We humans take a lot of challenges for granted, saying that they are ‘normal’. For instance, it is considered ‘normal’ for many men and women to fall into drug addiction – whether alcohol, nicotine, illegal drugs or prescription drugs. It has become ‘normal’ for children to be born to single mothers, entering life as being ‘fatherless’. It is considered ‘normal’ that people become depressed. The list of social and personal issues, which are considered ‘normal’ in the 21st Century is endless. But what if this isn’t actually ‘normal’? What if at the root of self-destructive and destructive behaviour lies a curse?
Let us first look at the biblical definition of a curse. The Bible is a spiritual manual and every story, sentence and word carries within it spiritual knowledge. This knowledge is often hidden in the original hebrew or greek meanings of the words, and while it is not expected of anyone to know everything that the Bible has to teach us, in order to be saved and live life in Eternity, I have come to realise that we humans in general, including people who call themselves “Christian”, are living in deep ignorance of the spiritual truths contained in biblical scripture.
To me it looks as if some of these truths were actually much better understood by more people in Western culture living centuries ago, before the “Renaissance” and its subsequent celebration of the logical, human mind and human philosophical ideas, relegated much of this age-old spiritual knowledge to being ‘outdated’ and not relevant to modern life. In secular Western culture – which is heavily influenced by the antique Greek and Roman cultures and worldviews – the human being becomes his or her own ‘god’: everything the human being does, is to serve him or herself!
People living in other cultures often retained a lot of this spiritual knowledge, but it became adulterated with human religious constructs and false information, as people tried to create their own ‘gods’ – ‘gods’ who could be controlled through money or other sacrifices. The Bible teaches us that such ‘gods’ are demonic powers, in a hierarchy subject to ‘satan’ – the angel (spiritual being), who led a rebellion against God in Heaven and was cast out of Heaven, together with one third of all angels, because they had chosen to follow him!
We don’t need all the SI – Spiritual Intelligence – to be reconciled to God and become his adopted children. All we need, is FAITH in Jesus Christ. But knowing and understanding and using this SI – “Spiritual Intelligence” – can help us to live our lives here on Earth in a MUCH BETTER WAY!
Let me explain:
Introduction
The Bible doesn’t give us definitions of the meaning of words: it shares instructive knowledge, meaning that we can derive the meaning from the words, example or story provided. I learnt so much from Dr Yana Sanders and Darla Fields on how to go deeper in spiritual understanding of the Word of God, through pursuing an understanding of the Hebrew language. Have a look at this video they made about the first sentence in the Bible:
One of the spiritual truths I want to share with you, is that the first chapter of the Bible teaches us – among so many other things! – about the creative power of the spoken word. This truly is the key to living a BLESSED life!
I have learnt through studying the Bible, that everything that we see in life is the result of thoughts and emotions – which, whether consciously or subconsciously, result in an action – result in words, which become our reality. In effect, what I have learnt, is that our words (whether thought or spoken) are the ‘software’ which programs our brain, which in turn sends signals to our body and we take decisions, which ultimately shape our world.
Good words (“God Words”) create good things (“God Things”) or situations and evil words (“d’evil words”) create (d’) evil things or situations…
Scientists nowadays talk about “Neurolingual” or “Neurolinguistic Programming” (NLP). You may not be aware of this, but the Bible is humankind’s age-old spiritual handbook, which teaches us which words (including thoughts) to use and which words (including thoughts) to avoid, as we navigate and create our existence here on Earth. The Bible also guides us on our way to Eternal Life in the presence of God and explains what happens when we ignore the truth in the Bible, namely eternal hell, in the presence of ongoing evil!
The English language is also quite astonishing, from a spiritual perspective. For instance, while I was teaching a group of students on my “Leadership And Entrepreneurship Programme” (LEAP) a couple of years ago, I heard the Holy Spirit say:
“Take the word “GOD” and turn it around: it becomes ‘dog’ – a symbol for bondage in the spiritual world – a human being, who turns his back on God, is living in bondage to evil (the evil = d’evil), like a badly treated dog on a leash, which only gets food when it attacks others on command of the owner!”
This creates a ‘slave’ mentality: where we humans believe that life is about survival of the fittest and causes a ‘dog eat dog’ approach, built on jealousy and greed. Also, since there is no understanding of, or acceptance of, the fact that our lives on Earth may end and our bodies may disintegrate, but our spirit and soul continue in Eternity, people do not want to believe that there is accountability at the end of our life. This means that people without God think that they can actually do whatever they wish, with no lasting consequence! This is NOT God’s Plan for us humans! The Bible teaches us about our true identity, namely that humans were created to be children of our Heavenly Father and that we were, in fact, originally intended to live eternal lives here on Earth. We lost this opportunity through disobedience. But God sent his firstborn Son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile us with him, so that we can become adopted back into his family and regain Eternal Life. Once we understand this, we look at life from a very different perspective!
