Gregory Dickow - Break Generational Curses
Well, welcome once again to Think Like a Champion, our podcast dedicated to helping you win in every way and enjoy every day. Thanks to everyone who likes, subscribes, and shares. In fact, right now, whatever platform you’re on, please subscribe to the podcast-YouTube, Apple, Spotify. You don’t have to miss a thing. If there’s a place to leave a review, I would love to hear from you.
Now, today we’re going to dive into our fast from wrong thinking-our 2025 fast from wrong thinking to be exact. This theme is all about flipping the script on the mindsets that defeat us and keep us limited. If you haven’t signed up yet, I want to personally invite you on this journey with me. You’ll get 40 days of transformative thoughts delivered straight to your inbox, each one designed to dismantle every negative thought and mindset that defeats us and limits us, replacing those thoughts with God’s purpose, God’s power, and God’s promises. You can sign up at fastfromwrongthinking.com. It’s absolutely free fastfromwrongthinking.com. And it’s not a fast from food; it’s a fast from mindsets that defeat us, and we replace them with God’s way of thinking.
Okay, now in today’s content, we’re going to discuss breaking generational curses, strongholds, and limitations. Breaking generational curses, I want you to think about this: there are generational curses that are passed down from generation to generation. Jesus has provided an answer to it; Jesus has become a curse for us so that we can receive the blessing. So we’re going to talk about the curses that we’re delivered from and the blessings that are delivered to us in Christ.
Now here’s the thing we have to understand: science and the Bible agree. For years, scientists claimed that the Bible was not scientific. But the more research that is done on the Bible, the more science aligns with Scripture. Science proves the word of God over and over again because the word of God can be tested. It’s been tested by time, trial, and every argument that could try to prove its inaccuracy. Every time, it stands firm, and every time, the Bible proves itself to be true, to be the word of God.
Now, what science and the Bible agree about concerning this is that through epigenetics and neuroplasticity-meaning our brains are adaptable, and we can change our thinking — we can alter our genetics from one generation to the next. In other words, the generational patterns passed down to us, the Bible says, from generation to generation, those generational patterns, those strongholds, those curses are broken in Christ, and they are overtaken by an intrusion of new ways of thinking and seeing ourselves.
Let me show it to you this way. In Exodus chapter 20, the Bible says that the curse will come upon your children and your children’s children to the third and fourth generation. Maybe you’ve seen in your life some of the patterns of your parents, your grandparents, and you never thought-you thought, «I will never be like them,» and then you find yourself behaving like them, dealing with the same trauma they dealt with, and struggling with the same mindsets and limitations you used to dislike in their lives. Now you’re seeing them in your own life. What do you do about it? Well, you recognize that you’ve been made new in Christ Jesus, and then you systematically begin to dismantle these thoughts, dismantle these mindsets, break them down, and build up the right ones.
Trauma forms belief systems from our genes that are passed from generation to generation. They create a predisposition, meaning they create a proclivity or a tendency to behave in the same way, but it doesn’t have to be your predestination. Your predisposition doesn’t have to become your predestination; we can actually experience freedom from these curses. And Jesus says that we’re redeemed from them. In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, it says, «If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things are passed away, and all things have become new.» I want you to see this beautiful, powerful force called the new birth. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature. The old things have passed away; new things have come.
So science calls this-and I want you to understand this from a scientific standpoint as well as a biblical one-science calls this genetic expression. But God calls it being delivered from the curse and the renewing of our minds. Science says you can have genetic expression, and you can modify it with an intrusion of new thinking. But God says we’re delivered. And that’s true. We’re delivered from the curse, and then we renew our minds through the word of God.
Through the renewing of our minds, this is what fasting from wrong thinking is all about. We are not fasting from food, necessarily; we’re fasting from wrong mindsets, defeated mindsets-mindsets that keep us limited. Now, this world was cursed through Adam’s sin. The Bible says that generation after generation experiences the same curses that Adam and Eve brought into this world. The world was cursed by Adam’s sin; human blood was stained by Adam’s sin. But Jesus came to undo the curse, to become the curse for us, to deliver us from the curse and make us new again.
