Author Archives: KCM

Oh, God, I need more power! Please…please…please give me more power, LORD!

Have you ever prayed a prayer like that?

I have. In fact, some years ago I was praying along those lines, earnestly beseeching God to give me greater power to minister. It was a fine, very spiritual-sounding prayer. But The LORD interrupted me right in the middle of it.

‘Kenneth,’ He said, ‘where would I go to get you more power?’

The question stopped me cold.

‘No one has more power than I do,’ He continued. ‘And I’ve already filled you with My Spirit. I’ve put within you the same miraculous force that created heaven and earth, the same supernatural strength that raised Jesus from the dead. Where am I going to go to find something greater than that?’

The point was clear. As born-again, Holy Spirit-filled believers, you and I don’t need more power. We simply need to more fully release what we’ve already been given. We need to allow the Spirit of God within us to flow through us in greater measure.

If we’re not seeing miracles in our lives and ministries, it isn’t God’s fault. He isn’t the One who is limiting us. We are!

That may not sound to you like good news—but it is.

Here’s why. If you’re the one who is keeping a lid on the power of God in your life, then you’re the one who can take that lid off! You don’t have to sit around waiting for some super-anointed prophet to come to town and lay hands on you. You don’t have to wait for God to send an angel to hit you with his glory stick. You don’t have to wait for anything.

You can make a quality decision to increase the flow of God’s power in your life—starting today!

God Is Always On

“Now, Brother, I don’t believe we can just turn God’s power on at will.”

I don’t either. But thank God, we don’t have to! His power is always on! He turned it on and made it available to every one of us almost 2,000 years ago on the Day of Pentecost, and He hasn’t turned it off since. It’s me I turn on and off. God is always on!

He’s just waiting for us to get fully turned on to that power. He is waiting for us to get with the program and start doing the works that Jesus did, and even greater works (John 14:12).

The problem is, we’ve kept Him waiting for a long time. That’s because, despite what the Bible says, most Christians don’t actually think they could ever do what Jesus did. After all, He is the divine, firstborn Son of God, and He clearly had a greater measure of God’s power flowing through Him during His earthly ministry than any of us do.

It’s true. Jesus did operate in greater power than we do. But not for the reason most people think. His great anointing was not due to the fact that He is the Son of God. It couldn’t have been! For Philippians 2:7 says when Jesus came to earth, He stripped Himself of His divine privileges. He laid aside the rights of deity and ministered as a man.

What then was the secret of His astounding power?

You can find it in John 3:34: “For since He Whom God has sent speaks the words of God…God does not give Him His Spirit sparingly or by measure, but boundless is the gift God makes of His Spirit!” (AMP).

According to that verse, the reason Jesus was able to operate in unlimited power was because He spoke The WORDs of God.

He didn’t just speak God’s WORD when He was ministering. He didn’t just speak it when He was feeling spiritual. He didn’t stand in church and say, “Well, praise God. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but The LORD delivers him out of them all!”…and then walk outside and say to His disciples, “Boys, things are really looking bad. Judas is stealing our money. The religious leaders are trying to kill Me. I just don’t know if we’re going to make it.”

No, Jesus didn’t speak words of faith one moment and words of doubt the next. He always spoke God’s WORD: “As my Father hath taught me,” He said, “I speak these things” (John 8:28).

More Than a Black Leather Book

“I know The WORD is important,” you may say, “but I just can’t see how it can turn up the power of God in my life.”

That’s because you don’t understand what The WORD actually is. You think it’s just a black, leather book you wag to church on Sunday and then leave on the coffee table the rest of the week. But the truth is, God’s WORD isn’t a book. It has been recorded in a book, but The WORD itself is what God has said to us.

Set your traditional framework aside for a moment and look at it this way. If someone said to you, “Kenneth Copeland has given you his word,” how would you respond? Would you get all religious about it?

No, you’d want to know what I had said I would do. You’d also want to know if my word is any good. You’d want to know if I’m the kind of person who keeps my word or not.

Those are sensible questions. Why is it then, that so many Christians who claim to esteem God’s WORD have never asked them?

“Yes, amen, Brother,” they say, “we believe The WORD of God.” Yet they cannot tell you precisely what God has said He’ll do for them. And once they find out, they consider it presumptuous to expect Him to follow through. They seem to think that because God is God, He has the option of breaking His WORD if He wants to, without any reflection in any way upon His nature.

