Family can be the greatest source of joy in your life or the greatest source of pain. You don’t always have control over which one it is, and sometimes it can be a mixture of both! Either way, you carry the DNA and culture of your family with you through your life in some fashion, whether you like it or not. You may have even attempted to get as far away from your family in every way possible. You can also have the best intentions of breaking allllllll the generational curses in your family line, and shake your fist in the air declaring, “it ends here!”

Did you know that it takes hard work, digging into deep matters of the heart, and intentional daily choosing to walk in a new way? Psalms 18:23 David says, “I was also upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.” He was aware of his iniquity and had to make conscious choices to stay far away! Generational iniquity can be a strong force to reckon with, and your entire identity can actually be wrapped around keeping it safe, secure and hidden.

It is very much like a tree that grows crooked, and can be very difficult to straighten. It’s a bend in the nature, and it feels natural because that’s how you grew up! It doesn’t feel natural for a crooked tree to all of the sudden be required to straighten up. It takes time.

If you don’t name a generational iniquity and call it out, you are allowing it to stay camped out right in your living room, as part of your family, part of your life. Statements like: “yeah I may tell a little lie, but that’s just business! That’s how dad and grandpa ran it.”

If a generational iniquity is not called out it will be allowed to stay. It will remain hidden in every dark corner it can possibly inhabit, and will even attract those that will help it remain hidden. People will come out of the woodwork, out of nowhere, as if drawn by an invisible magnet.

Just as a picnic attracts flies, a generational iniquity that you’re not free of will attract people who have the same iniquity, or bend in their sin nature. They are comfortable being around you because you had to learn how to tolerate or even be comfortable with the generational iniquity in your own family. So, you are ok and even excuse it when they stretch the truth, exaggerate, and tell a lie.

Since iniquity runs through the father blood line, you can see the negative effects in your own family where generational iniquity has not been overcome. If a friend exaggerates the truth, they are not going to be the one to help you overcome your own sin nature that is rooted in a generational iniquity of deception. They are comfortable with you and they may even help form a barrier of protection around the monster you are trying to get free from. “Here’s a blanket, have some hot cocoa, let’s drape twinkle lights over it to make it look nice.”

A true friend is one you can be real and honest with as you recognize generational inequities that you want to overcome. A true friend will help you see it instead of covering it up.

Once we realize that demonic spirits traffic through generational iniquity it behoves us to pinpoint them and call them out. Overcoming generational iniquities starts by identifying every way that we are natured like our father or our grandfather, and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the sinful nature that is generational. Even if the way we are natured like our father seems to profit us, in the end it will profit no one. If the generation before you did not see it as sin, you have the opportunity to see it and bring it to an end. All generational iniquities must be brought to death on the cross or they WILL continue to affect the next generation.

Denise Boggs

Co-founder of Living Waters Ministry, Denise Boggs is passionate about healing and has a deep hunger for the Word of God. She is the author of over 20 workbooks and multiple small group curriculum. Denise has also written the full-length books, “Healing and Restoring the Heart”, “Restoring the Family”, and her newest released: “Breaking Free from Sickness and Disease”.

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