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by Gloria Copeland

Throughout my years of getting to know God, I have learned that He is absolutely good. He has nothing in Him that even resembles selfishness. Since the first day of Creation, He has always been giving of Himself. Every aspect of His nature flows from His love for His creation and it is all good. Every day of my life is filled with His goodness.

When God sent His Son into the earth, Jesus was anointed to preach good news—and only good news—and to demonstrate the goodness of His Father. He made this very clear the day He stood up among the religious leaders of His hometown, opened the book to the place of the prophet Isaiah, and described His purpose. We read it in Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

After reading from that book, Jesus closed the book, sat down and proclaimed, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (verse 21).

True to His Father’s Word, right up through the day He made His way to Calvary, Jesus did nothing but good. He never did an evil work His whole life. He didn’t know how to do evil. Evil wasn’t part of His makeup. It wasn’t in His character. He was anointed to be and do only good—just like His Father.

Below are five truths about the goodness of God to be thankful for.

# 1 – He is eager to do good to all.

It’s surprising the number of people who can read Scripture and determine God to be anything but good. All anyone really needs to do to come to the right conclusion about God’s nature is look at the actions of His Son.

Jesus told His disciples that anyone who had seen Him had seen the Father (John 14:9). He went on to say, “The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (verse 10). He told them later, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). What did Jesus see His Father do?

The Old Testament is filled with images of the character of God. Psalm 145:7-10 gives us a great picture of the goodness of our unchanging God: “[All men] shall abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall sing of thy righteousness. The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works. All thy works shall praise thee, O Lord; and thy saints shall bless thee.”

Let’s look a little more closely at the psalmist’s description of the Lord.

The Lord is gracious. In other words, He is disposed to show favor. That day Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, He declared that the favor of God was present in their midst.

Full of compassion. According to one Hebrew source, the word compassion means “eager yearning to do good.” The proof of our Father’s motivation to do good is clearly seen in Jesus’ ministry—providing the best wine at a wedding party, healing people with all kinds of diseases, casting out demons from tormented souls and raising people from the dead. He was God in the flesh—doing the goodness He yearned so eagerly to do.

God is slow to anger and of great mercy. So many people think God is sitting on the edge of His seat, just waiting for someone to make a mistake so He can lower the boom. Nothing could be further from the truth. His mercy is great—He is ever ready to forgive. Jesus’ words to everyone He met were words filled with mercy, even when He confronted their sin.

The Lord is good to all. It would not be God’s will to heal or deliver a few people and leave everyone else bound up by the devil. Peter preached in Acts 10:38, “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”

His tender mercies are over all His works. Tender mercies means “deep love and affection.” “For God so loved” the world—all His works…He gave His Son. Glory to God! His deep love and affection—His goodness—cover us every moment of every day.

This is the picture of our good God—always giving of Himself.

#2 – Jesus is a picture of the Father.

Now, we’ve heard it said that a picture is worth a thousand words! All anyone needs to do is look at Jesus—the walking, talking, moving picture of God’s goodness in action.

In Matthew 11:2-6, we see that John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus to identify Himself. Jesus said, “Go and show John again those things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.”

In other words, “tell John you hear and see the goodness of God.”

Jesus was created in the image of His Father, and all His ministry and works were expressions of His Father’s goodness!

He said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father…”(John 14:9).

#3- We are created in His image.

And we are born again in that same image.

Ephesians 2:10 tells us, “We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”

Since the day He ascended to the right hand of His Father, Jesus Christ—the Anointed One and His Anointing—has fulfilled His ministry through His Body, the Church. It is still the ministry of Jesus, and we get to do the actual work of the ministry. The words of Isaiah 61 apply to His Body, just as they did to Jesus.

The same Spirit of the Lord who anointed Jesus anoints you and me. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead brings us out of spiritual death to life, out of darkness to light. And the Father’s purpose in our being born again is the same as it was for Jesus. We preach the gospel to the poor. We are anointed to announce freedom to captives and recovery of sight to the blind. Just like Jesus, we have the ability to send forth as delivered those who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed and broken down in calamity.

In this Year of Total Fulfillment, the goodness of our Father is flowing through the Body of Christ in unprecedented ways. The devil is fighting hard to keep people thinking God is angry at them, or He’s out to get them. But he is fighting a losing battle, because we are out there preaching that God is good and His mercy endures forever! (Psalm 118:1).

#4 – This is THE day of God’s goodness.

Jesus said to the people in the synagogue that day in Nazareth, “This day….” Total fulfillment of the goodness of God began on that day when Jesus declared His anointing. And it has never ceased. This is still THE day! This is our day!

Jesus said to Zacchaeus in Luke 19:9, “This day is salvation come to this house.” Salvation means deliverance. Every one of us comes into the kingdom of God from the same beginning. We receive pardon. We get deliverance from danger and apprehension—freedom from fear. We receive protection and liberty. We receive provision. We receive health, restoration, soundness and wholeness. We receive God’s love and goodness!

The day we receive the gospel is the day everything changes!

This is the day of God’s grace. We don’t have to do a thing—we can’t do anything—for these favors from God to come to us, except believe and receive.