That is absurd. A person’s word is his bond. It is the measure of his character. If a man honors his word by keeping it, then he is an honorable man. If he dishonors his word by breaking it, he is a dishonorable man. Like it or not, everyone’s integrity—including God’s—is judged on the basis of whether or not he keeps his word.

No doubt, that statement would ruffle the feathers of a few religious folks. “Who do you think you are,” they’d say, “to set up a criteria by which to judge God?”

I didn’t set up that criteria! God did. He is the One who taught us to judge integrity on that basis. He invented the integrity of words. He set the standard.

God and His WORD are One, not because we say so, but because He said so. He has made it clear that we cannot separate Him from His WORD. Just as He never changes, His WORD never changes. They are both the same—yesterday, today and forever.

What’s more, God’s WORD is as powerful as He is.

That may sound shocking to you, but if you’ll stop and consider it a moment, you’ll realize it makes perfect sense. A word is always and only as powerful as the person who gave it.

For example, if Joe Smith, the grocer from down the block, promised you a job at General Motors Co., there wouldn’t be much power in that word because as well-meaning as Joe might be, he has no authority to back it up. If, however, the president of GM called and said you could have a job there, you could take his word to the bank because he has the power to cause that word to come to pass. His word in a letter would have the same power to get you the job as his word when he spoke it to you.

The WORD Came First

Since God is all-powerful, His WORD is all-powerful. He can and does back up everything He says.

Since He is the Creator, His WORD contains the power to create. You can see that truth borne out in the very first verses of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:1-3).

Notice that the Spirit of God was moving before God spoke, but nothing happened until God said. Creation did not take place until God released words of faith.

Everything in this material creation, everything you can see, touch, taste or smell came into existence as a result of The WORD of God. That means God’s WORD is the parent substance of all matter. Think of it! The paper this magazine is made of came from a tree that can be traced from tree to seed, to tree to seed, all the way back to God’s WORD, “Let it be.”

In light of that fact, do you think His WORD still has the power to change this natural, physical world? Do you think The WORD that created the dirt your physical body was made from has enough power to heal that body? Do you think The WORD that brought into being all the silver and gold, all the wealth of this entire earth, has enough power to supply you with the resources to pay your electric bill?

Of course!

God’s WORD is eternal. It is sovereign. It cannot be changed. (We tried to change it by saying it didn’t really mean what it said. But, thank God, it does mean what it says and there’s nothing we can do to alter that fact.) Psalm 119:89 says, “For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven.”

This material universe, on the other hand, is temporal. It can and does change. As Jesus said, “Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away” (Mark 13:31).

If you take something that is unchangeable and use it to apply pressure to something that is changeable, it’s obvious which one of them will yield—the changeable one! Therefore, whenever you take The WORD of God and apply it in faith to this temporal realm, that realm must give in and conform to The WORD.

Jesus understood that truth. He lived His life by it. He had such faith in God’s WORD that when He spoke it, this material creation bowed its knee and obeyed Him. Demons fled. Diseases disappeared. Death gave up its grip. Bread multiplied. Winds stopped blowing. Waves ceased.

In fact, by the power of God’s WORD, Jesus was able to live and minister on this death-bound planet, and yet be completely free from all its bondages. Then, before He left, He told us how we could do the same thing.

He said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

Most of us have given such a religious meaning to the word disciple that we’ve lost the impact of what Jesus said there. A disciple is simply someone who follows after or becomes like someone else. So Jesus was actually saying, “Continue in My WORD and you’ll be like Me. You’ll know The WORD (see John 17:17) and it will make you just as free as I am.”

Containers of Power

To understand how God’s WORD can have such a profound effect on your life, you must realize that words do more than convey information. They serve as containers of spiritual power. They have the ability to carry faith or fear, blessing or cursing, life or death (see Proverbs 18:21).

Men sometimes speak idle or empty words, but God never does. Every word He has ever spoken has been filled with faith, power and life. Hebrews 4:12 says His WORD is “quick,” (or alive) “and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit….”

In fact, God’s WORD actually contains within it the power to bring itself to pass. For example in Isaiah 55:11, He says, “My word…shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

Every word God has ever spoken is backed by His faith, and is as full of power today as it was the moment He said it. So when you believe that WORD, and then your faith comes together with His faith, the power of that WORD is released, the Holy Spirit goes into action, and The WORD explodes into this natural realm and becomes a reality in your life!

