It's Time to Jettison Excess Baggage

It's Time to Jettison Excess Baggage
By Eddie Smith

As I stood in line at the Air France ticket counter at Houston's George Bush International Airport I could hardly believe my eyes. In full view of the 200 people who were waiting in line behind her, an elegantly-dressed African lady, pulled a new computer monitor (looked like a television set) from its manufacturer's shipping container, opened up her two suitcases on the floor, and began digging a place in one suitcase in which she could cram her new monitor, while stuffing clothing into the other. Why?
Airlines limit the number of pieces of luggage each passenger can bring on board, as well as the weight and sizes of those items. This is important because the plane has limited cargo space; and the weight of the cargo, along with the total weight of the passengers effect the handling of the plane in flight. Although she had one too many packages, she was absolutely intent on taking her newly-purchased monitor with her to Africa!
Spiritually speaking, excess baggage in your life will deter the progress of your Christian growth. They may be things related to your past, and sometimes things that relate to your predecessors (your parents and grandparents). Are you as intent as this African traveler was to reduce your excess baggage? Let's look at what that might entail.
Ancestral bondage or generational iniquity, is something over which you had no control. In fact, like the color of your eyes, you were born with it. You may wonder why the sins that someone else committed, especially someone who lived decades ago, might affect your life.
It's simple, really. When a person sins, they open the door to the enemy. (Eph. 4:26-27.) Depending on the nature of their sin and degree to which they submitted themselves to it, they can easily enter into partnership with the enemy. As they yield to the devil, they become his servants (Rom. 6:12-16). Satan then takes advantage of these unholy alliances moving from one generation to the next. These unholy soul ties are spiritual alliances or contracts that have been established through the sins of our forefathers! Exodus 34:7 (KJV) says, “Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
Notice it speaks of the father’s iniquity. The word iniquity does not necessarily refer to sin. The word iniquity carries the thought of being bent. We sometimes talk about someone with “a bent to do something." For example, a drug-addicted son of an alcoholic father was "born with a bent toward addiction." A familiar quotation is “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree."
Each of us was born with facial features, a body type, hair, eyes, and skin color resulting from our parents. Our personality traits, strengths and weaknesses, and even our susceptibility to certain sicknesses and diseases can also be imparted to us by our parentage, and theirs.
Intentional and habitual sin can easily become a legally binding spiritual contract (or agreement) that one knowingly or unknowingly makes with the enemy. The consequences of our forefather's iniquity may be our tendencies toward certain sins (i.e., lying, stealing, phobias, sexual perversion, alcoholism, fear, anger, rage, and etc.); certain sicknesses and diseases (i.e., heart trouble, high blood pressure, cancer, mental illness, depression, etc.); even spiritual and emotional weakness. It can also involve demonic bondage, in terms of familiar spirits (evil spirits that relate within families and who can appear in ghost-like forms posing as spirits of the departed.)
When a person is involved with a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormonism, Unity and Unitarianism, Scientology, Freemasonry, etc., or the occult (i.e., witchcraft, Satanism, fortune-telling, Indian shamanism, superstition, voodoo, etc.), or for that matter ungodliness of any sort, he or she opens doors to spirits of darkness. Too often, their progeny, whether they know it or not, “renew the lease” with Satan, by their own similar sin thereby extending the iniquity beyond four generations!
It is possible--in fact, it is imperative that you cast off this excess baggage of ancestral iniquity. In my book, Breaking The Enemy’s Grip, I suggest steps to do just that. It begins by making a list of sins and iniquity in which your parents or grandparents participated. Some family sins are obvious.
However, you should ask the Holy Spirit to show you anything He specifically wants you to renounce. The purpose is not to cast blame on past generations. Nor is it to make an all-inclusive list, but to list those things that God finds significant to your freedom. Then break any contract that may exist as a result of those sins. Finally, renounce any spirit or spiritual bondage that may exist as a result of that bondage. You can live free!
Let's identify and discharge our excess baggage for the glory of the King!