Take the Challenge to Step into Freedom

 Take the Challenge to Step into Freedom

To receive our DNA from our parents. The genes passed down determine what we look like, how tall we are, and the color of our hair. People tell us often, for example, that our son, Jonathan, has his mother's eyes and that he looks just like Victoria. "Thank God" I say. Not only are physical traits passed down through genes, but also our personality traits, our demeanor, our attitude, and our sense of humor. Our daughter, Alexandra, is very neat and organized. From the time she was a little girl she kept her room perfectly clean, everything in place. Spotless. We never asked her to do that. That trait came from my grandfather. He was the same way. My mother is like that too. It's been passed down for four generations. Somewhere they have a gene that says, "Be neat. Be clean. Be organized. Keep everything perfectly in place.  Just as good characteristics can be passed down, so can negative characteristics. If one of your parents was an alcoholic there's a ten times greater chance of you becoming an alcoholic.

For years it was thought that there was little anyone could do about bad things passed down genetically We thought, Well too bad. It's in my genes. Depression, addictions, low self-esteem

nothing I can do about it But recently researchers have discovered something they call epigenetics, which means 'on top of the genes They realized that the genes passed down to us are not always activated Their influence on you depends on your decisions, your environment, and your experiences. When you Now, while we cannot deactivate what choose life., you color our hair will be or the shape of our choose blessing, eyes, there are certain genes that we can, in

effect, turn on or turn off, the scientists say.

you choose the victory

Joel Osteen

They've discovered what the Scripture says:

you and your Just because you inherit something doesn't descendants will mean you have to pass it down. see God's favor. You can deactivate the negative genes that have been passed down to you. In other words, just because your mother was depressed doesn't mean you're supposed to be depressed. You may have a natural tendency toward that. What you have to do is turn off that gene Deactivate it. Don't pass it down to your children. It's easy to use genetics as an excuse. "Well, Momma was depressed. Grandmother was negative. Great-grandmother was a complainer. Joel, that's just who I am" No, that is not who you are. You area child of the Most High God. And just as you inherited your physical DNA from your earthly parents, you ve inserted your spiritual DNA from your heavenly Father. He put in you genes of joy, genes of strength, genes of peace, and genes of victory. You Can Choose You may have had a lot or negative baggage passed down to you. In your family line there may be addictions, divorce,

depression, or low self-esteem. Don't be passive and just accept it. God has raised you up to put an end to it. You've got to draw a line in the sand and say, "That's it. I'm turning off the depressed gene. I am not going to spend my life discouraged. This is the day the Lord has made. I choose to be happy" When you make that choice, what are you doing? Deactivating the depressed gene. You're turning it off. Why don't you turn off the negative gene? Turn off the alcoholic gene. Turn off the self-pity gene. This is a new day. Don't blame the past. Don't blame Momma. Don't blame Granddaddy. Take responsibility and start activating the right genes. If you'l start making the right choices, you can override the negative things you inherited. You can break a generational curse. You have the power to put an end to it and start a generational blessing. You can pass down things that will make it easier on your loved ones. After all, our children have enough to overcome without carrying around all of our negative baggage Even if you don't do it for yourself, do it for your children.Do it to make life easier on those who come after you. The Scripture calls this negative baggage .  These can be

with, passed down for four generations. The things you struggle your family they didn't just happen to show up. Somebody in your line opened the door I talked to a young lady with anorexia like. hes skin and ones.Her mother has the same problem. ier grandmother urggled with it as well. That's not a coincidence; its an iniquity being passed from generation to generation. This iniquity will continue until someone rises up and puts a stop to it. Someone has to deactivate that gene. God said in Deuteronomy 30, "1 set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants will live." Notice the warning that your decisions don't just affect you. They affect future generations. No man lives and dies unto himself. We've heard a lot about the generational curse, but what's more important is our generational choice. Every right choice you make helps override the wrong choices of those who've gone before you. When you choose life, you choose blessing, you choose the victory, you and your descendants will see God's favor.

Ernest Hemingway was one of the greatest writers of his day, but depression, alcoholism, and suicide plagued him and his family members. Hemingway took his own life in 1961. His sister committed suicide five years later. His brother committed suicide sixteen years after that. His granddaughter did the same thing in 1996.

It's interesting also that Hemingwav's father took his life in 1928. I was wondering what would have happened back in the 1920s if his father had deactivated the suicide gene. What

if he had risen up and said, "No. I've been made in the image of Almighty God? I have a purpose and a destiny. I am shaking off these negative, defeated thoughts. I know the power in me is

greater than any force coming against me If he had taken authority over that negative spirit and

instead activated the faith gene, the victory gene, the more than a conqueror gene, he could have changed his family line. He might have broken the generational curse and started a generational blessing.Just because Your DNA Is Powerful you inherit something

My questions for you are: Have you doesn't mean settled somewhere way beneath what you have to you know God has put in you? Have you pass it down. given up on a dream, or let go of a promise, because it didn't happen the first time? Maybe you had a setback. Maybe somebody told you, "You're not talented enough. You're not big enough. But I ask you respect-fully, "What are you doing there? You have so much in you. You are full of talent, ideas, creativity, and potential When God breathed His life into you, He put a part of Himself in you. You could say you have the DNA of Almighty God. You are destined to do great things, destined to leave your mark on this generation. Your heavenly Father spoke worlds into existence. He flung stars into space. He painted every sunrise. He designed every flower. He made man out ot dust and breathed life into him. Now here's the key. He is not just the Creator of the universe. He is not just the all-powerful God. He is your heavenly Father. You have His DNA. Imagine what you can do.