That’s how you got born again. You heard or read God’s WORD, “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” (Romans 10:9). You believed that WORD, spoke it in faith and the power of the Holy Spirit was released, transforming your dead, fallen spirit into a reborn spirit, re-created in the image of Jesus Himself.

My, what a miracle! You were snatched from the dominion of darkness and there was nothing the devil could do to stop it. The words of God did the same thing for you they did for Jesus when He was in the pit of hell. They demolished the devil’s power over you and raised you up together with The LORD Jesus to sit together in heavenly places with Him! (Ephesians 2:6.)

Turn the World Upside Down

Even though you were the one speaking The WORDs, they had the same power they would have had if Jesus Himself had spoken them. That’s because they are God’s words, and when spoken and acted upon in faith they always release His power!

Peter and John proved that the day they walked up to the lame man at the Beautiful gate in Acts 3. At the time, they only had a few words of the New Covenant. They just had the words Jesus spoke to them before He ascended:

“Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:15-18).

But those were all the words they needed. When they believed and acted on those words, the Holy Spirit went into action for them just as He had for Jesus—and a miracle happened. When they opened their mouths and said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk,” that lame man “leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:6-8).

They didn’t stop with that one miracle either. Peter and John and the rest of the early disciples took those first few WORDs of the New Covenant and turned the whole known world upside down! (Acts 17:6)

“Well, Brother Copeland, you know those men were apostles. That’s the reason they were anointed to do such miracles.”

No, it’s not! If that were the reason then Acts 19:20 would say, mightily grew the apostles and they prevailed. But it doesn’t say that. It says, “mightily grew the word of God and prevailed.” Those early apostles were anointed to do such miracles because they spoke and acted on The WORD of God. It was The WORD and the anointing released by that WORD that did the work.

Since The WORD never changes, we can be confident that it will prevail for us just as surely as it prevailed for Peter and John. It will prevail for us as surely as it prevailed for Jesus. It will prevail for us as powerfully as when God Himself said, “Let there be light!”

What are we waiting for?

We have the very power and Anointing of God Himself moving in our reborn spirits. We have The WORD of God at our fingertips. And the more we fill our heart with that WORD, the more we act on it and speak it out in faith, the more freely that anointing can function through us.

We have everything we need to turn up the power of God in our lives. We have everything we need to heal the sick, cast out devils, open blind eyes and raise the dead. We’re not waiting on God. He is waiting on us.

Glory to God, let’s not keep Him waiting any longer! Grab your Bible, take your stand on it and let’s go!

Timeless teaching by Kenneth Copeland originally published October 1995

How to pass every test with God’s open Book.

by Gloria Copeland

There’s a problem—a health concern, financial troubles, a relationship struggle, a work issue. You can’t help but ask, “Lord, is this a test?” The fact is, every person alive will face challenges of some sort in his or her lifetime. Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation.” But He didn’t stop there. He added, “be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33, NKJV).

Jesus said He has overcome the world, and guess what? You can say that, too. Jesus has given you the same world-overcoming faith He has! Every born-again Christian is born of God, and our victory over every trial and tribulation is in our faith in God and His Word (1 John 5:4).

So, what do you do when you face one of the many challenges life holds for all of us? How do you make it through times of trial? How do you tap into that world-overcoming victory, and pass the tests?

God has every answer for every test we face, in His Word. All we have to do is go to the Holy Bible, open it up, find the answer and take a few simple steps to solve every problem.

Step No. 1 to Passing a Test: Choose Life

Since the beginning, God has intended our lives to be lived simply. Every decision we have to make boils down to a basic yes or no answer. The main question is whether we choose life or death, blessing or cursing. Deuteronomy 30:19 says: “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!”

Think about it. From every morsel of food we put into our mouths, to how we obtain the things we need, to how we treat the people in our lives—basically it’s up to us whether our choices result in life and blessing, or death and cursing.

When we made the most important decision in our lives to say yes to Jesus, we truly opened up the door to everything good God has in store for us. We said, “Yes, I believe Jesus is the Son of God. Yes, I call on His Name. Yes, I receive Him as my Lord and Savior.”

At that moment, the Spirit of God moved into your life, and you were empowered to begin to make the right choices. You were miraculously given the ability to hear directly from God in your heart and to understand the Bible clearly and what it has to say about you and the issues in your life. The Spirit of God moved inside your spirit to teach you God’s wisdom concerning everything you need to know for a victorious life.

The choice is still up to you whether you take advantage of the answers and solutions the Holy Spirit desires to reveal in the Bible and in your spirit, or you can just sit there complaining and letting life get you down.