In fact, in John chapter 19, verse 30, Jesus' last words on the cross were, «It is finished.» It is finished! Not, «It will be finished.» Not, «It’s halfway done.» It is finished! In other words, the word in Greek or Aramaic is «tetelestai.» This word was used in the cultures of the Greek and Aramaic languages to mean three things: the debts are fully paid. It was used in a financial way -the debt is fully paid. Secondly, it was used in sentencing someone for a crime they’ve committed; this word meant the sentence is fully served. And this word was also used in a military sense. It was used in a financial sense, a criminal court sense, and a military sense. It means the battle is fully won.
So if you think about it in those three ways, sin has been fully paid for. When Jesus said, «It is finished,» he meant sin is fully paid for. The curse is fully broken. The victory and the blessing are forever secured in your life because of the finished work of the cross. This is the good news! This is the Gospel- that Jesus takes upon himself our sin and gives us his righteousness. He takes our curse and gives us his blessing. He takes our lack and gives us his abundance. He takes our-as I already said-he takes our sin and gives us his righteousness. Which means God doesn’t look at us based on our sin anymore; He looks at us based on his son. Through Jesus, you now are a son or daughter of God.
And Jesus breaks the generational curses on the cross, giving us an opportunity and a path to walk truly free from the curse, realizing and recognizing that we’re blood covenant partners with God. When we don’t understand our covenant rights and don’t enforce them, we end up engaging in unnecessary spiritual warfare. Now, there is some spiritual warfare that you can’t avoid. You have to deal with mindsets that defeat you. But there is some spiritual warfare that you don’t have to deal with. We don’t have to remain in generational patterns. We don’t have to remain in dysfunctional family patterns. We don’t have to stay with broken and limiting mindsets. We don’t have to continuously be attacked-financially, emotionally, traumatized, oppressed, with physical attacks, relationship issues, abuse, and addictions, destroyed families, business failure, church failure, and family failures. We don’t have to live in that.
We experience some of the pain of it, but Jesus gives us a way to break free from it. And that freedom is yours in Christ. Now I want you to see how God does this because think about what we’re talking about. We’re discussing how science and the Bible agree that through epigenetics and neuroplasticity, we can transform our brain, transform our mind, and transform our thinking. And when we transform our thinking, it changes everything in our lives.
Now we need to understand how this works. How does God do this? Well, let me take you through some scriptures that will reveal how God does this. First, this is what he does: he turns the curse into a blessing. In Deuteronomy chapter 23:5, it says, «Because God loves us, He turns the curse into a blessing.» So what did he do? He turned the curse into a blessing. Why did he do it? The Bible says, «Because he loves us.»
Deuteronomy 23:5 once again: he turns the curse into a blessing-because he loves us. And then I love this passage in Malachi 1:2. He says, «I have always loved you.» I have always loved you. Do you know that God has always loved you? He didn’t start loving you when you started obeying him; he has loved you all your life. He’s loved you from the time you were conceived; he’s loved you from the time you were his idea. But did you also know you’re God’s idea? Not only are you God’s idea, but he’s loved you from the time that he thought of you. And he never stops thinking about you.
I want you to see this: what did God do? He turned the curse into a blessing. Why did he do it? Because he loved us. How did he do it? He did it through the cross, through a blood covenant. In Galatians chapter 3, it says, «For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone that does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.'» But it goes on to say, «But Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree.'»
Now I want you to see this: when Jesus hung on the tree, it was an innocent man dying for a guilty man and a guilty woman. It was an innocent man dying. So he took on the cross, he took the sin, he took the curse, he took the shame, and gave us his love, his righteousness, and his blessing.
