Accepting Blessing, Rejecting Curse [Part 1]

Pastor author and Bible teacher Alan Wright blessing is really important because it's a way through the Scripture were really talking about is vision over someone's life that is spoken with faith in accord with God's word that's Pastor Alan Wright welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life for a whole new light. I'm being excited for you to hear today's message in a series titled the power of blessing is presented in an older church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright ministry as you listen to today's message go deeper as we send you today special offer.

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More on that later in the program right now. Let's get started with today's teaching here is Alan Wright you ready for some good news this morning, there's a way in which you can live your life in which every blessing that is spoken new forecaster view an issue toward you.

As you can receive it fully in your heart and for every negative forecast every curse you can reject it because you can be assured that in Christ there is no curse that remains for you as any cause, and so today we're going to learn how to let our hearts gravitate towards blessing and reject curse is one of the most important things we could ever learn in life.

I want to turn you to numbers chapter 13 and then when I go over and to Joshua just briefly to contrast to the most pivotal moments in the life of Israel and and to see the difference that happens in the life of Israel based on who the people listen to.

Who do you listen to numbers chapter 13 and verse 25, number 13 verse 25 I hear is the report that comes back from the spies that he been sent into the promised land into Canaan to go and spy out the land or mirror their mission was to go and spy out the land really to see the sweetness of the fruit and to come back with a favorable favorable report about their strategies for taking the land that is not what that's not what ends up happening. Verse 25. At the end of 40 days. They returned from spying out the land and they came to Moses and Aaron and all the carbonation of the people of Israel in the wilderness upon Veronica – and they brought back word to them and to all the congregation and show them the fruit of land and they told we came to the land to which you sent us. It flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit.

However, the people who dwell in the land of strong in the cities are fortified and very large.

Besides, we saw the descendents of on knock there, the Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev, the Hittites, the Jebusites and Amorites dwell on the hill country. The Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan. But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, let this go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.

Then the men who had gone up with him said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying the land through which we are going to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height and there we saw than the feel of the sons of on knock who come from the nephew and we seem to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.

And so it was that the people listened to the negative report and they didn't go forward. What it meant was that they wandered in the wilderness until the generation died off and it was a later time. After that generation had died off that a man named Joshua was going to lead them in and we pick up this part of the story in Joshua chapter 2 and Joshua also sent spies into Canaan, Joshua is as clear of a figure in the Old Testament to prefigure Christ as any because the name Jesus is the name Joshua his his name. Hebrew name was Yeshua, which, if you take it over transliterate any that into Greek, becomes the Asus which we render Jesus. So the name Joshua is the name Jesus. So Joshua leads the people into the promised land. And it goes in a completely different way than it did a previous generation, he sends in these two spies they go and there helped by the prostitute Rahab they come back and bring their report and where Joshua to and this is verse 23 then the two men returned they came down from the hills and passed over and came to Joshua the son of nun, and they told him all that it happened to them and they said to Joshua, truly the Lord has given all the land into our hands and also all the inhabitants of the land, melt away because of us. Odds or make this point as we start out that these buys were spying out the same land that had already been promised to the previous generation. Nothing had changed. The only thing that changed was the report. The only thing the change was the forecast and only thing the change was who did the people listen to and admit the difference in whether you went forward into the promised land or state in the wilderness.

It meant the difference in stagnation or are moving forward with destiny. It would in the end it meant the difference in life and death and that's how much is at stake when we talk about blessing and curse is really cute commercials some years ago couple years ago with Peyton Manning the NFL's superstar quarterback who is in a in some city that that does about the there to be playing the Broncos will be playing some opponent as her buys against him. He's at the hotel and entered buys person in the meat so you get in the elevator and the bell boy is theirs that you're going down Manning and he looks at her and says you're right I'm going down the fourth floor going to get a massage today nice day thank you and then he is seen in the room and room service comes in as a as a basket of fruit that some I've broke on and and that the. The attendant says you don't choke on it is a good call there.

Thanks. I think I'll just chop it up and and put a little fruit salad. Good idea. Thank you. And then the next scene he is out on the balcony is a beautiful morning and he's out of his robe, just stretching the housekeeper. Another bow he looks over and and she says go take a hike. He said it was a good idea. I think I will beautiful day. Thank you. Think I'll take a little aggregate wouldn't be so nice if every curse that was spoken against you. You can somehow just turn it into a blessing and and yet real life. It's not quite so easy is that what do you do uncle Stanley and Lagos pastor from so many years and he had a parishioner one time that she would literally if she got into a negative conversation with somebody and they were just spewing all those negative things, and negative about her and curses Eric as she would just she would literally effort go over stand in the corner and she just like white hyper self off like that of a joke in our family feud.

If your receipt so I start doing this way just like I'm thinking, what do you do with with with all of this. We were little kids. You see, this is the scene on the playground. No, Johnny says the Freddie, your meaning and Freddie says I am not and what guys are to am not hard to am not hard to what's going on there that's that's a little child's spirit is trying to find a way to reject curse is an innocent broken world is just is just filled up with so much negative forecast and so we want to do today is take a look at what were really talking about with the idea of blessing and curse and at least take some beginning steps to let your heart recognize and gravitate towards blessing and recognize and reject curse. The idea here is that blessing is really important to God because it's a thread that goes all the way through the Scripture were really talking about a positive vision over someone's life that is spoken with faith in accord with God's word. Ashley, what were talking about and in the beginning God bless Adam and Eve and then said be fruitful and multiply.

