Do we understand what it means to be blessed? Perhaps we are more familiar with what it means to be cursed. The Bible definition of a curse meant "to be bound with a spell," "hemmed in by obstacles," or "rendered powerless to resist."

I think many Christians are fighting the effects of curses against their lives. Even though they may not identify as a curse the resistance or heaviness that they frequently feel, they are aware that something is working against them.

Some curses are generational in nature. The Scriptures warn that the sins of the fathers will be passed to "the children, and on the third and the fourth generations" (Deut. 5:9). There are character traits, sinful attitudes and cultural prejudices that can be inherited from our parents.

Without really knowing why, we often unconsciously live out the behavior patterns of our parents.

These traits, attitudes and prejudices act on our childhood with measurable and persistent power. Our parents' sins repattern themselves within us; their life choices are passed onto us, hemming us in, reproducing the same failure patterns in us that they suffered. And we feel powerless to resist.

When we come to Jesus, He begins to break the patterns of those curses and to replace them with blessings. In fact, His goal is that we not only receive His blessing, but that we become a blessing as well.

Before Jesus brought us to Himself, we were not just looking at hell through a window: we lived there. But Jesus was not repelled by our sin and corruption. He did not come to condemn those captured by evil; rather, in His love, He came to set the captives free. Our Lord is the same God who gazed upon the darkness and chaos in the pre-creation world and brought forth goodness.

Likewise, He looked at the darkness of our lives and, instead of condemning us, in His love He began to change us. Speaking for myself, I know I am a person whom God has blessed. In so many ways, my life has been transformed, set in order and filled with a goodness that has come from above.

But what does it mean to be blessed? The word "blessed" or "to bless" occurs nearly 300 times in the Bible. The word translated in English as "blessed" actually represented three different words in Scripture, each with somewhat different meanings.

The first we see in the Beatitudes: "Blessed are . . ." This word was originally used by secular Greek writers and it referred to the "highest state of blissful happiness such as the gods enjoyed." It then came to mean "possessing the character of Deity." So, when we consider what it means to be blessed using this word, we are talking about two interconnected realities: godly character and joy.

Another word, also translated "blessed," meant "to be declared indwelt by God." It was a proclamation, not in theory or theology but in true spiritual substance. God had so engaged Himself with the transformation of one's inner life that He now actually dwelt within that person.

Thus, to be blessed is to become the human habitation of Christ. He works in us, redesigning our thoughts and attitudes until He can abide in us as He abides in heaven. Within the heart that God designs, God abides.