Step No. 2 to Passing a Test: Examine Yourself

To examine yourself, let’s start with a couple of simple questions.

What do you do when you wake up one morning with a runny nose? Do you think: Well, here it is…my annual head cold! I had better get ready to be laid up in my pajamas for a few days. I hate these colds!

How about a little harder question? What do you do when you get a diagnosis of a serious disease from your doctor? Is your first thought: Oh, I hoped this day would never come. My mother had this. My grandma had it. Now I’ve got it. Oh, me, I know what I’ve got to look forward to now.

Think about these examples in terms of financial or relationship tests. Do you immediately give in? Is your first response one of worry? If so, you have already declared, whether the situation is simple or hard, “The test wins…I lose!” But you don’t have to respond this way. Whether you pass any test depends totally on what you declare about it. What comes out of your mouth, both when the test first arises and throughout the duration of it, will determine the outcome!

The words we speak reflect what we have in our hearts and in our minds—what we really think about things. And we develop our thoughts from what we continually hear and see. If we get our information from past experiences, family history or the evening news, and let those sources determine how we think about our lives, we will find ourselves in trouble. We will judge our trials and tests based on that information and it will determine the outcome.

But if we get our information from God’s Word, and from people who have experienced success through His Word, we will find ourselves overcoming the challenges we face.

Our most important decision is to receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior. After that, we must decide where we get the truth about living our life—life as He intends us to live it. The world and our enemy, Satan, have a plan and constantly feed us information to take us down. Our heavenly Father, Jesus our Lord and the Holy Spirit have a plan to take us over the top. What we have to do is decide to turn to God’s Word to discover the truth and live from that source of information.

Click here for five scriptures to help you stand against trouble. 

Step No. 3 to Passing a Test: Turn to the Word

Life in abundance—that’s a life that lives by the scriptures in the Bible! Your life may have a test every single day, but if you know God’s Word on the subject, the answers are all right there in front of you!

God’s Word speaks to every major issue in life. We deal with the same issues Adam and Eve dealt with…health and long life, provision and relationships. All mankind’s tests started right there with them. So, whether on a personal or worldwide level, these are the major issues of life on which we are tested.

And, the choice to pass or fail is still the same. Who are you going to listen to? Who are you going to obey?

God has never taken away our ability to choose how we handle tests. Even with all the power of the Holy Spirit we have received to tap into His wisdom, knowledge and understanding, the questions come down to this one: “Will I spend the time today to hear from God, to get my information from the Word, and to receive His truth that will give me abundant life?”

When you say yes to that question, you’ll have your answers right before your eyes and ears, which means they will be in your heart and mind. They will be the first thing out of your mouth when the test comes. No matter how simple or hard the test, you will have your answers!

This is not rocket science. But I will tell you this, approaching your life from this simple perspective with the open Book as your source will determine how far and how fast you go in life. It’s God’s plan for you to succeed and be living proof that anyone can live the abundant life Jesus came to give us!

Step No. 4 to Passing a Test: Listen to the Lord

Yes, God has a great plan for each of us. He’s laid it out in His Word. Our most important role in the plan is to pay attention to what He says.

He intends for each day of our lives to be fruitful and blessed, with each day leading us right along the path of His plan. Remember what He said through the prophet Jeremiah to the children of Israel: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jeremiah 29:11). That is His dream for all His children.

“Plans for good and not for disaster,” He said. God’s big picture is that nothing in your life is a disaster and that nothing cuts off His plan for your good, hope-filled future! Tests will come, yes. But He has given you exactly what you need to pass every one and stay on the road to your bright future.

So, pay attention to Him so the Holy Spirit who lives in you and guides you will have something to work with.

This is how God has directed me for more than 50 years of facing and passing the tests in my life. I give God the first part of my day. I read His Word, I pray in the spirit, I listen to Him…I pay attention.

Sometimes He directs me to just go about my daily business and be ready for whatever He brings my way. Sometimes He directs me to step out and go someplace special or call someone about something. My point is, every day I give Him my attention and every day He gives me direction.

We may have something in our lives that needs adjusting or some outright change that needs to take place. Maybe an attitude needs to be changed. Maybe some activity needs to be reconsidered. Maybe some perspective needs to be tweaked. When you approach the open Book every day, do it with an attitude that says, “God, I’m open to adjustment. Show me where I need to be tuned up and brought into alignment with the Word.”

