Life's trials and triumphs can seem accidental. One person may feel that life is a constant struggle in which pitfalls abound and someone seems out to get him. Another may feel that every day is a gift from God with special blessings just for her. That's because forces are at work in our lives: the blessings of a loving God or the curses of our spiritual adversary. This hugely popular classic work of Derek Prince helps readers recognize if there are curses at work in their lives and shows them how to get out from under those curses to live under God's blessings. This third edition of Blessing or Curse includes an extensive new study guide for small group or individual use.
Do you know what forces are influencing your life day-to-day? Are you or your family experiencing repeated sickness or accidents? Do you feel under mental, emotional or financial pressure? Are your closest relationships in turmoil? Do you wonder why success comes easily to others but seems to elude you? Bible teacher, Derek Prince, shows how the forces behind blessings and curses might be at work in your life. Drawing from God's Word and real life experiences, Derek will help you understand the causes of curses - occult activity, hidden sin, abuses, abandonment, even sin from a previous generation - and teach you how to be set free from curses, so you can start enjoying the benefits of God's blessings. More than 1.6 million readers have received life-transforming spiritual insight from this groundbreaking book. In this expanded edition, each chapter is followed by a study lesson - for yourself or for a small group - with review questions, a life application section and a memory verse. With Derek Prince's help, you can experience freedom from problems that have frustrated you for years and enjoy the destiny God planned for you.
Each affordable book in the Biblical Truth Simply Explained series examines a vital aspect of the Christian faith. The books are written by a variety of authors, all in a way that presents the message of the Bible clearly and simply. British editions of this series, published by Sovereign World, have sold more than a million copies in all.
The "magical power of the spoken word" is a topic that often comes up in a discussion of biblical blessings and curses. What is the source of social and linguistic power behind these blessings and curses? Many theologians would agree that God can and does bless, but does God also curse? If so, what does that mean to the biblical theology of the Old Testament and the Christian church? Anderson's The Blessing and the Curse applies speech act theory as one way to understand the performative function of blessings and curses. The concept of speech acts provides a method of recognizing the potent social power of language to accomplish certain ends, without drawing a hard line of distinction between word-magic and religion. Even though the chief concepts and practices of blessings and curses are deeply rooted in the broad cultural environment of the ancient Near East, tracing specific trajectories of Old Testament blessings and curses as theological themes conveys broad, inescapable implications for the biblical narrative and the Christian church.
The message of the kingdom of God, as brought to us by Christ, is a message that overturns hierarchies, sets free the enslaved, and breaks the power of the curse upon humanity. Yet when it comes to women, the church has chosen all too often to live according to the structures of sin and death, offering them not the good news of Christ, but the curse of Genesis, as their inheritance. In this powerful and challenging text, Ksenija Magda traces the impact of the curse – and the ever-present temptation to choose the world and its power over the servant-hearted humility of Christ – on our families, our church structures, our nations, and ultimately, our gospel witness. The question of how we view, treat, oppress or empower women is not, Magda reminds us, peripheral to the gospel but foundational. She warns that if men and women will not partner together in building the kingdom of God, they will find themselves partners in the work of upholding the world’s structures of power and oppression. Will we choose to bless the curse or to redeem it? To live in the death that our foreparents chose in the garden, or accept the life and freedom held out to us by Christ? This is a question upon which human history and the hope of our restoration hangs.
Blessing or Curses…It’s Up to You! Have you been suffering with depression, family dysfunction, marital unhappiness, or other problems and been unable to overcome them? Within the pages of this groundbreaking book, Ten Curses That Block the Blessing, Larry Huch shares his personal experience with a life of anger, drug addiction, crime, and violence. He shows how he broke these curses and reveals how you can: Recognize the signs of a curse End cycles of abuse, violence, or sin Be set free from generational curses Restore your health and wealth Receive dominion—what it is and how to use it Bring your children to Christ You don’t have to struggle any longer. Choose to revolutionize your life. You can reverse the curses that block your blessings!
Part of the Explaining Series, this book examines an important aspect of the Christian faith and presents the message of the Bible. It teaches what the Bible says about spiritual protection.
What will today bring? Modern life is full of everyday blessings and everyday curses, from being home to sign for your package to accidentally hitting Reply All. This witty reversible book is a lighthearted remedy to single-minded happiness guides, with vibrant illustrations that celebrate the sympathetically funny moments that can make or break your day. Read it upright for modern-day blessings such as waking up to good hair days or having enough change for laundry; read it reversed for contemporary curses such as burning your tongue on hot pizza or losing your sneeze. Based on an Ignatz-nominated comic series, Common Blessings/Common Curses offers a playful look at the ups and downs of day-to-day life, marrying mindfulness with a dose of reality.
An erudite and accessible survey of Jewish life and culture in the twentieth century, as reflected in seminal texts. Following The People and the Books, which "covers more than 2,500 years of highly variegated Jewish cultural expression" (Robert Alter, New York Times Book Review), poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch now turns to the story of modern Jewish literature. From the vast emigration of Jews out of Eastern Europe to the Holocaust to the creation of Israel, the twentieth century transformed Jewish life. The same was true of Jewish writing: the novels, plays, poems, and memoirs of Jewish writers provided intimate access to new worlds of experience. Kirsch surveys four themes that shaped the twentieth century in Jewish literature and culture: Europe, America, Israel, and the endeavor to reimagine Judaism as a modern faith. With discussions of major books by over thirty writers—ranging from Franz Kafka to Philip Roth, Elie Wiesel to Tony Kushner, Hannah Arendt to Judith Plaskow—he argues that literature offers a new way to think about what it means to be Jewish in the modern world. With a wide scope and diverse, original observations, Kirsch draws fascinating parallels between familiar writers and their less familiar counterparts. While everyone knows the diary of Anne Frank, for example, few outside of Israel have read the diary of Hannah Senesh. Kirsch sheds new light on the literature of the Holocaust through the work of Primo Levi, explores the emergence of America as a Jewish home through the stories of Bernard Malamud, and shows how Yehuda Amichai captured the paradoxes of Israeli identity. An insightful and engaging work from "one of America’s finest literary critics" (Wall Street Journal), The Blessing and the Curse brings the Jewish experience vividly to life.