You are equipped. Empowered. Fully loaded. Lacking nothing. Don't you dare settle for second best. Don't get stuck in art thinking that you've reached your limits. Draw the line in the sand and say, "That's it. I've let good enough be good enough long enough. Today is a new day. My dream may not have happened the first time I tried for it, or even the fifth time or the thirtieth time, but I'm not settling. I'm stretching my faith, looking for opportunities, taking steps to improve. I'm going to become everything God has created me to be" Now don't go around thinking, I could never break this addiction. I could never afford college. I'l never see my family restored. No, you come from a bloodline of champions. It's in your DNA. That sickness is not permanent. Health and wholeness are in your DNA. You were born to win, born to overcome, born to live in victory. It doesn't matter what your present circumstances look like. That addiction didn't come to stay. Freedom is in your DNA. That family problem, strife, division; it's not going to last forever. Restoration is in your DNA. Lack, struggle, and barely getting by are not your destiny. Abundance, increase, opportunity, and good breaks are in your DNA. When you do the natural, God will do the supernatural. When you do what you can, God will come and do what you cannot. Don't take the easy way out. Stand strong and fight t good fight of faith. You Can Choose to Pass Down God's Favor You may be at the place today where you are dealing with a negative spirit. You could easily settle where you are, let the negative genes get passed down, and make it harder on those coming after you. Or you could make a much better choice and say, "No. Enough is enough. I am not going to live my life addicted, angry, defeated, or depressed. I am not passing down that negative baggage. I'm choosing life. I'm choosing blessings ,I'm going to make choices that help my family and do not hinder them.

In the Scripture, God told King Saul to go and destroy the Amalekites, the bitterest enemy of the people of Israel, to totally wipe them out. Saul and his army went out and defeated the Amalekites and King Agag, but they obviously did not complete the conquest, because several years later King David would battle them as well. Agag was the hereditary title of the Amalekite kings.

Fast-forward hundreds of years. Esther is in the palace in Persia. A man by the name of Haman is trying to get rid of her and all of her people. Scripture says that Haman was an Agagite, which seems to denote that he was descended from the royal family of the Amalekites. If Saul had taken care of his enemy when God gave him the power to do it, Esther would not have had a problem with a descendant 500 years later Could it be that if you don't put an end to what you're dealing with that your family will still be struggling with it hundreds of years from now? God is saying to you, as He did to Esther This is your time. This is your moment, Your destiny is calling out to you.

You can either put up with it and let it conquer you, or you can say,No. The same power that raised Christ from the dead lives on the inside of me. I will conquer this addiction. I will conquer this depression, this low self-esteem. I will not allow it to linger for future generations to deal with. That's what my father did. As a child, he was raised with a "poverty mentality Their family lost everything they owned during the Great Depression. In high school, he was given the Christmas basket donated for the poorest family. All they could afford to drink was something called "Blue John" milk. It was milk with the cream drained off, which gave it a blue tint. On farms it was usually fed only to the hogs. It wasn't meant for people to drink. My father couldn't stand it.

My father was tempted to think: This is just my lot in life. Every circumstance said he'd never be successful and never break out of the cycle of poverty. But at seventeen years old, he gave his life to Christ and something rose up inside of him-a faith, a boldness, that said, "My children will never be raised in the poverty and defeat I was raised in' He searched the Scripture to see what God said about him and started seeing himself not as a poor farmer's child with no future but as a child of the Most High God. He rose up and broke the curse of poverty in our family. He took

the limits off God and went on to live a blessed, abundant life. No wonder my dad held up his Bible every service and said, "This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have

Do the same today, and you'll be amazed what can happen. Jonathan had a son who was still alive, so he ordered that the man be brought to the palace. When Mephibosheth arrived.

he was no doubt fearful. After all, his grandfather had chased David throughout the country trying to kill him. Mephibosheth may have felt that David planned to execute him as a threat to

the kingdom. But David said to him, "Don't be afraid. I want to show kindness to you because of your father, Jonathan. lm going to give you back all the land that once belonged to your grandfather Saul. And from this day forward, you will eat at my table as though you were one of my sons. David treated Mephibosheth as royalty. After all, he was the grandson of the king, and David was in a covenant relationship with his father Mephibosheth's life was transformed instantly-that's the good news-but think of all the years he wasted in that dirty city of Lode are. All the while, he knew he was royalty; beyond that, his father had a covenant relationship with David that gave him the rights to claim what belonged to him through his father. As child of royalty, he should have been bold to claim the privileges of his Son-ship 

Similarly, you are a child of the Most High God. You were not created to live constantly struggling, angry, and addicted. Those genes may have been passed down, but you have the power to break negative cycles. They may have been in your family for hundreds of years, but when you gave your life to Christ, you became a new creation. He put new spiritual genes in you. You have the DNA of Almighty God.