He taught Aaron and Moses to tell the priest that there bless the people the Lord bless you and keep you.

The patriarchs were in the bless their children we see how Jesus when he was born there. There was a prophetic meaning cementing and blessed him that Jesus at his baptism was blessed before he began his ministry. The last thing Jesus did as he was ascending to heaven.

Was he blessed his disciples. Jesus bless the little children: Peter teaches about blessing is a you should even bless those who persecute, so the idea of blessing is a very important thread that runs all the way through the Scripture and the other side of this, the opposite, the antithesis of the blessing is cursed, and this also is a theme that runs through the Scripture. So one of the ways to look at the drama of the whole big story of the Bible is blessing and curse.

Will this people that God so wants to bless. Will they live in that blessing and receive it, or will they live under a curse, and what we see in the old covenant is that there's put before them. Blessing and curse. According to their obedience. But in the new covenant. Something dramatic happens in the person of Jesus Christ and Allen right will have more teaching moment today important series. Set your mind on God's blessing into the curses of the world. This special offer from Allen right ministries will help with the release of Pastor Alan's new book having a blast. We created a flip style devotional for your gasification Beautiful spiral-bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration.

Utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new, but using day for four weeks. Keep the premises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you, to Philippians whatever is true, noble and pure, think on these things make a gift to Allen right ministries today and will send you the inspirational flip style devotional as I thank you for your partnership. Each spiral-bound devotional come to the convening style stand seeking keep his inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing, six 877-544-4861 come to our website past our.work. Today's teaching now continues you once again is Allen right will show you some of that today.

First, Lysistrata think about what curse is. This is such a complicated subject, and we could literally just spent hours talking about some of the theological nuances of what we mean by curse and for our purposes. I want to just come to think of it in a broad term and start out by saying let's avoid superstitious ideas. When we think about the curse. In fact, a lot of people in modern Western mentality would immediately said it could be things such as curse, because that is just silly superstition in the stuff of fairytales.

One of my favorite shows. Of course Andy Griffith and one my favorite episodes is Barney Fife and the man with a jinx bar is playing checkers against against Floyd at the barbershop and he loses the checker game and he blames it on Henry who standing behind me said Henry you're a jinx annexing nobody go around watching every every place that Henry goes, Barney can find some read something that goes bad around him reads because of a jinx and he tries to prove them wrong by saying now he is no such thing as a jinx and Henry is not a jinx bar is over. Go take them out in the boat with us on the annual fishing contest day and he's got the best fishing spot in the whole lake. He's guaranteed to win. He went every year, so just like him will prove this wrong put Henry in the boat will go over my favorite fishing spot will still get a boatload of fish and when waking up to favorite fishing spot and a whole comes in the boat. The boat sinks and Barney just totally convinced that Henry is a jinx and so he says incomplete good notables Rex protect us all from the man with the hex by fire alive verily I know that we were born I have another incantation. He says flyway buzzard flyweight crow way down south where the winds don't blow your nose and give two weeks and save us from this awful jinx that is Barney and I we laugh at that, because they this is ridiculous and no such thing as it is a hex or or or or or a jinx of a watching football this week couple days. My father-in-law and the people we pull for Lutherans what were jinx and appear we gotta quit watching you all this stuff to silly superstition and so part of his most say there's no such thing as occurs and was going is the fair stuff of fairytales.

It's it's it's a witch cursing snow white vigil prick your finger on on a spinning wheel and all that stuff.

Just as yet it doesn't take away the fact that this this theme just can runs to the Scripture and then in Galatians 3, Paul says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law because the Bible says cursed is the man who hangs on the tree something hugely important about this because it is said that this is a big part of the reason Jesus came to redeem us from the curse. I want to use a broad definition and understand that I know there are many nuances and thought about this whole issue for a lot of my life and are there demonic issues or any generational curses. All of these nuances. I'm not really addressing that today I want to look at this in this more broad sense, which I think we should define cursed the anchor Bible defines it this way to curse is to predict wish pray for cause trouble or disaster, or a person or thing to give even maybe even broader than that he hears Helen to define it for today's purposes.

At least I would call occurs this and ungodly negative forecast that when believed and received leads toward the negative vision proclaimed and ungodly negative forecast that when believed and received leads toward the negative vision proclaimed not to come to talk about this too much today but lastly we talked about faith and just understand that everything in this world operates and gets released through faith and there can be a faith that is rooted in God's word, and there can be the antithesis of that which is also faith, but as a form of belief that something bad is going to happen, which is in essence fear understand that fear and faith are both forms of belief. However, God set up the world something powerful happens to what we believe and nobody could deny this right. Essentially, curse is something that registers in your heart.

