What Believers Must Understand to Release God’s Blessings in Their Lives

In ancient Jewish wisdom, the starting point for understanding any mystery of the Bible is the avot. The avot is the foundation upon which our understanding of God’s Word is built. The book of Hebrews picks up on this idea when it instructs us to grow in God’s wisdom, moving from the “milk” of His word to the “meat” (Heb. 5:12).

The starting place in our learning is the avot. The word “literally means ‘fathers,’ but…it also refers to fundamental principles.” It is the most important part of the teaching or revelation. If we miss the avot, we will not understand what God is saying.

The avot is important in every time and teaching. It is certainly important as we approach the threshold of the greatest outpouring of God’s love and power that humankind has ever seen. The avot of the first living prophecy is to acknowledge the Jewishness of Jesus. The avot of the second lies in the words God spoke to Abraham four thousand years ago:

“I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you” (Gen. 12:2-3a, NKJV).

Considering these verses, particularly verse 3, we must ask ourselves: Was God speaking only to Abraham, or are blessings and curses passed on from Abraham to his descendants? The answer is that everything God spoke to Abraham was passed on to Isaac, Jacob, their entire family, the nation of Israel, and now the church. God will bless anyone who blesses Abraham and Israel.

As Christians we tend to believe in the blessings of God. The Hebrew word for blessed is barak, which means “to bless, kneel…be blessed.” Another Hebrew word that is related to barak is berakhah (also spelled b’rakha), meaning a present, a gift or a benediction. When God spoke about blessing those who bless Israel, we have no doubt that He wanted to bless us. But what did He mean when He said, “I will curse him who curses you”? Do we believe that too?

When God promised to bless us for blessing Israel, He meant it. And when He said He would curse us for cursing Israel, He meant that too. The word translated “curse” in Genesis 12 is arar. It also appears in Jeremiah 17:5, when the Lord said, “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord.”

Arar means “to curse…to be cursed.” When God warned that those who curse Israel would be cursed, it meant that His presence and protection would no longer be with those who harm Israel or the Jewish people. In Jeremiah 17 arar is in the passive voice, meaning the cursing is not an action taken by God but a result of His protective covering being removed.

Are you getting this? When we bless Israel and the Jewish people, God becomes actively involved with blessing and protecting us. But when our words or actions bring harm to Israel or the Jewish people, we become exposed and vulnerable to the enemy’s attacks. Both scenarios are real!

Certainly, we must examine our own hearts and actions with respect to God’s promise to Abraham and be diligent to break any curses we may have brought on ourselves, but is it possible we also need to break the curses of our spiritual fathers? Could it be that the church is living under a partially closed heaven and is not experiencing the fullness of the Abrahamic blessing that we inherited through Jesus Christ? Is it possible that a curse over us as the church began with our spiritual fathers and is choking out the harvest of God that we await?

In my opinion the answer in all cases is “Yes!” It is time to break these curses, killing them from the roots up, so the great harvest of God’s latter rain and end-time blessings can begin! One of those we must destroy is the curse that came from blaming Jewish people for the death of Jesus.

The Jews Did Not Kill Jesus

Genesis 12:3 is clear: God promised to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel. I believe that curse is blocking the blessing God intends for the church. We have all seen God’s blessing to some degree. But He did not promise a sprinkle in the last days; He said there would be a great outpouring.

To talk constructively about the curse of blaming the Jewish people for Jesus’ death or about replacement theology overall, we must get to the root. That means asking ourselves whether the responsibility for Jesus’ death belongs to Rome or the Jewish people. Cutting down the weeds of the curse is not enough. We must annihilate them. That means diving into the historical facts and uncovering the root system. But before we do, let’s establish two facts: (1) nobody should be blamed for Jesus’ death on the cross, and (2) Jesus knew all along that dying was His mission. He told His disciples so ahead of time:

“My father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have the power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father” (John 10:17-18).

No one took Jesus’ life from Him. He gave His life as a seed, a ransom for us all. Look at what He told His disciples:

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28).

“The hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain” (John 12:23-24).

No person or institution had the power or authority to take Jesus’ life. Not one! His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane confirmed it. He said, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will” (Matt. 26:39).

Knowing that Jesus said no one could take His life from Him, and knowing that His sacrifice was His mission, how could the church claim Jewish people murdered Him? How did such a doctrine continue for nearly seventeen hundred years? There was no basis for it, yet it persisted. However, I believe that something Jesus said in the book of Mark can open every Gentile Christian’s eyes to the truth and break the curse, once and for all:

[Jesus] said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your own tradition….making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do” (Mark 7:9,13).

We must understand this if we are to walk in the fullness of God’s blessing. We must be certain that what we think is true and scriptural actually came from the Bible rather than from our own traditions. {eoa}

This article was taken from Chapters 1 and 2 of The Seven Living Prophecies: Breaking the Curse, Releasing the Blessing by Larry Huch (Charisma House 2020).