There is strength in your genes. There is power in your gene There is freedom in your genes. Now don't settle where you are. Don't say: "Everybody in my family gets divorced. Looks like I'm headed that way Don't say: "Everybody struggles with these addictions" Or "Everybody has financial problems" Here's the catch: You're not everybody. God has called you to put an end to it. You are equipped, empowered, and well able.

This is what the prophet Ezekiel said in an interesting scripture. "The fathers ate the sour grapes. Now the children's teeth are set on edge. 'As long as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, you will no longer quote this."

When you gave They lived by this proverb. Their your life to Christ

, Since the father had problems the children will as well. There's nothing you became a we can do about it. Since the father ate new creation the sour grapes, since the parents had He put new addictions, since the grandparents were genes in you.

the children will struggle in You have those same areas. the DNA of That was their philosophy. Then God showed up and said through Ezekiel,

Stop saying that. Why do you keep using your relatives as an excuse? Why do you keep using what your parents did and the way you were raised as reasons to stay where you are? As long Sovereign Lord lives, you don't have to be held in bondage by the negative things in your past.

Your parents may have eaten the sour grapes. Your relatives have made decisions that put you at a disadvantage. but God is saying, "It doesn't have to affect you. It may have held you back temporarily, but this is a new day.

If you deactivate those genes and press forward, al the forces Or darkness cannot hold you back. You won't have to eat the sour grapes. You will be redeemed. You won't be under the Curse. You will be under the blessing. You will step into a new bloodline.  matter how you were raised or what has pushed you down or held you back, God is saying, "T created you as the head and not the tail. I made you to lend and not borrow. All it takes 1s one touch of God's favor. Get in agreement with Him. God has explosive blessings in your future, blessings that can thrust you years ahead. You Can Live as a Child of the Most High God I've got some extraordinarily good news for you: There is no defeat in your bloodline. There's no lack, no addictions, no mediocrity. You are a child of the Most High God. I am here to announce that the Sovereign Lord is still alive, still on the throne, and He is your Father. So you don't have to eat the sour grapes of yesterday. Shake off the self-pity. Don't make excuses. Don't blame the past. Don't blame your parents. Don't blame your circumstances. They may be the reason you are where you are, but that doesn't give you the right to stay there.

Start dealing with the issues holding you back. Start activating the right genes. That's what a good friend of mine did. He was raised in a very dysfunctional home. His father was an alcoholic and would get very violent. As a child, my friend saw his father mistreat his mother, be disrespectful, and go into fits of rage. Then my friend' grew up and ended up just like his father. He was a drug addict and living a very violent, angry life. In his late twenties, he gave his life to Christ and had this major turn round. Long story short, he became the pastor of a large church and a very well respected man.

He went around the world sharing his story, but he still had an anger problem. Most people didn't know that while God set him free from the addictions, the drugs, and the alcohol, his anger never left. He didn't show it in public, but at home, when only his family was around, the smallest things set him off. Just like his father, he flew into fits of rage and was very abusive to his wife. My friend didn't like it. He knew it was wrong, but he couldn't control himself. He wanted to get help, but he was too embarrassed. He thought, I can't tell anybody. I'm the pastor of a church.

What would they think about me? I'm supposed to be an example.

 But many people fail to understand that you are not a bad person just because you're dealing with a tough issue. Most likely someone in your family line opened the door. Someone allowed that iniquity and then refused to deal with it. Don't be like them. Don't sweep it under the rug, ignore it, or hope that it will go away. Failing to deal with it will keep you in bondage. james 5:16 says, "Confess your faults one to another and you will be healed. There are some issues you cannot overcome on your own. You have to swallow your pride and find someone you can trust, someone who will keep what you share confidential maybe a pastor, a counselor, or a friend. Tell them what u're dealing with. Let them pray with you, stand with you, and bring

accountability into your life. When you get your challenges out in the open and say, "God

I need help with this fault" and take steps to overcome them. that's when the Scripture says, "You will be healed. That's what my friend did. Today, he is one of the kindest, gentlest people,

you'll ever meet. What did he do? He broke the generational curse. He chose life so his children won't have to deal with the anger or the addictions. He deactivated that gene. It's still in him. lt was passed down, but it's not affecting him. Refuse to Be the Victim You are not a victim. You're a victor. You wouldn't have opposition if there were not something amazing in your future. The Scripture says, When darkness overtakes the righteous, light will come bursting in'" (Psalm 112:4 TLB). When You are not a you don't see a way out, as my friend did bad person just not for a long time, and it's dark, you're because you're in prime position for God's favor to come dealing with a bursting in. tough issue.

Don't fall into the trap of being negative, complacent, or just taking whatever life brings your way. Set the tone for victory, for success, for new levels. Enlarge your vision. Make room for God to do something new. You haven't touched the surface of what He has in store.