Christian Living

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The night before my wedding, someone very close to me, who had never actually met my husband, sent me a long text message explaining in great detail how she believes my marriage will end in three years. Hurtful stuff, right? Though I was emotionally troubled by the action, in my mind this was nothing but the same old, same old. This wasn’t the first time she’d spoken something negative like that to me, so just as I had done with every other negative word, I just tried to dismiss it and move on. In my husband’s mind, however, this text message warranted a call to one of our spiritual mentors. That call turned into another call and then another, and soon we had a fleet of people calling us to pray with us and cancel her curse and speak life over our marriage.

Wait a minute… did she say curse?

If you’re like me, you tend to conjure up images of witches with questionable items in a pot chanting creepy incantations when you hear the word “curse”. It’s not usually that complicated though. To curse someone simply means to express a wish of misfortune to befall a person. In truth, it’s something we do every day and we don’t even realize it. Sometimes we curse people to their face, but most often we curse people as we gossip with others. I truly believe that is a huge factor as to why God hates gossip so much. Not only do we malign the reputation of a person, but we also share “predictions” of what will happen to that person, and those predictions usually are negative. Those negative words become active the moment we speak them and act as a curse in that person’s life. “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be.” (James 3:9-10)

God said and there was

Words are powerful. God used words to alter time and space to create the heavens and earth and all that dwells therein. The prophets of old spoke words that hung in the atmosphere for hundreds of years until Jesus came and fulfilled each and every one of them. We use words every day to build up and tear down. The power of life and death resides in our tongues alone (Proverbs 18:21).

Let’s go back a second and take a look at the life of Jesus. In the Old Testament there were a handful of guys called prophets who had been granted special insight to the future. It wasn’t enough for them to have a dream or a vision though, they had to declare what they had seen in order for it to be set in motion. The words had to be spoken so they could accomplish their purpose and return to God (Is. 55:11). Until the day that Jesus took His first breath, those words waited.. and waited. For hundreds of years they were suspended in time. Then, as Jesus began His life journey, those prophetic words changed from dormant to active. You’ll notice as you read through the Gospels that the word “fulfilled” comes up a lot, especially in relation to Christ. Whenever I see that word, I hear the sound of a cash register. Ka-ching! Mission accomplished.

Transaction declined

Regardless of whether the words we speak are good or bad, they all do the same thing. They wait to be fulfilled. They’re never meaningless. I didn’t understand this on the eve of my wedding, but when curses are spoken, you have to cancel them. You don’t want those words hanging over your life waiting to be fulfilled. The last sound I want to hear on the word she spoke over our marriage is ka-ching, so it’s imperative that I void the transaction. Can you imagine how that word could have affected our marriage had we not canceled it? There would have been constant mistrust, an attitude of “it’s all going to end anyway,” and so much more negativity. It had to be cancelled.

If any of you have been on the receiving end of any curse, no matter how small (i.e. “You’re never going to amount to anything.”), you need to learn to cancel those words. Maybe you repeat those words in your head sometimes. Do your realize that that gives the word power and keeps it active in your life? As Bob Newhart used to say, “STOP IT!” Follow the advice of 2 Corinthians 10:5 and “cast down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” You have the authority to nullify every curse that has been spoken over your life, so use it! And remember the reality of curses the next time you speak something negative about someone. You don’t want to stand before God one day and watch the words you spoke play out before you to the tune of ka-ching.

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