I’ve had some major tests in my life. But, praise God, because of my daily pattern of paying attention and spending time with Him in the Word, I’ve been prepared and I’ve passed the tests. Some of the tests have come and gone in a day. Some have just called for a small adjustment, and some have required a major overhaul. Some have taken weeks, months or years to be resolved. But the solutions always come.

Today you can start using a new method of passing tests. You can face your trials and challenges with new confidence and assurance of successful results. James 1:25 (NKJV) says, “He who looks into the perfect law of liberty (the Word) and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” So, open the Book, stay in the Word, hear it, do it and be blessed!

Sometimes it seems like everywhere we turn, someone is speaking or promoting bad news—from TV shows and movies to well-meaning family and friends talking about negative things. It seems like much of our society is so conditioned to evil and fear, and they unknowingly welcome it like an old friend. Yet this was never God’s intention for any of us. In fact, the Bible tells us not to be fearful more than 100 times! We are called to live in power and peace (2 Timothy 1:7). It’s time for us to be wise to the enemy’s schemes and live fear free.

Have you ever considered where fear comes from? If you’re thinking fear comes straight from Satan, the author of lies, you’re correct. Fear is a tool he uses to distract us and keep us from God’s glorious blessings. Instead of focusing on God’s Word and our desired future, fear drives us to focus on worst-case scenarios and anything that could possibly go wrong.

Are you ready to start living unshakable and fear free? By putting these 6 Ways To Live Fear Free into practice, you can move into the greatest peace, joy and victory you’ve ever known.

1) Cast ALL your cares on the Lord.

“Cast your burden on the LORD, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.“ –Psalm 55:22 (NKJV)

What are your fears? Are you fearful of losing a relationship? Fearful of losing a job? Fearful of dying of a specific health condition? Whatever fears you’ve been hanging on to, you can let them go right now by giving them to the Lord. The scripture above promises us that whatever we’re worried about, we can cast those cares on the Lord, and He will take the care of them for us.
You literally can walk completely free of fear when you cast your cares on Him. However, if you insist on holding tightly to a care, concern, worry or fear, it blocks Him from moving on your behalf. So, don’t say you’re turning your cares over and then fall into worrying again. Give your fears to the Lord and leave them there (Psalm 34:4).

2) Set your spiritual compass.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” –John 10:10 (NKJV)

Just as we would set our compass in the natural to steer us in the right direction, so we must set our spiritual compass—our faith—to lead and guide us to God’s blessings. Like a compass has north and south on its dial, so we have blessings and curses on our faith dial.

In the scripture above, we are given a clear choice as to which direction to set our spiritual compass:

1) Listen to and have faith in Satan’s demonic attacks on our minds, attempting to feed us fear, or
2) Focus our faith in Jesus and His words, leading us to hope and victory.

Whatever you focus on is what will set your spiritual compass (Romans 10:17). If you watch and listen to fearful movies, you’ll set your mind on destruction and fall into torment. If you watch and listen to the Word and Word-based programs, you’ll set your mind on victory (1 John 5:4).

When we tune in to the Word, aligning our faith with God, we’ll never have to worry if we’re on the right course, because our faith has been set and we know that God is leading and guiding us in the right direction—all the time.

3) Recognize that you’ve been redeemed from fear.

“Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’), that THE BLESSING of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” –Galatians 3:13-14 (NKJV)

Just as Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law, and of sin, poverty, sickness, and disease, He also redeemed us from the curse of fear. Fear is a force that, if not resisted, can wreak havoc upon us, our families and ultimately, our entire lives (1 John 4:18). God states clearly that not only is fear a tormentor, but the spirit of fear doesn’t belong to us (2 Timothy 1:7). Why? Because Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of fear, and it has no right to us whatsoever. Fear doesn’t come from within us; it is a spirit trying to get on us to drive our decisions and steal our peace, prosperity and joy.

The next time you feel afraid—afraid to fly, afraid to swim, afraid to drive—remember Jesus bore that fear for you the same day He bore your sin. Recognize it and rebuke that spirit immediately. Kenneth Copeland did this very thing when he experienced fear in an elevator. He shares how he overcame the fear right in the moment:

“I got in an elevator at a hotel in Atlanta, Ga., one time, that was out in the open and made of glass. At first, I wasn’t afraid, but when I got up to the glass and looked down four or five stories, my toes started curling. I had this intense sensation to get back away from that glass. Instead, I said, ‘No, you don’t. You’re not putting that on me.’ I pressed my nose against that glass and forced myself to ride it up and down four or five times until the fear left. I’m not tolerating fear from somebody (satan) that’s already been whipped.”

