Galatians 3:13 tells us that “Jesus Christ became a curse.” This may sound strange. In most other religions, people assume that whoever they believe in lived a grand and glorious life on this earth, enjoying great blessing and honor. And yet the One we rely on and believe in—He came to this earth and became a curse.

There is another strange thing that is hard to understand. When Jesus came up out of the water after being baptized, God said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And yet from that point on, His life was a continuous series of sufferings. We might think, “Well, maybe if I endure hardship when I’m young, things will get easier later on.” But that was not the case at all for Jesus. Instead, it only ended in the most brutal of deaths—nailed to a cross, bleeding out until He was gone. It is truly difficult to understand.

And so most people think of Jesus as just another young man from Nazareth—someone who was tried as a criminal before a Roman court, sentenced to death, and nothing more. In the world today, some believe that Jesus is exactly who God declared Him to be: the Son of God, the One in whom God is well pleased. But others believe something quite different—that Jesus was a remarkable man, yes, but one whose life ended in death like everyone else’s. That this world was simply too wicked for Him to change. That He lived a life under a curse, and that His plans, His dreams, all came to nothing in the end. And that is why, even today, so many people want nothing to do with Jesus Christ. And they do not particularly like those who believe in Him either.

However, within all of this, there is a plan and a dream that God had in allowing it. There is a reason God permitted Jesus to become a curse in this way. And that reason is this: God has the heart of a mother. This is what a mother’s love looks like. “My child, may you be blessed. May things go well for you. If there is a curse to be borne, I will bear it—so that you can go free.” That is a mother’s heart. “You eat—I’ll go without. You spend—I’ll cut back. I never got the chance to study, but you will. I’ve had a hard life, but you’re going to make something of yourself.” That is the heart of a mother who wants nothing more than to see her child do well.

That is exactly the heart of God had. And so He sent the One He loved and trusted most—Jesus Christ—and said to Him, “You will bear the curse in their place.” God knew that Jesus would not stumble, would not feel bitter, and would not resist. That is why He sent Him to this earth, to die on the cross. In it all, there was love for humanity—and at the same time, there was a deep trust in His beloved Son.

But what if His beloved Son had refused to listen? What if He had said, “No! I don’t want to be nailed to a cross. And look at those humans—see how wicked they are? And on top of that, they are utterly ungrateful. Even if you give them something good, they won’t thank you for it. They’ll point their fingers, curse you, and say, ‘He gave us something worthless.’ How futile would it be to give such a great gift only to be insulted by them? I don’t want to do it!” ? What if He had argued like that?

In fact, Jesus prayed in that very way before He died. “I don’t want to be cursed like this for those people. I don’t understand it. God, why must I go through this curse for such ungrateful human beings? If it is possible, please let this pass from me.” But God did not grant it. He simply left Jesus to face it. If God had said, “I know it’s hard, but do it anyway”—Jesus would most likely have accepted it. But it was too much to make sense of. So Jesus went back and asked again. “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me. Must I really go through with this?” Silence. He went a third time and prayed the same prayer. “Does it have to be this way? Must you really go this far to save them?” God remained silent.

Now, since Jesus clearly understood the will of God, Jesus finished His prayer, stood up, and went to the place where the Roman soldiers were waiting. He was seized, interrogated, and then nailed to the cross to die. This was a choice that Jesus made. And it was also what God had willed for Him. This is how God allowed His beloved Son to become a curse—even though He loved Him deeply.

So then, why did God allow Him to become a curse? It was so that He could say, “I will take the curse, so that you may receive.” What was that? A blessing. What God wants to give us is the blessing He has been preparing since before eternity began. And that is why we who believe in Jesus have come to receive that blessing. We truly live this life of faith in order to receive a blessing. We believe in Jesus in order to be blessed.

However, this blessing is a bit different from what the world typically thinks of as a blessing. In the world, people say that having strong teeth is a blessing. But even teeth will eventually be lost. These days, a lot of people get dental implants, don’t they? But no matter how many you get, you can’t take them with you when you leave this world. And people say that a long life is a blessing too—but even the longest life is only a hundred years. Every blessing this world offers will one day be gone. But the blessing God wants to give us is nothing like that; it is an eternal blessing.

