Author Archives: KCM

For Discovering Your Identity in Christ

Have you ever wondered what happened from the time Jesus was on the cross to when He sat down on the throne? More importantly, have you ever fully comprehended what He did for you personally in that span of time? His actions forever defined your identity as a believer—something many people wrestle with today.

For example, Galatians 2:20 tells us, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (NKJV).

Jesus died on our behalf, but this verse shows us that when we made Jesus our Lord, we partook of what He did for us. When He was crucified, spiritually speaking, we were crucified with Him; we died with Him; we were buried and made alive with Him; we were raised up together with Him, and we were seated in heavenly places together with Him.

“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6, NKJV).

What’s more, 2 Corinthians 5:17 assures us that “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (KJV).

Becoming A New Creature in Christ

To illustrate the reality of this, Mark and Trina Hankins recently shared with Brother Copeland the testimony of their grandson Dylan who had a bone marrow transplant (stem cell transplant) a few years ago. Dylan’s brother Gavin was his donor. For four days they took blood from Gavin and gave it to Dylan. For the next three months, as Gavin’s stem cells were grafted into Dylan’s, he became a different person. At three weeks, medically in his blood, Dylan was 50% himself, and 50% Gavin. At three months, Dylan was 75% Gavin and only 25% himself. Today, Dylan is 100% Gavin. There’s nothing left of the cells that had leukemia and if you tested both boys’ blood for DNA, they would appear to be the same person.

So imagine what happens spiritually when you make Jesus the Lord of your life? You are transformed to being a new creature in Christ. And think about who your donor is—Jesus Himself! His blood doesn’t flow through your veins literally, but this is what people mean when they say we have Jesus’ blood flowing through our veins. Spiritually, we do! It’s part of our identity in Christ, something we find in God’s Word.

Imagine finding your identity in the Word of God and never wrestling with who you are or why God put you on this earth. Imagine the peace this would bring. It’s possible if we’ll go to God and find our identity in Him. In fact, one of the best ways to discover and study our identity in Christ is to read through Paul’s letters to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians and Colossians; and every time you see two-word phrases such as…

• in Christ.
• in Him.
• in whom.
• in the beloved.

…highlight, circle or underline those phrases, because those two-word phrases describe who you are and what you have as a born-again believer. They describe who He is in us. There are more than 130 such occurrences, though 35 of them are the most significant, and they describe what God has already done for you and in you, in Christ. If you’ll do this, you will discover who you are in Him—and you will discover one of the most powerful ways to develop strong faith. [For more on how to do this, click here.]

Find Yourself in Him

Jesus modeled this for us when He stood up in the synagogue in Nazareth to read. The Scripture says:

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, 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. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears (Luke 4:17-21, KJV).

As Gloria Copeland has said, Jesus found Himself in the book! He found Himself in Isaiah 61—and He declared it. When we give voice to who we are in Christ, our identification with Christ is activated by our confession of faith. Declaring what the Word says is equivalent to us saying, “I am agreeing with God that I am who God says I am; I can have what God says I can have; and I can do what God says I can do.”

Be Transformed by Your Identity in Christ

Who better to get into agreement with than God?

Romans 10:9-10 (KJV) shows us “that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

In the same way Jesus found Himself in the book, when we find ourselves in the Book, it will make the Word come alive to us. The spirit of wisdom and revelation will take those two-word phrases from just being information and intellectual knowledge to becoming spiritual power in our lives. The spirit of wisdom and revelation will cause the words to become revelation, and revelation in our lives is transformative. Isn’t being transformed into the image of Christ what we want more than anything?

Kenneth Copeland has said that if you want all the “in Him, in Christ, in whom, etc.” scriptures to come alive for you, then take the “Ephesians 1 Prayer” and pray it every day. The Ephesians 1 Prayer comes from making a declaration of faith based on verses from Ephesians 1:17-23.

Father God,

I’m asking you to give to me the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of You. I pray that the eyes of my understanding would be flooded with light, that I may know the hope of Your calling, what is the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in the saints, what is the exceeding greatness of Your power toward us who believe, according to the working of Your mighty power which You worked in Christ, when You raised Him from the dead and sat Him at Your own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principality, power, might, dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also that which is to come.

For You put all things under His feet, gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body the fullness of Him that fills all in all.

In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Embrace Your Identity in Christ

The greatest need we will ever have is the spirit of wisdom and revelation, and according to the Scripture, this is what Paul prayed for the Ephesians—and it’s something we should pray for ourselves.

Paul wrote this to the Colossians as well saying, “For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding” (Colossians 1:9, KJV).

And Proverbs 4:7 tells us, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

Mark Hankins has said that every breakthrough in faith will come from a breakthrough in the spirit of wisdom and revelation. In other words, for your faith to grow and to go forward, there must be a breakthrough in revelation knowledge. And praying the Ephesians 1 prayer daily will unlock that for you.

Do you know who you are in Christ? Do you walk in the confidence He’s given to us? Or do you wrestle with knowing who you are, what God’s called you to do, and why you’re here on this earth? For practical help in discovering such truth in the New Testament, click here for an article showing you how to find your identity in God’s Word today.