Similarly, while teaching unemployed youth a couple of years ago, the Holy Spirit inspired me to take the word ‘evil’ and turn it around.. it becomes ‘LIVE’! If we turn away from evil, we finally learn how to LIVE life in the truest sense of the word.
And of course the word “GO(O)D” holds in it the word “GOD” – GOD is the source of everything that is GOOD: life, love, creation.
In contrast, the word “evil” is the essence of the name (d)evil – “the evil”! The devil (who symbolises rebellion against God and tempts us into rebellion against God too!) is the cause of everything that is evil: death, fear and destruction!
I know this may sound crazy, but this kind of word-play helped me to help the students I was teaching to remember basic spiritual principles like: If we turn away from GOD, we – whether we know it or not! – become ‘dogs’ of the devil… What a foolish thing to do! (I’ll talk more about the definition of a “fool” in the Bible, in a future article.)
Understanding God’s Word
When God speaks in the Bible, his Words become “Spiritual Law” which are as applicable in the situation in which they were expressed, as they are now and will be in Eternity. This is explained, for instance, in this Bible verse:
“Your word, Lord, is eternal;
it stands firm in the heavens.” – Psalm 119:89″
Let’s have a look at a list of Bible verses about curses. Click here to open such a list.
If you’re already familiar with the Bible, you will probably know the story about the first blessing spoken by God and the first curse spoken by God. (Genesis 3:14). Yes, God spoke curses, which have become spiritual law: a curse is the consequence of our disobedience, our rebellion. It allows the devil to have the authority (we can also call it a ‘license’) to kill, steal and destroy, because this is his nature. Jesus calls him the ‘thief’. So, literally, if we disobey God’s Word, God has given the devil a spiritual ‘licence to kill’!
But we humans can also curse ourselves and one another, meaning that we can also give the devil the license to create havoc in our lives or in the lives of other people! And sadly, we often – completely unknowingly and unwittingly – do just that!
When we read the Bible, we must always pray to God and ask him, in the Name of his Son Jesus Christ, to send the Holy Spirit to us, to help us to understand what we are reading.
So, take any Bible verse about curses from the list above, and pray for the Holy Spirit to guide you – in the Name of Jesus Christ – to understand what this verse can teach you about curses.
In essence, what I have learnt, is that a ‘curse’ is either the automatic result of rebellion (disobedience) against God, or a negative word spoken over the life of a human being, a community, a society, a government, the world, which then holds that human being, community, society, government or the world ‘in bondage’ to the evil expressed in the word. This word can either be spoken by God or by human beings. I will explain a bit further down in this article, why the words we humans speak (or think!) have this kind of authority. Of course, this goes both ways: we humans also have the authority to speak BLESSINGS, which bring good into the world and into our lives and the lives of the people around us! In James 3, we learn about the ‘Taming of the Tongue’. Look at this bible verse:
“Out of the same mouth proceedeth blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not so to be.” – James 3:10. (KJ21)
In this chapter, James – one of the Apostles of Jesus Christ – highlights the impact of our words on our lives and on the people around us. We can also – even unknowingly – curse nature with our words – because as humans, we have spiritual authority over nature! Moses could have used words to bring water out of a rock (he used his stick instead, which was in disobedience to God’s instruction, and he paid dearly for this: God didn’t allow him to enter the promised land. Click on the link I added to the name “Moses” to find out why this was a problem!) and Jesus caused a fig tree to die (!), because it wasn’t carrying any fruit. He did this as a way to illustrate that this is what happens to human beings (including people who call themselves ‘Christian’!) when they don’t bear any spiritual fruit!
How many times have we as believers in Jesus Christ ‘cursed’ (said negative things) about our politicians, our governments, our neighbours, even our children by making negative statements related to them? Have we ever thought about the potential spiritual consequence of keeping these people ‘in bondage’ to negative results or bad behaviours through our judgment?