God made us as eternal beings so that He could give us an eternal blessing. And because of that, there is surely a longing for eternity deep within each of us. You want to be happy, don’t you? But do you only want to be happy for the next ten years? No one thinks that way. We want to be happy forever. Even someone who knows full well that their life will not last forever will still say, “I want to be happy forever.” And think about two people in love. “Do you love me?” “Yes, I love you.” “Will you love me forever?” “Forever!” But how can anyone love forever? Eventually one will go before the other, or they will be separated one way or another. The promise gets made, but it can’t be kept. And yet we still long to be loved forever. Why is that? Why do we keep reaching for something eternal? It is because we ourselves are eternal beings. That is what we call the spirit. The body will one day die and decay. But the spirit most certainly exists. And so the spirit keeps seeking eternal things. When the spirit receives love, it wants to be happy forever. God is the only One who can give such things. Money cannot provide what is eternal, and people cannot give eternal happiness. Only God gives what is eternal, and that is why He promised to give us an eternal blessing. He even went so far as to say, “I will take the curse, so that you may be blessed.”

Now, God has given this blessing a name. It is written in Galatians 3:14. He named it “the blessing of Abraham.”

Let’s say it together: “The blessing of Abraham!”

Abraham was a man who lived in the Middle East four thousand years ago. What is now Iraq was his homeland, and what is now Palestine was where he later settled and made his life. And this blessing bears his name—the blessing of Abraham. God has given that very blessing to us. But some might wonder—what does someone living in Korea in the twenty-first century have to do with Abraham, a man who lived in the Middle East four thousand years ago? Everything. It has everything to do with us. To whom did God first promise this blessing He intended for us? It is Abraham. And Abraham believed it. Most people would find that kind of faith very difficult. But when God said, “You shall be a blessing!”—Abraham believed.

God said to Abraham, “I will bless you and make your name great, so that not only the people of your own time, but those who will come hundreds and thousands of years after you will be blessed through you. So get out of your country.” In those days, leaving one’s own country was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. He didn’t even know where he was going. Yet, because God said, “I will lead you, so do it,” he left everything he knew and made his way to that unfamiliar land of Palestine. There, his descendants became a great nation and lived for hundreds of years, and eventually, through that very nation, the Son of God, Jesus Christ came to this world. This is why Abraham’s faith is so incredibly important to us. If he had not believed God’s word and had instead ignored it, we would never have received this blessing.

So what exactly was the blessing God promised to Abraham? It was this: “I will be with you.” Now, the One we call God is, in other words, the god above all gods. Let’s say it together: “A god!”

Are there many gods in this world, or just a few? There are a great many. Those who have spent time in Buddhist temples or attended shamanistic rituals would know this better than most. There truly are many gods. And that is why it matters so much which god we draw close to. We may have heard the saying, “Like father, like son.” A son takes after his father. In the spiritual world, we could say the same thing: “Like god, like person.” A person takes after their god. Depending on which god lives within us, and which god we are with, our personality, our health, and even our destiny changes.

This is why we must not come into contact with just any god. Some people commit terrible acts of violence. When asked, “Why did you do it?”—they sometimes say strange things. They heard voices, they say. Something told them to do it. One person claimed he had no idea where the hammer even was, and yet a voice led him there step by step: “Go here, take out the hammer, and strike.” These things actually happen. That person had been in fellowship with the wrong god. And then there are those who drink far too much. People in the old days may not have known much about Jesus, but when they saw someone like that, what did they say? “There’s a spirit of alcoholism in that one.” They didn’t say it out of any deep understanding of the spiritual world—it was more of an instinct, a sense that something was there. And they weren’t wrong. When a god that loves alcohol enters a person and that person remains in fellowship with that god, they will drink and drink. This is why it matters so much which god we are with.

The god who appeared to Abraham did not simply say, “I will bless you,” and leave it at that. He said, “You shall be a blessing.” That is what sets this god apart from the others. Other gods say things like, “I will bless you—so go and deceive others.” “I will bless you—so divorce your spouse.” “I will bless you—so go and cheat people.” But this god does not stop at “I will bless you.” He goes further: “You must become a blessing! You must be the root of blessing, the very source from which blessing flows! Through you, many people must be blessed!” And how many people? “Not only your descendants, not only the people of Israel—but every nation on earth, every Gentile, all people of the earth shall be blessed through you.” That is the promise He made to Abraham.

Abraham received all of it—every promise. And in the end, Jesus Christ came to this earth as one of his descendants, and became a curse and died. As a result, the blessing God had promised to Abraham has now come to us. God was with Abraham and made him a blessing—and that blessing has truly come upon us. What was promised four thousand years ago has now been fulfilled in me, in you, today. Is that not remarkable?

