, rejection, self-condemnation, and even self-hatred. Many of us come to Jesus with the belief that no one can love us because we are unworthy of love. We believe intellectually that God loves us because the Bible says he does, but deep in the hearts of many believers there is still a place that doubts that anyone can love them…not even God.

Even after we are saved, Satan preys on that doubt and reinforces it. A major part of the Holy Spirit’s mission is to give us a revelation of God’s love in our hearts that removes the doubt and silences the accuser. Some receive that revelation in their heart at the moment of salvation. For others, it seems that a process is required. However we receive that assurance, it is still part of Messiah’s mission to heal our broken hearts and restore our identity so that we know we are children of God.

The passage then announces that Messiah (Jesus) is committed to setting both captives and prisoners free. Captives are those who have been victimized by others and experience bondage to shame, fear. and hopelessness. Those are the abused, molested, violated, and abandoned of this world. It is those who were innocent, but traumatized by other broken or evil people in this world. Prisoners are those who are in bondage because of their actions like a those in jail. Sometimes we are in a bad place because of our own decisions. The good news is that Jesus is willing to set both free from their bondage and their brokenness.

That freedom can come in many ways. Sometime accepting the truth of God’s word sets us free from lies that have kept us in bondage. Jesus said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Satan’s primary weapon is the lie. Jesus called him the Father of Lies and his strategies always distort the truth about God, the truth about us, and the truth about him. Choosing to give God’s word more authority in our lives than the lies of the enemy or our old beliefs based on those lies is a key to freedom.


Sometimes, freedom only comes through direct confrontation with the enemy. A major element of Jesus’ ministry was delivering people from demonic affliction and oppression. He has given his followers power and authority to do the same. Even though we have been redeemed, we may come into the kingdom with demons already assigned to us by the enemy. Although their legal right to afflict us may have been taken away, sometimes they still must be evicted by the authority and power of Jesus.

What I want to emphasize today is that God is interested in our freedom. That is not a freedom to do as we please, independent of Him, but a freedom from sin, brokenness, and the oppression of the enemy whose only desire is to kill, steal and destroy. It is a freedom to become all that God has destined for us and to find the joy and fulfillment of knowing who we are and walking in that destiny.

All men desire freedom. That is want prompted the American revolution. It is why Ukranians are fighting Russian aggression as you read this. That desire for freedom is an inherent part of being made in God’s image. Satan tries to persuade us that God’s commands are restrictive, oppressive, and totalitarian. Instead, they are the very instructions that will free us from our prisons if we will follow them. God has designed us and crafted us for a unique destiny that, once discovered, can make our lives extraordinary.

The challenge is to embrace the truth that surrendering to God’s will and God’s ways is not oppression, but the open door to a freedom we all desire. Our independence is not independence from God but from the one whose will is to destroy us. Scripture declares that “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” and “If the Son sets you free, you are free indeed.” My hope is that we will all recognize the true freedom that Jesus offers and celebrate it each day. Blessings in Him.