Similarly, if we as Believers in Jesus Christ, agree with the devil about a lie, e.g. if we say “it’s ok to smoke, at least it’s not as bad as alcohol addiction”, we are giving permission to the devil to keep us, or the person to whom we say this, in bondage to the spirit of addiction – especially if we have ‘spiritual authority’ over that person. (I’ll explain more about ‘spiritual authority’ in a future post). Smoking is harmful to our bodies, like many other behaviours we humans adopt are harmful to our bodies. All of these behaviours are ‘sinful’ – meaning that they are in disobedience to God’s Word, which says that we must treat our body as a temple of the Holy Spirit.
Or if we tell our pre-teen daughters that it is OK to take contraception in order to avoid pregnancy while they’re living in sin, we’re giving permission to the devil to tempt our daughter with engaging in sex outside of marriage – a situation that is the cause of endless difficulty and pain, that can last a lifetime! The Bible teaches us to remain sexually pure. Not because God doesn’t want us to have ‘fun’ – but because he knows about the hardships that we will face, and the curses that will be released, if we disobey this spiritual law. (PS: If you want to learn more about sexuality from a biblical perspective, have a look at my video on the “SI – Spiritual Intelligence” Channel on YouTube, titled “Understanding SEX the Spiritual Way”. And if you enjoy the video, please do subscribe, so that I can see if anyone is interested in me adding more videos!)
NOTE: It’s not as easy to understand the King James translations of the Bible, so I generally use the “Easy-to-read” version (ERV) on the Bible Gateway App. But the more modern translations often avoid using terms that appear ‘old fashioned’, because they’re no longer used in modern-day culture, so when it comes to gaining greater depth of spiritual knowledge, I recommend going back to the older translations, like the original German translation by Martin Luther or the English-language translation, known as the “King James” Bible. (By the way – King James never translated any part of the Bible, this version was just named after him, so that he would be honoured for accepting the translation and making it available to people in the United Kingdom – in case you’re interested in history, like I am!)
As Psalm 119:98 teaches us, God’s Word is eternal, meaning if he says that a curse will be released on the basis of certain human actions, that truth remains – automatically – true in Eternity! The words God has already spoken, which are relevant to us human beings, are in the Bible. So, we’d better pay attention!
God gave humans AUTHORITY over Earth
In the previous section I have explained how our words have power. But how can I know this from the Bible? Listen up: When God says:
“Then God said, “Let us make (hu)mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule (have authority over) over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals (the word ‘wild animals’ in the Bible often is also used to describe demonic spirits!), and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” – Genesis 1:26
this means that God has given us humans the AUTHORITY over everything that happens here on Earth! I’ve always understood the physical authority, but now I know that this actually means SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY too! So the words we speak have the same creative effect that God’s Word has.
Our words are not eternal, and they are not as powerful as God’s Word – thank goodness! But, if we don’t use our words (creative ability to build or destruct!) carefully, we are DANGEROUS – so dangerous, that God had to safeguard the Garden of Eden (which he had planted for us!) – and banish us to live outside of this earthly “Paradise”, because we would otherwise have damaged it with our negative creative ability (curses)!
Look at this verse:
22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. “
God foresaw that we humans were easily tempted by the devil, and that as a result, the devil would never stop trying to work through us, so that we ultimately destroy God’s Creation! But even if we have been banished from “Paradise”, we humans still have been given AUTHORITY by God over Earth!
Those of us who have been blessed with FAITH in Jesus Christ are particularly DANGEROUS: Whatever WE allow (bind or loose) in Earth, HE (GOD) allows in Heaven – what does that mean? It means that if WE allow the devil to usurp our spiritual authority here on Earth, GOD allows the devil (who operates in the spiritual realm) the right to execute our negative words (including thoughs) against ourselves, or against other people, or against the rest of creation here on Earth! Churches usually limit these words of Jesus Christ to referring to church practices and policies, including the act of forgiveness. But I have learnt that this AUTHORITY given by Jesus Christ to his Followers, truly are the KEYS TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD – which goes well beyond the four walls of any physical church!
So if bad things happen here on Earth, this is NOT God’s doing: it is the result of our ‘fallen state’ – too many of us human beings are living in spiritual ignorance and as a result, we are constantly evoking evil (death, fear and destruction) through our thoughts, words AND actions! If we kill human life, we live under a curse and are driven from the ground with the human blood we spill, just like Cain did, when he killed his brother, Abel:
“The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”
“The ground” is wherever we work. People who murder others, may hide it from other people and live seemingly peaceful lives, but God knows the truth and, spiritually speaking, a murderer will never have rest for his soul… except, when he accepts salvation through Jesus Christ!
Which brings me to Jesus: yes, because of sin, our lives are all affected by curses – but FAITH in Jesus Christ BREAKS every curse! However, this is not a once-off event… we sin every day, so we release curses over our lives every day. Which means that we must repent every day and call on the Name of Jesus Christ every day, to break the curse of sin in our life.