So what can we learn from all of this? The god who made that promise to Abraham has existed for at least 4,000 years. Other gods are not like that. You know the gods that fortune tellers call upon? They don’t last. Even if they help you for a time, it won’t be for long. But this god has kept his word for four thousand years and counting. And as it turns out, this god has existed from before eternity and will exist for all eternity. What is more, he created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. And among all the gods in this world, this god has no impossibilities. He calls into being what does not exist and raises the dead. That is the kind of god he is.

And that is exactly what I urge you to do—to be with that god. That is the blessing. To live with the very god who appeared to Abraham. To be united with him. To become one with him. He comes to live within us, and we come to live within God. All around us, people are walking through this world with demons living inside them. But for us, the Spirit of God comes to us and lives within us—the very god who appeared to Abraham, the god who raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Our bodies will one day die. But this god will not simply let us fade away into nothing. He will raise us up. He will bring us back to life. And he has promised that we will be with him forever.

We are people who are fully convinced that being with this god is the blessing. We have already experienced that. When this god is with us, we receive his help even here on this earth. When other people face difficulties, the first thing they do is look for someone who can help. “Can you lend me some money?” or “Do you know anyone with connections I can call on?”—they go looking for people to turn to. But we Christians do not do that. No matter what difficulty we face, the greatest help of all is right here with us. And so we ask that god, “Please help me. I need your help right now!” Even when we are struggling financially—“Please take care of this problem!” When we are not well—“Please take care of this too.” And this god is incredibly generous. He does not give out his authority little by little when we ask for it—this god gives all of it to those he calls his friends. And so we who believe in Jesus live each day carrying that remarkable authority with us.

My son is here with us today; he came along with a friend. Let me tell you about something that happened when he was in kindergarten. We were walking to kindergarten one day when he suddenly collapsed to the ground. Well, if we fall down, we get back up—so I told him, “Get up.” But he couldn’t. He just kept sinking back down. I didn’t know if his legs had gone numb or what had happened, but he could not get up.

And in that moment, something came to mind. When I was in China, I had once met a man who could not walk. We had prayed for him together with a pastor who was with me, and he was healed—and afterward he even went out with us to share the gospel. This man had been unable to walk from the fifth grade all the way until he was twenty-five. I had asked him once, “How did it happen?” He told me he had simply collapsed while walking one day—and from that point on, he could never get back up. He had lived that way for twenty years.

That memory came rushing back to me—and when I saw my child collapsed on the ground and unable to get up, fear gripped me. No matter how many times I tried to lift him, he just couldn’t stand. Panic-stricken, I tried to flag down a taxi to take him to the hospital, but no taxi stopped. And then, all of a sudden, it hit me. “Wait—why am I running around like this? The greatest help of all is right here with me. The very god who was with Abraham—that god is with me right now.” Yes, the Holy Spirit is with me.

And so I made up my mind to use the authority he had given me. “That’s right—what am I doing? I have the authority God has given me!” With that settled in my heart, I spoke directly to my child. “In the name of Jesus, I command you—get up right now!” And he sprang straight to his feet. Then I said, “Run!” And he ran. From that point on, there was nothing wrong with him at all. If it had not been for that authority, I would have spent that day in tremendous worry, and no one knows what might have become of him. But it was resolved just like that—so simply, in fact, that you might almost say, “Well, maybe it was nothing after all.”

There are so many moments like that in our lives. This god is always with us, always helping us. If I were to tell them all, a whole day would not be enough. Our lives are a continuous stream of testimonies. And so I urge you today—receive the blessing that God has already promised you. You must receive it.

Then, in order to make the blessing of Abraham your own, you must receive the Holy Spirit that God has promised. In other words, you must welcome the Spirit of God to come and live within you. It’s not about saying to that Spirit, “Just follow along beside me”; it’s about completely accepting Him to dwell within you. I will guide you through this step by step in the days ahead. In the world, some people are possessed by demons and come under their influence. But for us, it is not a demon that enters—it is the Spirit of God Himself that comes to live within us. That is what it means to believe in Jesus—to welcome that Spirit in. It is an entirely new life. I bless you in the name of Jesus that you would come to fully possess and enjoy the blessing of Abraham as your very own.

God our Father, we pray that every soul gathered here today would, just as You promised long ago and just as Jesus Christ hoped when He died on the cross, come to possess the blessing of Abraham—and become a source of blessing. Not only for themselves, but for their families, their descendants, and for all people everywhere. Help them to become that very source from which blessing flows. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.