[L]et me briefly explain what a family or generational curse is. The first time the word "iniquity" is used in conjunction with generational curses is in Exodus 20:5. The scene is this: God is giving Moses the Ten Commandments. In verse 3 He has commanded us to have no other gods but Him, then in verses 4 and 5 He commands that we should make no idols or bow down and worship them--or else our iniquity will visit our children and grandchildren.

God forbids bowing down and worshipping an idol, which is anything we love and reverence more than Him. What He is saying is that when we worship an idol, we are allowing something other than Him to rule us, to make us bow down and serve it. When we do that, the spirit that operates through that idol will come into our lives and not only make us bow down to it again and again, but it will pass from us to our children and our children's children, making them bow down to it. So this spirit of iniquity becomes a force on the inside that causes us and generations after us to bow or bend to its destructive nature.

A spirit of iniquity could be in your life because of something you did, or it could also be something that has landed on you because of something a member of your family did years before you were born. It could be an iniquity, or family curse, that has passed from one generation to another because of something that has happened in your family or something that has happened to your family....

Earlier I mentioned a woman whose family suffered from various eating disorders. When I talked to her in a church service, I asked, "Ma'am, what did God set you free from?" She answered, "For generations, my family members have died early from obesity. However, in the last ten years, my family is dying from anorexia." Whether it was obesity or anorexia, each generation was dying from eating disorders. That generational curse stemmed back to someone in the family who was molested. A spirit of eating disorders was birthed into the family from that traumatic event. We began to pray, and this woman's family is now eating right because Jesus set them free.