It makes you feel like it because of your own feelings of sin and adequacy inability to keep the law measure up to a standard or whatever it might be that you are therein. Do and some means. That's what God wants us to reject. There is a wonderful proverb that we should keep in mind when everything about curse. Proverbs 26 verse two which says like a sparrow and it's flitting like a swallow and it's flying a curse that is causeless does not delight occurs without cause.

Proverb says cannot light as me. It is like a bird darting around looking for a place to light is like curse is like that. But if there's no cause if there is no reason, no substance, no reason that you should be cursed.

Then the curse can't land so therefore in this would be the point where I want to take you today. If you could find out and understand deeply why there's no cause for curse, for those in Christ, then you'll be able to reject every curse in and that's that's a hugely important thing in life. Okay so these people listen to a negative report that comes from fearful spines. What happened what happened was that the people were already afraid it inside the heart of people in any given moment. There's there's a there's the potential of faith for a positive outcome for a win and there's also potential of fear for for potential loss and so there's already inside the simple human heart is already a struggle that's going on and what happens when 10 of the spies.

The majority report came back with a negative forecast what that do it just linked it partnered it bore witness to the part of the hearts of the people that were already predisposed to be fearful so fear connected to fear, and so there was a it was a witness of their fear and so immediately they began to believe it and the words that there are things that can be going on in our soul make us predisposed to believe ungodly things that are spoken over us and this is what happened. They came back with them and they they were they were essentially just bringing them a negative forecast and so every time they said we can't overtake them. We are like grasshoppers. They were speaking of all the people so translate that in your mind as they're saying you can't take them.

You can't do it and you are like a grasshopper. So there's some good examples of of curse and I just want to come over doing some pretty deep with a very good with that sort of playfully but you'll see the depth of this because we all can probably identify with what I want to identify three of the of the ways here but these are three ways that you can have curse, you these negative forecast over your over your life and first allergist note is that verse 27 they came back to give the report.

We came to the land to which you sent us and it flows with milk and honey, and this is its fruit. Verse 28. However, the people who dwell in the land of strong cities are fortified and very large sizes all the descendents of knocking the help I saw these descendents of this of this breed of of half human half God, half Angel Giants and all this other stuff they start inflating all of that. So the worst was the first form of this curse was it that they came in and they said yeah well there is something good about it but is not enough as is is it's it's good but it but admit it, but it but one of the best animated films in recent years, a film called Despicable Me and the, the star of Despicable Me is a notorious villain whose name is group and it's pretty funny when they kind of flashback to Bruce childhood to try to let you know.

Why does the group became so bad and the funniest seat of the whole movie is little group, little boy, little smart little boy and he come to his mother.

She's out watering the flowers and he says look mom I draw a picture of me landing on the moon. As you mentioned, and at this because back later and said look mom. I have made a macaroni prototype of the rocket ship that would take me to the moon. She looks up from the paper into a political regulators said look mom I built the real rocket ship built on the macaroni prototype that will take you to the motor that they start launching up off the ground.

Little kids build a rocket ship and she goes and the first floor of curse.

You gotta watch out for a life and and means and means well you did something there but is not enough is not good enough, is not that great is just yeah you brought home a couple A's look at these B's and C's and Allen right. Today's good news message accepting blessing rejecting curse. It's from our teaching series, the power of blessing and pastor out in his back with us in the studio, sharing his parting good news thought for the day. In just a moment to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world. This special offer from Allen right ministries will help coincide with the release of Pastor Alan's new book having a blast.

We created a flip style devotional for your gasification counting beautiful spiral-bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration. Utilizing some of them as living excerpts from the nubuck using day for four weeks. Keep the premises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you, to Philippians whatever is true, noble, in particular, think on these things make a gift to Allen right ministries today and will send you the inspirational flip style devotional as I thank you for your partnership. Each spiral-bound devotional come to the convening style stand seeking keep his inspiration in front of you and fill your heart with God's blessing when you get today. We will send you a special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our banks from Allen right ministries, seven 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website pastor out.work like you're in the studio with pastor and author of the new book the power to bless.

So it goes hand-in-hand with this particular teaching series and I gotta say with our teaching today it that reminds me. The book is really divided into three main parts believing the blessing part two receiving the blessing and part three then is giving the blessings of this in my mind this is pairing up exactly with part two receiving the blessing you have several chapters devoted to this. Why is it so hard to receive a blessing what you thought they were all little bit so it just semi-pays you a compliment. It's a little bit hard to know what to do with it. We are at this Christians were trained to be humble so so often what we do as we say all know you know and it's not then and and and yet I think God wants to do something more than that in the be able to really if someone's bless your life to really be able to receive it and gravitate towards it and and to do likewise. When someone's cursing us and tell us all we can't be. We learn how to reject so as we'll see in today's message no better place than the story of the people of God as a spy out the land and some of them feel like grasshoppers.

Some of them feel like they could take so learn to receive teach all about it in the book of Daniel learn to receive and also learn to reject recognize what curse is and rejected large curses that are in spoken of our lives and they don't have to like they don't have to stay with you.

You can learn more about today's message and in today's good news message is a listener supported production Allen right ministries