NOTE: What about if bad things happen to good people? I’ve learnt that there are two reasons for this: Firstly, that no human being is ‘good’ – all of us are prone to falling into sin, even if this is not visible to others. So bad things happening to good people may very well be the result of their own spiritual ignorance, whereby they say and do things that still give the devil a license to attack them – especially, if they say that they believe in Jesus Christ, but in some small way don’t act like Jesus would, or don’t follow his example. Of course, despite these sins, a person who has accepted Jesus Christ as the Son of God and believes in him, will be saved and gain Eternal Life when he or she dies – even if all death is the result of sin! Secondly, the Bible teaches us that God allows tests of faith in our lives, like a Good Father will allow challenges to help his children to become better and better, in our case: grow stronger and stronger in our FAITH in God and our OBEDIENCE to GOD (which is the same as TRUSTING GOD). God is not the one who tests us, the devil is. But God allows such tests, with the understanding that he has ALREADY given us the ability to overcome all tests:
“No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” – 1 Corinthians 10:13
These “temptations” and “tests” are not easy! I have been ‘tempted’ to hate the man who murdered my mother. I have been ‘tested’ by the sudden and unexpected death of my wonderful first husband.
But God.
God gave me the capacity to forgive and to accept and to love again.
PS: If you want to learn even more about curses, please have a look at the teachings by Derek Prince. He really was a gifted preacher, who could simplify spiritual knowledge in a very practical manner.
RED HERRING THOUGHT: If God gave us all authority on Earth, does this mean that we have the same authority in space? As things stand, I don’t believe that we do: our God-given authority is limited to Earth. Maybe one of you can convince me from the Bible, otherwise? From my perspective, God allows space exploration by us humans for one reason only: to gain an even greater respect for HIM, as the Creator:
“The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.” – Psalm 19:1-4
Of course this includes all scientific research into space and any benefits we human beings may derive from such research: ultimately, all of this will point to one thing and one thing only: the glory of God! The more scientists explore space, the more they will understand – and accept! – the Bible. That is what I believe, because that is what God’s Word says.
But – if we’re working in space, beyond our earthly authority – will there be spiritual consequences? I believe so: everything we humans do, ultimately has a spiritual consequence. I have no doubt that this will become evident over time…
How I learnt about the impact of curses in modern-day life
I never thought much about curses, until 2021, when the Holy Spirit took me by the hand to teach me in a very real, practical way.
This was during the time when my business was coming to a standstill. In hindsight, I believe that God allowed the business to come to a halt, because he needed me to go through in-depth spiritual training, in preparation for the work he has assigned me to do now.
I will change some details of this testimony to protect the identity of the individuals involved, but the story that I am telling you is a real-life experience I had at the time.
In December 2020 my business faced a major crisis, and it was also the darkest time in my life, on a personal level, since I had gone through a personal crisis in my early thirties, around the time when my father passed away. I had been working non-stop to try to keep the business afloat and was physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. Financially I was also at my wits end. I had been widowed for 19 months, my second Christmas without the love of my life. We didn’t have children, and our children from his first marriage had made plans to travel, so no family gathering for me that year. I had planned to spend Christmas with one of my two sisters, but because I had been so focused on my business, had somehow missed the memo that she and her family were also off to the beach during that time! On top of this, my handbag had been stolen the day before Christmas, and I hadn’t had any chance to go shopping, before the thief had grabbed the handbag. I literally had some long-life milk, rye crackers and a few dry ingredients in the house for a week, while waiting for new bank cards! I do have lovely friends, but I didn’t want to complicate their holiday plans on such short notice.
I attended the Christmas Eve service at church and the Christmas Day service, and was invited to join another friend for Christmas lunch, but – quite frankly – I was feeling really vulnerable and tired, and chose to go home alone…
In South Africa, the time between Christmas and the New Year is really QUIET, businesswise. My whole team was on leave already after an extremely challenging year, and I didn’t want to call anyone back from spending precious time with their families.
So there I was, with nothing but YouTube as company.
But God.
God used YouTube to attract my attention: I was watching a YouTube video featuring Lana Vawser and Ana Werner. I had been following Lana Vawser’s prophetic email newsletters for a couple of years already. The words she was sharing were always encouraging and spiritually speaking ‘spot on’ for whichever situation I was facing. These two women’s testimonies are truly inspirational!