Do you find it easier to stand in faith for others to receive healing than it is to believe for yourself to receive it? Sometimes, it’s far easier to believe God wants and wills to heal someone else, isn’t it? But the truth is it is God’s will to heal you.

When Jesus walked the earth, He assured of this saying:

“For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38, NKJV).

“The Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19, NIV).

“For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken” (John 12:49, NIV).

If Jesus came from heaven to only do the will of His Father, to only speak what His Father told Him to speak, and to do only what His Father told Him to do, what is it that we see on the pages of Scripture that Jesus spent His time doing?

Matthew 10 gives us a very clear picture: “And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease…. These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: ‘Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give’” (Matthew 10:1, 5-8, NKJV).

Luke 10 tells us more: “Now after this the Lord chose and appointed seventy others and sent them out ahead of Him, two by two, into every town and place where He Himself was about to come (visit)” (Luke 10:1, AMPC).

Then Jesus goes on to say: “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house…. And heal the sick that are therein” (Luke 10:2-9, KJV).

From these Scriptures, there should be no doubt, no argument, no wondering whether it is God’s will to heal the sick. These verses give you the assurance needed that it is God’s will to heal you. God is for you, and He wants you to settle this in your heart, so you can receive your healing!

The Misuse of Praying, “If it be Your will…”

If all this is true—and it is—then why do some people pray with the phrase, “If it be Your will, God, please heal…”? Perhaps, they get this phrase from when Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before He was to be arrested and eventually hung on the cross. He prayed to His heavenly Father saying, “If it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42, NKJV).

It’s important to understand that Jesus wasn’t praying about healing. He wasn’t asking His heavenly Father to heal His body, because He wasn’t sick. Rather, He was fully the Son of God who knew what He was about to experience as fully man—His crucifixion. As Kenneth Copeland has said, “Jesus still had flesh, but the glory of God was flowing in His veins. He poured His blood out on the heavenly mercy seat so that we could be healed and well.”

Nowhere in Scripture did Jesus demonstrate for us to pray, “If it be Your will,” in relationship to healing; therefore, it should not be a part of how we pray when we want God to heal us. Rather, we should pray according to, and in alignment with, the Word of God, which clearly shows us it is God’s will to heal every single one of us!

We Receive Our Healing by Faith

When Cornelius the centurion sent word for Jesus to come and heal his servant, he left his home and met Jesus as He was on His way (Luke 7:1-6). Cornelius told Jesus that he was not worthy for Jesus to come under his roof, “but say the Word and let my servant be healed.” To which Jesus marveled and said, “’I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!’ And those who were sent, returning to the house, found the servant well who had been sick” (Luke 7:7-10, NKJV).

Later, after Jesus was in heaven, Peter preached in Cornelius’ house saying, “…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38, NKJV).

We Receive Our Healing by Speaking Our Faith

Matthew records the centurion as saying to Jesus, “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed” (Matthew 8:8, KJV). 

To receive our healing by faith, we speak faith. We speak faith by speaking the Word of God. We pray it. We confess it. We profess it. We declare it. And we do that until we receive it. Until we have manifestation of our healing.

Do you want to be healed? Do you believe it is God’s will to heal you? Start speaking it out of your mouth!

Read 5 Confessions of Faith for Receiving YOUR Healing here.

Jesus Is Still Willing

In Mark 1:32-39, Jesus was doing what His Father said to do—He was healing the sick.

“At evening, when the sun had set, they brought to Him [Jesus] all who were sick and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city was gathered together at the door. Then He healed many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew Him.”

The next morning, He spent time with His heavenly Father, to hear what to do next and then He did it.

“Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed. And Simon and those who were with Him searched for Him. When they found Him, they said to Him, ‘Everyone is looking for You.’

“But He said to them, ‘Let us go into the next towns, that I may preach there also, because for this purpose I have come forth.’

“And He was preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and casting out demons.”

Next, the Scripture tells us the best news of all because it shows us how Jesus is always willing to heal.

“Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, ‘If You are willing, You can make me clean.’

“Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed” (Mark 1:40-42).

Jesus Is Willing To Heal You Today

Jesus is willing to heal you—no matter your affliction. In Luke 5, He healed a man who had a stroke, something we might think isn’t reversible. In John 5, He healed the man who had laid by the pool of Bethesda for 38 years. How long you’ve been sick doesn’t matter. In Luke 8, He healed a woman who had been bleeding for 12 years, who’d spent her savings on medical treatment, who risked it all to reach Him. However your condition makes you feel mentally, emotionally or physically doesn’t matter. Jesus cares about you in every way—and it is His will to heal you. Even if it’s a miracle that you need.

Do you need a healing miracle? Receive now the assurance that it is God’s will to heal you, and receive your miracle today. Have faith in God. Isn’t that what Jesus said? “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God” (Mark 11:22, KJV). This also can be accurately translated as, “Have the faith of God, or have the God kind of faith.” Doesn’t the faith we have come from God to begin with? Yes. (See Romans 12:3). So use the faith God gave you to receive from Him what He willingly has given you—your healing, your miracle!