Don’t accept fear in your life. Rebuke fear just as Kenneth did, and let the devil know he won’t be putting any fear on you!

4) Choose a sound mind.

“God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” –2 Timothy 1:7 (NKJV)

What would you do if a thief trespassed onto your property and started to break into your home? You’d arm yourself and call the police! Yet most Christians don’t take this stance when the devil feeds them fearful thoughts, trespassing on their sound minds.

You see, just like the scripture above states, God has given you a secure and sound mind. It is the devil who is attempting to trespass into it when he tries to invade your mind with fearful thoughts. And just as you would protect your home and your family from an invader, you must protect your God-given sound mind from satanic thoughts of fear.

It’s ineffective to try to outthink the devil and rationalize all the reasons you don’t need to fear. Instead, you have to speak the Word of God. Just like a police officer would make a thief run from the scene, speaking the Word makes the devil flee from your mind.

The next time you find yourself starting to grapple with fearful thoughts, protect your sound mind by responding immediately, out loud, with the Word of God; and watch how fast the devil runs from you. Try saying some of these scriptures and declarations based on them:

• Psalm 118:6 (NKJV): “The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? I refuse to fear!”
• Psalm 27:3 (NKJV): “Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, my confidence is in God.”
• Philippians 1:28 (AMPC): “I am not [for a moment] frightened or intimidated in ANYTHING by my opponents and adversaries.”
• Psalm 112:7(KJV): “I shall not be afraid of evil tidings. My heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. My heart is established. I shall not be afraid.”

5) Adopt a zero-tolerance policy toward fear.

“Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice. Behold, all they who are enraged and inflamed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; they who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish.” –Isaiah 41:10-11, (AMPC)

Franklin Roosevelt had it right when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear is a trick and a time-stealing lie of the enemy. If we give fear one minute of our time, it turns into consistent thoughts about that specific fear throughout the day. Pretty soon, that fear snowballs into additional fears, and suddenly you’re fighting an avalanche of tormented thoughts. However, since you’ve been redeemed from fear, it’s easy to take your stand, throw fear aside, and keep running your race by faith (Hebrews 12:1-2). That is why we must have zero tolerance for fear, under any circumstance.

You may be thinking that there are some dire circumstances where remaining fear free would just be too impossible, and yet, Kellie Copeland had a very good reason to fear one Christmas Eve morning years ago, and she chose not to. One of her daughters had been rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with severe spinal meningitis. When Kellie was told that her daughter would not live through the night, she recognized the spirit of fear attempting to grip her and spoke her response: “I refuse to fear!” Kellie then prayed and declared with her family, according to the Word of God, and her daughter miraculously recovered.

Even in the worst circumstances, we must absolutely refuse to put up with the trespassing of fear. Jesus paid the ultimate price, so we could take victory over fear in every situation (Luke 10:19).

6) Walk In Love

“We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” –1 John 4:16-18

Do you believe God loves you? He does. He is so in love with you—truly, wholly and unconditionally—just as you are right now.

Let that revelation sink into your spirit for a moment. After all, God’s love is the foundation of our faith and the entire reason He sent Jesus to die for us—in order to reconcile us back into His kingdom (John 3:16; 2 Corinthians 5:18-19). That means we are righteously and eternally reconciled to God and have absolutely no reason to fear anything or anyone ever again.

Take some time to delve into God’s love for you through the Scriptures. The more you realize His love for you, the more you’ll grow your faith (Galatians 5:6-10 ). And since faith is the opposite of fear, the more of His love you embrace, the smaller fear will become!

(Learn how Perfect Love Casts Out Fear HERE.)

Are you ready to live completely fear free and unshakable? Put these 6 Ways To Live Fear Free into practice, and you’ll find yourself developing a new, faith-filled habit of walking in perfect peace. You don’t need to fear anything in this life! Jesus is for you, with you, protecting you, guiding you and blessing you every day. Have faith in God—it’s the only way to live a long and happy life!

When sickness strikes, it’s wonderful to receive healing from the Lord. But you know what’s even better? Living in divine health all the time.

That’s something I’ve endeavored to learn how to do and I’ve really gotten the hang of it. Praise God, I’ve been living healed for many years now! What’s more, I have my faith set on continuing to do so all the days of my life.