Thanks to the participation of the Body of Christ, the good news of God’s grace is covering the earth. He is moving freely throughout the earth today in the Church He has established in every corner of the planet. Every day His Body is growing as more people believe and receive.

Our message is the same as Jesus’ was, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The kingdom of God’s goodness is here!

#5 – God is always ready with goodness.

            Jesus was always ready to do and be good! His power was never in the “off” position. He was always “on” by the power of the Spirit. He was always in a healing, delivering mood. He was never in such a hurry that He didn’t have time to give out the goodness of God—lay hands on the sick or cast out demons.

Anyone who came to Him received what they needed, if they simply put their faith out there. They came because they had heard about Him and believed what they heard. They came because they had a need and expected to receive. And He delivered!

Every person who enters the kingdom of God enters a new day—a new way of life! We enter the life where the only thing God desires to do is cover us with His goodness. And once we take our place in that kingdom of “goodness,” we can’t help but tell other people about it.

People come to Healing School at our meetings because they have heard about someone who was healed there. People come to me when they see me in the parking lot at the grocery store because they’ve heard me say God heals today and because I lay hands on the sick. People come to you because they heard you are a Christian who prays for people and things change.

We are surrounded by people with needs of every kind. We just have to stay on the ready, just like Jesus did. We have to be available to them, and be willing to release the anointing of His goodness that God has deposited in us, and let someone make a draw on it.

#6 – God is always ready to pour out His goodness.

By always being ready, we stay in the flow of God who is always ready to give out His absolute goodness. He pours out His goodness to His children through us. His Spirit of goodness was always on in Jesus and He is on in you and me. Just like He did with Jesus, He disperses His goodness through us—His Body in the earth.

Psalm 31:19 in the New Living Translation says, “Your goodness is so great! You have stored up great blessings for those who honor you. You have done so much for those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world.”

How do we stay “on” so we can release God’s goodness into our world? We must simply be receivers.

The 20th century born-again rabbi David Baron commented on this scripture, “Goodness is that attribute of God whereby He loveth to communicate to all who can or will receive it all good. Himself is the fullness of good, the creator of all good. Not in one way, not in one kind of goodness only, but absolutely without beginning, without limit, without measure. He possesseth and embraceth all excellence, all perfection, all blessedness, all good. This good His goodness bestoweth on all and each according to the capacity of each to receive it.”

God is no respecter of persons, but some people have more capacity to receive His good. That’s because they prepare for it more. They believe His Word, and act on His Word more. These people expect it more. They are receivers.

Anyone can be a receiver of His goodness. And we can all increase our capacity to receive. All it takes is our going from faith to faith. Hearing the Word, believing the Word, speaking the Word, acting on the Word—with each step, our capacity increases.

When we open ourselves to receive His goodness without measure, once the flow starts within us, He will make us conduits to allow His goodness to flow to others.

God is not holding back any good thing from anyone. First Corinthians 2:9-10 in The Amplified Bible clearly tells us, “What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed]. Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His Spirit.”

By the Spirit—by the same anointing that was in and on Jesus and is in and on you and me—we can know all the absolute goodness God has in store for us. Our job is to keep ourselves ready…to simply be “on.” We need to always be ready to tell someone about the good things God has done for us. We should be ready to share the compassion He has given us. We can willingly show His love and deep affection by the mercy we give others as He has given us. And we can graciously give free favors as He has bestowed so many on us.

Every day God brings people across our path who have believed a lie about His nature. He has given us the same mission He gave Jesus, and He has anointed us to do it. Let’s stay “on!” Let’s be ready to tell them the truth—to demonstrate the truth—God is absolutely good!

 

by Billye Brim

What would be your reply if I asked you, “How is your life going?”

Or “How is your business doing?”

Or “How is your ministry getting along?”

You might say, “Everything is going pretty good! The kids are doing well,” or “My business income picked up a little last year.” Or you might reply, “We are building a new church facility, and we had 250 in service last week.”

You would speak to me about things in your life in terms of performance.

The success of our earthly life has everything to do with how well we are able to perform. And by “life” I’m talking about every realm—personal, family, church, community, state, nation and world. We speak of the progress of God’s purpose and plan in our generation in terms of our and others’ performance.

For most of us, our lives go along very smoothly, but we may have certain persistent obstacles or periodic detours that challenge us. And for others, their lives just seem to be one long rocky road, filled with potholes and breakdowns at every turn.

In this life on earth we are going to face challenges that hinder our productive performance. But the question I’m really asking is, how are we handling the hindrances? Have we identified their origin? Are we responding according to God’s Word when we face them?

Over recent months, the Lord has renewed my understanding of how our performance and fulfillment of God’s plan and purpose for our lives is accomplished and how hindrances are overcome.

The key is this—the authority of the believer.

The renewal of this biblical foundation to the Church couldn’t be more timely. I know in my own life and ministry, and from accounts I’m hearing from other people, we are under attack of the enemy of our soul like we have never known before. Satan and his demonic powers on every level are on the move. Actually, they are on the run because their time is short, and they are attempting to drag down everything and everyone in their path of destruction.

