One of the things I have consistently seen through the years in counseling, deliverance, and in my own life is Satan’s attempt to make us feel disqualified.  Let me explain.  The enemy’s first strategy ys is to keep us from receiving God’s grace though the sacrifice of his Son. In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus explained that, for many, the enemy simply takes the word of God from their hearts before they can believe.  He works hard to keep us from an encounter with God’s word and then works hard to keep us from opening our hearts to God.

Having failed at keeping a man or woman from being touched by God’s word and his Spirit, one of his standard strategies is to make the saved or those close to salvation feel disqualified.  Satan is referred to as the accuser of the brethren.  He accuses us before God, but he also accuses us in our own hearts and minds.  To those close to salvation, he whispers that they need to be better and do better before God will accept them.  They never surrender to Jesus because they don’t feel “good enough.” Perhaps, past sins haunt them and Satan whispers that  they are beyond God’s grace.  Of course, that is a total misunderstanding of grace.  We don’t clean ourselves up so we can come to Jesus, we come to Jesus so he can clean us up.  But in a world of highly conditional love, grace can be a difficult concept to grasp. Satan somehow seems to skew the message of grace so they don’t hear it clearly. Their sense of disqualification keeps them from moving ahead.

Even if a person surrenders to Jesus, Satan continue the accusations.  He will whisper continually that even though we are saved, we are still disqualified from God’s further blessings or from serving him in any significant way.  He reminds of past sins and suggests that we were not sorry enough, did not repent enough, or did not hate the sin enough for God to forgive that sin.  We live as if God is still holding something against us.  The enemy always implies that the blood of Christ is not really sufficient…for us. Feeling as if God is holding something against us, we have little faith that he will answer our prayers, bless us by meeting our greatest needs or deepest desire, or that all the promises in scripture are available to us.  When asked to serve in any significant capacity in the kingdom, we retreat, feeling that we simply don’t measure up.  We may even feel as if God would be angry if we took such a “presumptuous” step.

The truth is that none of us measure up, are “good enough,” or are worthy of His promises based on our own merit and righteousness.  It is only by the blood of Jesus that we can stand in the presence of God and be confident that he will answer our prayers.  Jesus gives us a position in heaven long before our condition matches that.  When we can accept our position as sons and daughters who are seen by God through the lens of his Son’s righteousness, we can then begin to pray with faith and expectation that God will care for us and use us in his kingdom in ways that we could not anticipate.

Faith is certainly based on our view of God and his character, but Satan uses our own doubts, insecurities, and self-image issues to cloud our view of the Father and the complete adequacy of his son’s blood to make us totally acceptable to our Father.  This, I believe, is the primary area in which we must take every thought captive and align our thoughts with the Father’s truth.

Most of us can stand a healthy dose of what God says about us on a daily basis by speaking the things that God has said about those who belong to him.  You can probably Google “Our identity in Christ” and get a great list of scriptures that declare what God has said about his children. When other thoughts enter our minds regarding our standing with God, we need to rebuke those thoughts as lies and speak God’s truth over ourselves.  Old ways of thinking are engrained in our brains and it takes an intentional season of declaring God’s truth over the old thoughts before God’s truth becomes our primary way of viewing ourselves…especially when the enemy keeps whispering our disqualifications to us. 

Sometimes we assume that what we think about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is all that matters. But, all of His truth matters and what he has done for us through the cross is just as significant because our righteousness in Christ and our state of being “new creations” also reflects on God.  The quality of a sculptor’s work reflects on him as a person and God is sculpting us through Christ.  

So…when the accuser of the brethren comes around, recognize him, reject him, and silence him by declaring God’s truth about you in response to the lies he whispers.  Part of our transformation comes from the renewing of our minds and that renewing comes from saturating our thoughts and words with God’s truth.  You are not disqualified but made totally acceptable in Jesus Christ for salvation, blessing and even challenging assignments.

I ran across this quote that I thought was worth reposting today.

“If not dealt with through repentance and cleansing of generational blood , we walk around with generational voices , traumas, and inequities screaming in our DNA . They demand that we bend towards their command. They want us to pay rent to their altars . We walk around believing that what we consider as truth, is absolute truth! Lies masquerade as truth behind culture, tradition and whatever has been passed down through our ancestral lines. Repentance is an act of cutting  deep in ourselves until we see our own prejudices. 
It’s being willing to change our minds about certain races , tribes, people , nationalities and what we’ve considered as truth . Until we see what’s at work within us , we will never see a desperation for repentance no matter what it costs us. 

Bloodline Repentance sets me free from generational giants who had held my family in bondage , who have influenced the way I see things , the way I do life and the way I subconsciously operate. It sets me free from demonic cycles . Understand this my friend , we are deep beings (spirit , soul and body- and there are untouched layers within these layers. Never miss an opportunity of dealing with a layer of who you are through repentance.” Nonhlanhla Maseko-Gcabashe

I don’t know the author of the above quote, but the longer I minister in spiritual warfare, the more I believe we must pay attention to generational curses assigned to our bloodlines. Remember the principle that the sins of the fathers shall be passed down to the third and fourth generations (Ex. 20:5). As generations continue the sin that established that curse, the curse keeps being pushed forward and will remain until the blood of Christ breaks the curse through our confession and repentance on behalf of our bloodlines.

If you read through Daniel and Nehemiah, when praying for the nation of Israel, they confessed not only their own sins but also the sins and wickedness of their fathers as they plead for God’s mercy. We represent our own bloodlines and may need to confess, repent, and renounce any sins we are aware of that have been passed down through the generations. Sometimes we can identify that sin because we struggle with something we have also seen in our family line such as sexual sin, greed, fear, bitterness, violence, witchcraft, etc.

We may have also seen the consequences of that sin in multiple divorces, addictions, broken identities, poverty, suicides, violence, and generations of depression. What the author of the quote I began with did not clearly point out is that the voices screaming from our DNA are demonic. Not only do sins need to be confessed and renounced, but demons need to be dismissed. Sometimes parents forget that though they have broken a generational curse, demons can still be attached to them and their children until they are commanded to leave. Breaking the curse takes away the legal right of the demonic to remain, but they will still remain until forced to leave.

The challenge with generational curses is that many of us don’t know much about our family lines. It would not hurt to find out what we can…the good, the bad, and the ugly. We may also know if we have bloodlines that go back to ancestors who worshipped false gods, practiced human sacrifice, or that persecuted Jews. If so, we may need to repent of those things in the name of Jesus. We may also want to spend a season asking the Holy Spirit to reveal anything in our bloodlines that the enemy can use against us so that we can submit those things to the cross as well.

In the book of Revelation we are told, “Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down” (Rev. 12:10).  Satan constantly appears before God accusing us of sin so that he might gain legal access to afflict us. Much of what he uses to gain that legal right is generational. If we can confess and renounces specific sins of our fathers, we should. But if not, we can follow the example of the prophets who simply confessed the wickedness and rebellion of their forefathers. If you have not spent anytime with the Lord dealing with these generational sins and curses, I encourage you to do so. They are very real and a real source of access to the enemy.

Blessings in Him.