Roots Of The Spirit

Taken from Chapter 9 - Generational Curses In The Church Family

Now let’s look at curses attached to the church body. A church body is a living organism. It is a family and just like generational curses can plague a blood family, so also they can affect a church family. Many churches seem to be plagued with the same types of issues among their congregation decade after decade. Meditating on your own church family will highlight what needs prayer. This also indicates where we need to learn to change our behavior within the Body of Christ. So what are the main curses that plague church families? God did not leave us to figure this out for ourselves. He left us the answers in the book of Revelation which Jesus instructed John to write on the island of Patmos. Jesus Christ spoke directly to the seven churches and told them what they were dealing with which needed correction. I believe that these churches had fallen into a clear pattern of error. They also became religious (a rote, practical, mindless pattern) about some things, yet other things had been so badly neglected or mishandled, that they eventually became generational curses upon each of these churches and were passed from generation to generation. Jesus’ words give us insight into the main issues we need to correct as individual church bodies. I use “WE” because there is nothing new under the sun. And, as you read the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, you can see that our modern-day churches are still being plagued by the same, exact issues. Let’s take a look at the seven churches and discover what may be plaguing your own church families. Please know that this information is not to fuel your fire and have you running into our pastor to speak condemning words concerning what we believe may be a curse in our church bodies. The pastors probably are already aware (especially if they have an open-door policy with church members) of the situation. As mature believers in Christ, we are called to pray when we discover something which needs to be handled. We are also called to examine ourselves and do everything in our power to make sure that we are not part of the problem. It is not until the Lord specifically instructs us to speak that we do so. Even then, seek further confirmation, perhaps even multiple confirmations, before speaking up about a problem such as this that involves an entire church family. The key is if we are aware of it, we can be one person who is standing in the gap for the church body and interceding in prayer. It is speculated that the seven churches referred to in Revelation were founded around the time that Paul made his three missionary journeys and yet they were not all founded by Paul. We will examine each of the seven churches individually according to what Jesus Christ Himself spoke to them. The church in Ephesus is first: