Blessing & Curse

We have a brand-new Feast talk series titled Blessing and Curse which will run for nine weeks. The series centers on Genesis, the first book of the Bible. Why study Genesis?

Whenever Jesus was asked hard questions by the Pharisees or by His disciples, He liked turning back to Page 1 of His Bible. Because Genesis shaped His thinking.

And because we want to follow Jesus, we want to read the Bible the way Jesus read His Bible. He read Genesis in a very special way—and that’s how we want to read it too. This is one of our lofty goals at The Feast.

Talk 1 is titled God Made You Good— based on Genesis 1-3, about God making everything good — including humans.

This is Talk 2 of our series on Genesis.

Talk 2 focuses on the story of Cain and Abel.

Cain envied Abel and killed him.

Yes, the root of the problem is envy. Envy comes clothed with anger.

When we’re angry and afraid, the ancient part of our brain—called the reptilian brain—takes over. When we sin, we forget our humanity and act like beasts. Like the crouching serpent in the Garden of Eden who crouches as a predator, waiting to pounce on Adam and Eve.

Very few of us are cold-blooded killers like Cain. But the same envy can cause us to hurt others.

In life, we have only two choices: Step on the serpent or become the serpent.

We are now in Talk 3 of our Feast talk series, Blessing and Curse, based on the book of Genesis. And this talk is particularly anchored on the story of Noah and the Great Flood.

Yes, this series is saying we have a choice to be with God and receive His blessings, or to separate from Him and suffer the curse of sin.

We learn how God responds to our choice. When He sees we make the wrong choice, He doesn’t get mad. Instead, His heart breaks.

The key message of Talk 3 is Your God weeps.

We are now in Talk 4 of our Feast talk series, Blessing and Curse, based on the book of Genesis. And this talk is particularly anchored on the story of Babel.

Talk 4 points out that Blessing is so much bigger than money. Our biggest blessing is Life with the Blesser. And He designed blessings for us to scatter them.

The key message of Talk 4 is You’re Blessed To Be a Blessing.

We are already in Talk 5 of our Feast talk series, Blessing and Curse.

Talk 5 is titled You Never Graduate from Trusting God– because when it comes to trusting God, there is no future point in your life when you can say, “Been there, done that.”

There’s no such thing. Even if you’ve been following God for the past 300 years. Or you have four doctorate degrees in Theology from Rome. You’ll never graduate from learning how to trust God more.

Talk 5 gives the example of Abraham about his failures and triumphs in trusting God.

We are already in Talk 6 of our Feast talk series, Blessing and Curse.

Talk 6 is titled You’re Already Blessed! Not a few think that they are not yet blessed when they don’t receive what blessing means for them: material abundance. Yes, this talk is about that. And other blessings.

Like Life with the Blesser Himself – the biggest blessing of all—who has blessings designed, custom-made for you and you alone.

The thing is we think we have to scheme for those blessings – like Jacob who is the key example in Talk 6.

We are already in Talk 7 of our Feast talk series, Blessing and Curse.

Talk 7, titled Let God Win, centers on the story of Jacob who all his life was wrestling for blessings–fighting for those blessings on his own terms, and in the process, hurting the people around him.

Key message of the. talk:  Instead of wrestling for your blessings, bless others and trust God will give you the best.  Don’t chase after your abundance—His abundance chases after you. Let God win.

We are already in Talk 8 of our Feast talk series, Blessing and Curse. Talk 8, titled The Lord Is with You, centers on the story of Joseph. Compared to all the other characters in Genesis—from Adam to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob— who at one time or another were sinful and ungodly–only Joseph was faithful to God—he was always with the Lord. Yet, he too suffered – exiled to Egypt. How come?

This is our question: Why do bad things happen to good people?

Answer: The Lord is with you wherever you are. If the Lord is with you, you can bloom where you are planted. Your burden will turn out to be a blessing.

WELCOME to Talk 9— the last talk of our series on Genesis: Blessing and Curse. The key message of this talk is God turns curse into blessing.

Genesis started by proclaiming an earthshaking truth: That every human is God’s living, breathing, walking image.

Yet ironically, every story that followed exposes how each character was shockingly unfaithful. Sinful. Broken. From Adam to Cain to Noah to Abraham to Jacob. Perhaps they were images of God, yes, but damaged.

Talk 9 continues the story of Joseph, who is faithful to God and thus he is well rewarded.

The  Genesis story continues to this day. How? We are in it. We are part of Genesis. We may be damaged but God holds on to us. He turns curse into blessing.