If you know much about me, this doesn’t come as surprising news. After all, I’ve been teaching Healing School in our ministry campaigns and conventions for over 35 years. When I first started, some people worried that I wouldn’t be able to apply what I was teaching in my own life. “What if you end up getting sick and dying young?” they’d say.

I suppose they thought I’d look foolish if that happened. But I never shared their concern. I figured even if I did miss it somehow and died young, I’d rather go to heaven doing everything I know to do to believe God’s Word about healing, than go there in doubt and unbelief saying some dumb thing like, “See, I told you God’s Word doesn’t work!”

Of course, these days no one worries about my dying young anymore. It’s too late for it to happen now. I’ve already passed up that opportunity. Now I’m starting to live in the fulfillment of the promise God made in Psalm 91:16: “With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not winding down. The Lord also promised to renew my youth like the eagle’s (Psalm 103:5), and according to Genesis 6:3, that promise is good to at least age 120. So I plan to be around here for a good, long while yet—and I plan to keep living healed the whole time.

“But Gloria,” you might say, “if your body stays healed, how will you ever die?”

That’s easy! My body is just the house my spirit lives in. My spirit is the real me. All I have to do when I’ve been on this earth long enough to be satisfied, and I’ve finished everything God wants me to do, is leave this physical house.

When my spirit leaves, my body will die. Then they’ll dress it up and put makeup on it and everybody will look at it and say, “Oh, doesn’t she look natural.” But really, I won’t be there at all. I’ll be in heaven enjoying myself with Jesus!

Actually, I’m hoping the Rapture will take place before then because I really want to be a part of the catching away of the Church. I think it would be so exciting! I always envision it happening in the middle of the night. I picture people all over the world hearing a great noise like people did on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. “What was that?” they’ll say. “Was it a storm?” Then they’ll get up the next morning to find that the nicest people they know, all the people who are good and full of love, are gone.

Wow! Won’t that be something? I’m ready for it anytime! But if Jesus tarries and I die before He comes, I’m still going up. An angel will come get me and off we’ll go. I’ll be thrilled about it, too, because “to be absent from the body…[is] to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). So I don’t have anything to fear in death.

If you’re a born-again child of God, neither do you. But even so, you want to live out the full number of your days on earth. You want to complete the work God has given you to do here so that when you get to heaven Jesus can say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

All of us who love the Lord want to hear those words someday. None of us wants to get to heaven and have God say to us, “Well…?” We don’t want to have to make excuses for why we didn’t complete our assignment. I don’t think they accept excuses up there anyway. So we need to make up our minds on this side of heaven to do what it takes to obey God, and to live long and in good health!

A Bad Day at Black Rock

Proverbs 3:1-2 gives us the key to this. It says: “My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life [worth living] and tranquility [inward and outward and continuing through old age till death], these shall they add to you” (AMP).

This is the way you live a long life and have a happy departure when you leave: You do what God says. You keep His Word. That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? As believers, we ought not to have to attend a lot of seminars to get hold of it. We should just open our Bible every day, study it, be strengthened in our faith and find out how God wants us to live. We should start our day with His Word and act on it all day long. Personally, I don’t let a day go by without spending time in the Word. I think it’s the most important thing I have to do.

The reason is simple: If I’m living by faith in and obedience to God’s Word, I can live a life of peace and tranquility even when the whole world around me is falling apart. I don’t have to be terrified when the newscasters talk about the latest virus that’s going around. I don’t have to take the flu off a bird, a hog, a dog or anything else.

In fact, I don’t have to be afraid of pestilence or epidemics of any kind. Instead I can declare that the Lord “is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust” (Psalm 91:2, AMP).

According to Psalm 91, when you really believe that and say so:

[God] will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence…. You shall not be afraid of the terror of the night, nor of the arrow…that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor of the destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you ( 3, 5-7, AMP).

It’s a bad day at Black Rock when 11,000 people fall down dead all around you. Yet God says if you stick with Him, live obediently in His secret place and speak His Word, even in the midst of the worst devastation, you’ll be protected. When it’s all over, you’ll still be standing there testifying of the truth of verses like Psalm 145:8-9: “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion…. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works”!

Maybe up to now you don’t feel like you’ve experienced much of God’s graciousness. Maybe you’re thinking, It doesn’t seem like God has been very good to me at all!