Now, there are seven areas of life that the generational curses show up in humanity, and these seven areas Jesus Christ redeems us from. These are the things that the Bible says will curse us in perpetuity: into our third and fourth generation, and then third and fourth generations. The curse just keeps going because of Adam and Eve. But Jesus breaks through and intrudes and interrupts the curse by being the lightning rod, taking the punishment, taking the curse upon himself, and becoming the curse on the cross.
We’re getting ready to celebrate, in the next couple of weeks, Good Friday. We’re celebrating Easter Sunday-the resurrection of Jesus Christ. What happened on that cross was that Jesus, the innocent man, took all our sin and became sin for us, took all the curses from Adam and Eve and all the way down, and became the curse for us so that we could then become the righteousness of God and be blessed in every way that Jesus is blessed.
Think about this exchange. Think about this trade. Think about what a great deal this is for us: Jesus takes our sin, takes our curse, gives us his righteousness, and gives us his blessing.
Now I want you to see the seven areas of life that this curse shows up in:
Number one: emotional problems, emotional trauma, and mental illness. Emotional trauma and mental illness. Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 28 says, «The Lord will smite you with madness and with blindness and with confusion of heart. You’ll be driven mad — angry and insane — because of the sight which your eyes see. And among those nations, you shall find no rest, nor shall the sole of your foot have a resting place; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and anguish of soul.» What a curse!
Now you say, «Well, God would do that to me?» Adam and Eve did that to you. Because God is a just God, there has to be a payment for our sin. Well, I want you to hear this: Jesus becomes that full payment. So the emotional trauma and mental illness that you and your family, all the way back to Adam and Eve, have dealt with, that curse is broken. You no longer have to live with trauma or be traumatized for the rest of your life. You no longer have to live with mental illness for the rest of your life. Doctors may say you’ll have this for the rest of your life, but God says Christ redeemed us from this curse.
So He lays out for us in Deuteronomy 28 what the curses are. God lays out for us the seven areas of our life, seven categories of generational curses:
There’s emotional trauma and mental illness-number one.
Number two: family and home destruction, meaning your family is destroyed-marriage problems, problems with raising your children. It says in verse 30 of Deuteronomy, «You shall build a house, but you’ll not dwell in it. You’ll plant a vineyard, but you will not gather its grapes.» Your sons and your daughters will be given to another people. Your eyes will look with longing for them all day long, and there shall be no strength left in your hand. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity.
What are we seeing in this world today? Young people caught up in captivity-whether it’s drugs, depression, anxiety, brokenheartedness, suicidal thoughts, depression-all these things hold our children captive. And we’ve got to claim our children’s freedom.
Now, I’m not done with the curses; we’ll get into the blessings, but I want you to see all these areas of life that God promises because of Adam and Eve’s sin-we’re cursed with family problems and the destruction of our homes.
Thirdly, we’re cursed with sickness and disease because of Adam and Eve’s sin. Now, these are things we’re delivered from, but I want you to see where they originate from. He says, «The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning fever, with the sword, with scorching, and mildew.» Verse 27: «The Lord will strike you with the boils of Egypt, tumors, with the scab from which you cannot be healed.»
Tumors are going to be healed today because Christ redeemed you from the curse of the law. He says, «The Lord will strike you in the knees and on the legs with severe boils which cannot be healed — from the sole of your foot to the top of your head.» Also, he says in verse 61, «Every sickness and every plague not written in this book the Lord will bring on you until you are destroyed.»
Now, this is not God who is mad at you and trying to destroy you; this is what the sin of Adam and Eve brought into this world. And this is what Jesus says we can be delivered from and what we can conquer in our lives.
