Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram, Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing; and I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

This was the covenant promise which God made to Abraham foretelling the coming and the purpose of Jesus Christ. Since this statement was made by God, He has been in the business of blessing families. The primary unit through which God has committed Himself to work is the family. God is the blesser, the devil is the curser. Through Jesus Christ, God is intent on blessing all the families of the earth. That’s why it is important to know the meaning of blessing.

Blessing comes from the Hebrew word “BARUCH” which means to “empower to prosper” What does it mean to prosper? We usually think of prosperity in terms of money, but economic prosperity is not all that this word entails. We could better define this verb “to prosper” as to thrive, succeed, or do well. In the Hebrew language, this word primarily means “to have a pleasant fulfilling journey. So in combining these definitions, to bless (Baruch), would mean to empower the one being blessed to thrive, succeed, do well, and to have a pleasant, fulfilling journey through life. On the other hand, to curse would mean to disempower or to disable the one being cursed from thriving, succeeding, or having a pleasant or fulfilling journey through life.

Blessing is God’s primary mechanism of imparting His message of identity and destiny into your life. Identity is our perception of ourselves and the value of my life & being. Destiny is the perception of my function & significance on this earth. God’s message of IDENTITY are: to Me you are very valuable and are worth the life of Jesus Christ; you are a “somebody;” you do belong here; before the foundation of the earth, I planned for you; and you were no mistake. His message of DESTINY are: you are destined to a great purpose on this earth; you are a success as a person and are completely adequate and suited to carry out My purpose; set your vision high, and allow Me to complete great accomplishments in your life. Through curse, Satan’s message of IDENTITY is imparted as follows: you are worthless, you aren’t even supposed to be here; you are a mistake; something is drastically wrong with you; and you are “nobody.” His message of DESTINY are: you have no purpose; you are a total failure; you’ll never be a success; you are inadequate, you are not equipped to accomplish the job; and nothing ever works out for you.

Christians especially parents are God’s ordained agents through whom this is to come. Parents with their words, attitudes, & actions possess the ability to bless or curse the identities of their children. Blessing is like pouring nutrient-laden, “blue water” into the plants causing them to perk up and really be full of like while cursing is like pouring hydrochloric acid to plants that prevent their growth leading to their decay. One author has identified 5 key elements of family blessing: meaningful touch, a spoken message, attaching high value to the one being blessed, picturing a special future for the one being blessed, and an active commitment to fulfill the blessing.

Many Christians believe that if they pray for their children, take them to church, put them in a Christian school, teach them the Bible, make sure that they have Christian friends, love them, and properly discipline them, they should grow up to be godly Christian adults. Although these activities are good, none of them actually delivers God’s message of identity & destiny when most needed. As a result, many broken-hearted Christian parents who are weeping over the devastation that has occurred in the lives of their teen-age & adult children.

Hosea 4:6 “For lack of knowledge My people perish”

Many times when parents are attempting to motivate their children or stimulate them to excellence, without realizing it they are actually communicating a message to the child that no matter what level of achievement he/she might attain, the child is still not a success in the sight of parents. This was the case of Sandy and her father.

Sandy’s father grew up in a rural area in on of the southern states during the time of the Great Depression. He had never had an opportunity to gain a good education for himself since he was forced to drop out of high school to go to work to help support the family. As a result, he had vowed that all of his children would go to college.

Sandy knew that academic performance was very important to her dad, so she took her schoolwork very seriously. Fortunately, she was also highly gifted academically. During the 1st semester of her sophomore year in high school, she took some unusually difficult college level classes. The academic load was quite a challenge to her, but she managed to come home with a report card showing A’s in all classes, except one with a B.

Proudly, Sandy presented her report card to her father expecting to hear words of praise & affirmation from him. After carefully perusing the document, he looked up and chided his daughter. “How come you got only a B in this class?” he challenged. “You’ve been spending too much time in sports activities. You need to work harder.” Sandy’s heart was devastated. She had tried so hard to please her father, and yet it wasn’t enough. That night as she lay awake in her bed with an inner wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding, she vowed that the next semester she would get straight A’s in all classes.

Sure enough at the end of the 2nd semester, she came home with straight A’s in all classes. Confidently, she handed her report card to her father when he arrived home from work that evening. After thoroughly surveying the report card, he looked up to Sandy’s hopeful eyes and remarked, ‘Obviously the classes you took were too easy if you can just breeze through them like that and get straight A’s.”

Little did her father realize that he held a key in his hand with which he could open or close the door to Sandy’s future success. He could use the key of blessing to empower her to prosper or he could use the key of cursing thus crippling and disabling her. Since her father failed to use the blessing key that night, Sandy’s grades soon deteriorated to D’s and F’s. In her junior year she became pregnant, moved in with her boyfriend, and dropped out of school all together. It wasn’t until years later when Sandy gave her life to Jesus Christ that her relationship with her father began to be reconciled, and healing and restoration began to come to her life.

The good news is that Jesus has come to this earth as a Redeemer to restore our lives and that of our children everything that the kingdom of darkness has stolen.

John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
To conclude, if we have been a victim of the thief (the devil) for stealing our right identity and destiny in God, through the various cursing instances in the past, we have to renounce his foothold so that our real identity & destiny can be restored. If we haven’t accepted Jesus Christ yet, we need to do so because His presence in our lives would open the key for genuine healing and enjoy the full and abundant life He promised. We should also repent with God and ask for forgiveness with anybody whom, because of our lack of knowledge, we have caused a permanent curse in their lives. Finally, we should commit from this time on to be an agent of blessing and never an agent of curse to our family members and to others.