As I was listening, another YouTube recommendation caught my eye:
I hadn’t heard about either Nancy Coen or Benji Alexander before, but I felt the gentle nudging of the Holy Spirit to watch this conversation between them.
As I was listening to them talk about their own spiritual journeys, I experienced a deep hunger in my spirit to deepen my relationship with God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – even further!
These two videos – the conversation between Lana and Ana, and Nancy and Benji – kickstarted a year-long, Holy-Spirit-driven “Bible School” experience on YouTube for me. From Christmas 2020 to New Year 2021 I binge-watched YouTube videos by fellow Christian believers and YouTubers. When my business reopened in January 2021, of course I had to work long hours every day, but I couldn’t wait to go back online in the evenings, alone in my house, to keep on learning from a wide variety of Christian preachers and teachers, watching testimony after testimony and just being inspired and astounded by everything that God is doing in the lives of other people all across the world!
If I heard them talk about anything that I had not learnt during my Lutheran church confirmation class or my lifetime as a Lutheran church member, I would read the scriptures, using Bible Gateway, in different translations, praying for guidance and clarity, asking the Holy Spirit to help me to ‘discern the spirits‘.
What a blessing it is to know more than one language, because in addition to the many different English-language translations of the Bible, I also draw knowledge from different German and Dutch versions, as well as from Afrikaans versions of the Bible. Many of the teachings I was watching also referred back to original Greek and Hebrew texts and I have become an avid student of Hebrew language, to gain an even deeper understanding of God’s Word than what I have had until now.
In this way, I came across the many fascinating interviews that Syd Roth has on his “It’s Supernatural” channel on YouTube. And then I heard his interview with Isaiah Saldivar.
Isaiah Saldivar was explaining how the Holy Spirit had suddenly gifted him with the ability to see into the unseen realm – he saw demons and angels surrounding every person, as he was walking on campus one day!
I had had my own interactions with demons in real-life, experiences which no-one whom I knew at the time had shared, so of course I was drawn to learn more about how to overcome demonic influences in our lives, as Believers in Jesus Christ.
An interview between Isaiah Saldivar and John Ramirez proved especially insightful for me. I had so many ‘AHA’ moments while watching this video, because they were talking about incidences that brought to mind the many experiences I had had during my time serving a Christian, deep rural, educational, non-profit organisation, working with teenagers in high school and unemployed youth, who were behaving in very strange ways – a boy who climbed up the really smooth, high walls of the dining room in order to sit in the rafters under the thatch roof, for instance… this is just one example, of how demonic possession can manifest itself through apparent ‘superhuman’ ability…
I’m not sharing this in order to be sensationalist. I’m just sharing my journey of how I became more aware of the direct impact of spiritual laws and spiritual ignorance over the course of my life, as I started working with more and more people outside of the safe confines of my Lutheran Church network. In fact, there had been many instances where I was dealing with youth who clearly were possessed by a demon or showed other symptoms of living under a curse, which the Pastors that I knew had no idea of how to handle. I don’t blame them – I, myself, was not at all feeling ‘qualified’ to deal with the dark side of things… The first time I had to face a situation such as this, I had reached out to the local pastor serving the organisation, but he said that he did not have enough ‘experience’ to deal with this (!). I then reached out to my own pastor, asking if anyone in our church synod had experience in working in this field of overcoming demonic manifestations, i.e. casting out demons, and he referred me to the bishop of a sister-church, who in turn pointed me to the Lutheran church in Madagascar, which was known to be active in deliverance ministry…
Now here I was sitting in my own house in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa, watching and learning from believers in Jesus Christ, who had first-hand experience AND ANSWERS! on how to deal with demonic powers in a practical, scriptural manner! Isaiah Saldivar pointed out that one-third of Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth had been to cast out demons, and that – as disciples and followers of Jesus Christ – this should be ‘business as usual’ for all of us too!
Of everything that I have learnt during the thirty years I have worked in ministry and youth development and community development, this deeper understanding of CURSES and how to BREAK them, is for me the MOST SIGNIFICANT. I believe it is the key to effect positive change all across the world, the KEY TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD. By BREAKING CURSES (‘binding’ demons and ‘loosing’ people and situations) we, who believe in Jesus Christ, truly have the keys to catalyse positive change globally.
In my next article I will tell the story of how God took me by the hand to learn first-hand how to break generational curses over someone and how to cast out demons… in real-life. If you don’t want to miss this article, please follow me on facebook, by clicking on the button below:
If you’re interested to learn more about how you too can become a CURSE BREAKER, please subscribe to my free #CHANGEMAKER email newsletter, by clicking on the button below:
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