The fourth thing is poverty-lack, not having enough. In verse 29, it says, «You’ll grope at noonday as a blind man gropes in darkness. You will not prosper in your ways; you shall only be oppressed and plundered continually, and no one will save you.» He says, «Your ox shall be slaughtered before your eyes; you shall not eat of it. Your donkey will be violently taken away; everything is failing.» He’s talking about-you shall hear the warning, but you’ll not be restored. «Your sheep will be given to your enemies; you will not have no one to rescue them. You’ll carry much seed to the field, but gather little-the locust will consume your plants, your harvest, your vineyards.»
He says, «You’ll not drink of the wine of the grapes, for the worms will eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout your land, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; your olives will drop off.» This is terrible!
Number five: terrorism. Yes, this is in the Bible. He says, «The Lord will bring a nation against you from afar, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies.» This is a just God- a holy God requiring payment for the sin that Adam and Eve committed and passed down from generation to generation. This is not a God who’s mad or mean, but a just God who says, «Okay, if you don’t accept my path for your redemption, these are the things you can expect in your life.»
He continues, «It says that a nation of fierce countenance that does not respect the elderly and does not show favor to the young.» This is terrorism. This is being defeated by enemies that have no goodwill and no good plan and no good heart toward the earth or humanity.
Then number six is failure and defeat. It says in verse 25, «The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies, and you shall go out one way and flee seven ways.»
And then number seven: doubt and fear. You’ll live in doubt and fear continually. He says, «Your life will hang in doubt before you. You shall fear day and night and have no assurance of life.» In the morning you’ll say, «Oh, I wish it were evening.» In the evening you’ll say, «Oh, I wish it were morning.» And it will terrify your heart because of the sight that you see.
Now, what I’m trying to illustrate here is that every problem passed down from generation to generation originates from Adam and Eve’s sin. And if you can get a hold of this, these are the things that have strongholds over humanity in this world, and these are the things we can be free from.
Now, because of time’s sake, I’m going to get into the blessings on our next podcast. I’m sorry to do this to you, but we’re just about out of time. But I want you to see something: Christ has redeemed us from these things. Galatians 3:13 says, «Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.» His death on the cross redeems us or buys us back from this curse.
So, if you are recognizing these generational strongholds in your life-what are they? Emotional problems and mental illness, family destruction, sickness and disease, poverty and lack, terrorism and fear, failure and defeat, doubt and fear-this is how the curse shows up. This is what generational curses are, and this is what Jesus redeemed us from.
This is what he set us free from! Now he offers us the opposite. And as I said, the scripture says that we no longer have to be under this curse. We no longer have to be under this bondage. We no longer have to live by these curses; we can actually live redeemed from these.
Get ready to stop experiencing mental illness. Stop experiencing sickness and disease. Get ready to stop experiencing lack and poverty. Get ready to stop experiencing your family’s destruction. Get ready to see a turnaround! Get ready for the curse to be reversed. He delivers us from the curse. Why does he do it? Because he loves us. How does he do it? Through the blood of Jesus.
So get ready to be redeemed from the -you’re already redeemed from them-but get ready! Get ready for these strongholds to be broken off of your life forever.
And in fact, even before we get to next week’s podcast, I want to pray for you. In the name of Jesus, I break every generational curse that has been passed down from generation to generation-the curse of lack, the curse of poverty, the curse of insanity, the curse of emotional problems and disturbances, mental illness, and the curse of sickness and disease, cancers, fears, anxieties, doubts-every curse that is known to man. In the name of Jesus, every curse showing up in your life, I break it off of you! Jesus already broke it! Jesus already redeemed you!
And now I prophesy and declare freedom from depression, freedom from anxiety, freedom from insanity, freedom from mental illness, freedom from poverty, freedom from lack. I prophesy and declare over you freedom from sickness and disease. I prophesy and declare over you freedom from terrorism, freedom from your children being captivated and becoming captives of sin-of drugs, alcohol, addictions, depression, worry, and anxiety. In the name of Jesus, I prophesy deliverance from doubt and fear in your life. I prophesy deliverance from failure and defeat. In Jesus' name, Amen.