We know Jesus’ return to this earth is close. And the devils know it, too. By standing up and taking its rightful authority over the works of enemy, The Body of Christ will pave the way for total fulfillment of God’s purpose and plan for the earth and humanity.

We Must Be Who We Are

Our days of complacency and ignoring the Word on this subject are over. The time has come that the Church step up and be who the Word says we are and exercise the authority the Word says we have. The authority of the believer is a heavenly ministry to which we have all been called.

Pick up your Bible right now and read Ephesians 1-2:7, paying close attention to verses 17-23 in chapter 1.

That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

Look also at chapter 2, verses 4-7:

But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

I have focused on these scriptures for over 40 years. But in these prophetic days, my eyes are more enlightened toward them than ever before. The Holy Ghost has awakened me to see the vital position of the authority of the believer in His end-time plan—His last-day move as we fulfill our heavenly ministry.

We are at a threshold—at the doorway to a great realm of revelation and operation in our authority. The Lord has shown me that, as Ephesians 1:20 and 2:6 so clearly reveal, the ultimate goal of the gospel is that we assume our position in Christ—risen and seated with Him at the right hand of the Father.

When the Father raised Jesus to this exalted place, He raised us and seated us there. Even when we were dead in sins, God made us alive and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Everything Jesus accomplished from His birth to His ascension was to lift us to that place of authority.

Before He went to the cross, He laid out all the truths of the new covenant for the disciples, and for those who would come after them. He emphasized the relationship we would have with the Father in the days ahead. In John 14:1-2 we are told that Jesus was going to prepare the place. He said to the disciples, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

The Body of Christ throughout the centuries has accepted these truths. But we have relegated them to life after death or after-the-Rapture status. Of course, our future holds wonderful things for us. Yet, there is a place at the right hand of the Father we are to occupy now. It is the place from which we can work with Him to perform His plans and purposes for this last hour.

It’s Time We Take Our Place

In his powerful little book The Authority of the Believer, John A. MacMillan wrote:

The elevation of His people with Him to the heavenlies has no other meaning than that they share His throne. To share a throne means without question to partake of the authority which it represents. Indeed, they have been thus elevated in the plan of God, for this very purpose, that they may even now exercise, to the extent of their spiritual apprehension, authority over the powers of the air and over the conditions which those powers have brought about on the earth and are still creating through their ceaseless manipulations of the minds and circumstances of mankind.

The time has come that we take our place and refuse to be unseated. We must stop putting up with the work of the enemy in our lives. We must stop his attempts to distract us from the purpose and plan of God on every level.

Do you believe we share the throne with Christ Jesus? Do you believe we have the right—the responsibility—to take authority over these things from our position in the heavenlies? I believe it and I’ve begun to act on it!

I have been dealing with a once very close, personal relationship that has been broken for more than 10 years. One morning last December, I took my place in the heavenlies and began to exercise authority over it. I spoke to the enemy who had contributed to the break and fueled it through the years with his harassment and lies. I commanded him to cease and desist in the Name of Jesus. That was on a Friday. I phoned that person and thought I left a voice message. As it turned out, I had dialed the wrong number. Yet, on Sunday afternoon I received a call from that person. Before the call was over, our fellowship was restored. We spent Christmas together for the first time in years! We went to church and worshiped the Lord together at Prayer Mountain. We have talked several times now, confirming our love for one another and praying together. How wonderful to have that sweet relationship restored.

My children and staff are taking their place and exercising their authority in the Name of Jesus in their families and ministry. They are even taking authority over demonic influences against their children’s academic and athletic activities. Things are changing on all fronts. As a family and ministry team, we are becoming skilled at exercising authority against the enemy’s attempts to hinder our performance of God’s plans and purposes for us.

We Are the One

God has a plan and purpose for the earth and all mankind…to show forth His glory, to bring the revival and move that will bring the greatest harvest of all time. We know it’s true. We want it! But, there is a hindering force. The enemy is so frightened that he is endeavoring with everything in his power to stop it.

We must take our place and stop his maneuvers. The enemy recognizes the authority we have and he must obey us, just as he obeyed Jesus.

The unified, glorious Church, walking in the love of Jesus, is the one force that will usher in this end-time work of the Lord. We are many gathered into one Body. We need each other and God needs us! We each must “take care of business” with what I call low-level devils in our own homes and churches, and then cooperate with the whole Body of Christ in taking our authority over principalities and powers that are wreaking havoc around the world.

God has opened doors for us to walk through in 2007—doors no man can shut. The only thing that can keep us from being in the right place at the right time is our unwillingness to take our place. I am willing and I trust you are, too! Let’s firmly plant ourselves with Jesus at the right hand of God and take our authority over the enemy. He’s depending on us to fulfill our heavenly ministry!

Billye Brim is president and founder of Billye Brim Ministries and Prayer Mountain in the Ozarks. For information or ministry materials write to Billye Brim Ministries, P.O. Box 40, Branson, MO 65615, call 417-336-4877 or visit her Web site at www.billyebrim.org.