If that’s the case then it’s because you haven’t been giving Him first place in your life. You’ve been going along doing whatever you want, ignoring the things you know are right. For life to be good on the earth, we have to get with God’s plan. That plan starts when we get born again by receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

It takes another leap forward when we receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. So if you haven’t already done that, I encourage you to do so. It’s very difficult to live a victorious life without it. You can’t get the revelation you need to live healed without the Holy Spirit’s awesome help.

He is our Teacher. He’s been sent to strengthen us, train us and empower us. Once we receive Him, He’s on the job 24/7. We never have to go hunting for Him. He’s always there when we need Him.

My life was sad before I got filled with the Spirit. Even though I was born again, I was just struggling along. But once Ken and I received everything God has provided—not just the new birth, but the Word and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit—things started turning around for us. Our sick days were over. Our broke days were over. Life started getting good!

Give Yourself A Little Test

Will God do for you the same thing He did for Ken and me?

Certainly, He will.

He is tender and merciful toward you. He loves you without reservation. He loves you more than your wife, your husband or your children do. Nobody on earth can love you as fully as God does. He is love!

“Yeah, but you don’t know the bad stuff I’ve been doing,” someone might say. “The reason I’m sick and defeated right now is because I’ve been living a sinful lifestyle.”

Then repent! If you haven’t been doing what’s right, receive God’s forgiveness and get cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Then take what belongs to you in Christ which is healing, health and well-being.

Truth be told, every believer needs to repent from time to time. We all miss it now and then, sometimes without even realizing it. That’s why in my life, when things aren’t working, the first place I look is at me. I don’t blame my problems on God or anyone else. Instead, I give myself a little test. I ask, “Am I spending time in the Word every day? Am I believing and acting on what God is showing me? Am I saying what He says about my situation? Am I walking in love and keeping His commands, or have I been disobedient?”

To be clear, I’m not saying that every time you experience a symptom of sickness, it’s because you’ve disobeyed the Lord. Not at all. Many times sickness is just a sign that the devil is up to his old tricks. He’s the thief and he comes “to steal, and to kill, and to destroy” (John 10:10). So when we have problems with sickness, we often just need to go after him and say, “No you don’t, devil! You’re not touching my body! You get your hands off me, in Jesus’ Name!”

If we’re going to be ready to do that, however, we must keep our spirit strong all the time. We must stay built up by staying in the Word!

Take a Double Dose of GOD’S Medicine!

According to Proverbs 4:22 (AMP), one reason staying in the Word is so vital is because it is “healing and health,” or “medicine” to all our flesh. What would you do if you went to the doctor for an illness and he prescribed a medicine for you that could save your life? You wouldn’t just put it on the shelf and let it sit there. If you did, it wouldn’t help you. So you’d take it as prescribed!

For God’s Word to work in us the way He intends, we must do the same thing. We can’t just leave our Bible unopened on the nightstand. We have to do what God says: “Attend to my words, consent and submit to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart” Proverbs 4:20-21 (AMP).

I like to take God’s healing medicine even when I’m well. I want to get His Word in my heart and mind in advance so that when I need it, it’s already inside me. I’ve done this for so many years now that I rarely have symptoms of sickness come on my body at all. But if they do, I increase my dose. I go over healing scriptures and take God’s medicine daily, three or four times a day.

What specific scriptures do I use as my healing medicine?

The Bible is full of them and I love them all, but one of my favorite passages is Isaiah 53:4-5, (AMP). It says this about the crucifixion of Jesus:

Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment]…. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.

According to those verses, when Jesus went to the cross He took upon Himself all the bad things that came on the earth through mankind’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden. He “redeemed us from the curse,” as Galatians 3:13-14 says, so that THE BLESSING could come upon us.

What does it mean to be redeemed from the curse? For one thing, it means all our sins are washed away. There’s no sin we could ever commit that hasn’t already been taken care of by the blood of Jesus. That’s why we can receive Him as Lord, live clean lives, and not only be forgiven of sin but walk in victory over it.

This, by itself, is a tremendous BLESSING. But there’s even more to it. As Deuteronomy 28:60-61 AMPsays, “all…diseases…. every sickness and every affliction” are included in the curse. Therefore, healing is just as available to us as forgiveness of sin and the new birth—simply because Jesus has paid the price for it.

So, receive your healing by faith today. Take your stand on the Word of God and keep His medicine in front of your eyes, in your ears, in your heart and in your mouth until there’s not one symptom of sickness left in your body.

Learn how to live healed—all the time!

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