by Gloria Copeland
“We having the same spirit of faith,
according as it is written,
I believed, and therefore have I spoken;
we also believe, and therefore speak.”
(2 Corinthians 4:13)
In almost 50 years of ministry, I cannot tell you how many opportunities Ken and I have had to fail…and fail big!
There have been times when our circumstances looked dark and impossible. Times we didn’t have enough money to pay the bills in the ministry. Times we let ourselves become discouraged by not acting on what we knew and what we were supposed to do. During those times, we would fail to say the right things…the things God’s Word says about our situation.
But then we would hear a message preached at a meeting or listen to a faith-filled tape that would throw us right back into faith. As a result, we would rise up, take authority over our words, repent for unbelief and any other mistakes we had made in the process, and get our thinking and our words straight.
Each time, God brought us to a place of victory. Each time, we came out of trouble after we returned to saying not just familiar words, not just accurate words, but words of faith from the heart.
If you’re going through a difficult time right now, I want you to know that speaking words of faith makes all the difference between staying under and going over.
It’s often the missing step for believers who are doing a lot of things right. They could be walking in truth and living lives of faithfulness and diligence. They may be tithing and sowing and still not prospering as much as they should or could. The truth is, they won’t receive all God desires for them until they check what is going on right under their noses—literally!
Our Words Are a Sickle
We will never be able to skip the step of saying words of faith from the heart if we are going to see the fullness of God manifest in our lives.
It’s believing and saying that causes things to come to pass. It’s believing and saying that causes us to increase. The believing part is the faith part. Our words must have faith behind them for them to be faith words.
Mark 11:22-23 says, “Have faith in God. For whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”
That is faith in a nutshell.
Years ago, Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin said that in this scripture Jesus mentioned “believing” one time and “saying” three times. The first time I heard his tape, You Can Have What You Say, I was listening and busily taking notes when I heard these words in my spirit:
In consistency lies the power.
I received light on Mark 11:23 that changed my life: All my words are important! Not just what I say when I pray, but all the time. Our words are our faith speaking—either good or bad. I realized all my words are vital to my future. Not just when I pray, but those things I say all the time are opening or closing doors for God to work in my life. Everything I say should be in line with God’s Word and my desires. In consistently speaking faith words lies the power of an overcoming life.
If you’re saying “nothing’s happening,” then nothing’s happening.
If you’re feeling sorry for yourself and saying, “This always happens to me,” and “I don’t know why God’s not doing something about it,”…then it will and He will not.
What you really believe is what you say when the pressure is on. If you want to find out if you are in faith or not, listen to what you are saying in the privacy of your own home. And know this: Even behind closed doors in the dark of the night, what you say matters.
Malachi 3:13-15 tells us God was listening when His people said, “What good does it do to serve God? You know, those rich folks down the road, they don’t have any trouble.” And God confronted them about their grumbling. He said, “Your words have been stout against me.”
Don’t let your words be stout against God. He isn’t your problem—He’s your answer! Release faith with your words and give Him something to work with.
Don’t do what the children of Israel did in Deuteronomy 1:27 either. At the report of giants in the land, they allowed fear to enter into their hearts and they began murmuring in their tents. They grumbled: “Oh, the Lord must really hate us to bring us out of Egypt only to be killed by giants in the land He promised us.”
God heard the words they were saying in the privacy of their dwelling places, and they were evil in His sight. They didn’t have faith in what God had promised them and because of that, a whole generation missed out on the blessing of entering the Promised Land.
If you’re not getting results, don’t murmur and complain. Instead, come to grips with the fact you may need to change what you’re believing and saying. You are not going to say one thing and reap another. So don’t say, “Nothing’s happening.” Instead, say “I have it and I’ll not be moved until it manifests, in Jesus’ Name.”
You cannot talk decrease and expect increase. Your words are your sickle. They bring to you what you say.
What’s in Your Heart?
Matthew 12:34-35 says: “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.”
Here Jesus is telling us that our words reveal what we have been consistently filling our hearts with. As we fill our hearts with the Word of God and believe it, faith will overflow into our words. Those words filled with faith have power and will affect our circumstances.
Out of the good treasure of our hearts, good things will come forth.
If you don’t have good treasure stored in your heart—if you’re not believing the right things—you can change what you believe. Simply go to the Word, see what God says about your situation and declare, “That’s the way it is. I’m honoring that word and doing it.” That’s how you take the Word into your heart.
Filling your heart with God’s Word establishes God’s kingdom in your heart. It gives you His words of dominion.
In Matthew 6:22-23, Jesus said: “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your entire body will be full of light. But if your eye is unsound, your whole body will be full of darkness” (The Amplified Bible).
In other words, what you give your attention to is critical.
The entrance to your heart is through your eyes and ears. The “eye” of faith looks at the Word of God instead of the circumstances. You can have a sound “eye” by following God’s instruction: “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:20-23).
Verse 23 in The Amplified Bible says, “Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” What we allow into our hearts affects every part of our lives.
If we spend time in the Word allowing it to flood our hearts, Psalm 119:105 says it will be a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. But if we are filling our hearts and minds with worldly information—watching worldly television and movies, reading worldly books and magazines—our hearts will not be filled with light. Only by renewing our minds with the Word of God (Romans 12:2) will our hearts be flooded with light.
As you renew your mind with the Word, you learn to think like God thinks and you’ll make right decisions—you’ll be blessed. That is what Matthew 6:33 is talking about when it says, “But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides” (The Amplified Bible).
If God truly rules in your heart, if He is Lord of your life and you do what He says, then the kingdom of God (His dominion, presence, power, glory and anointing) will continually flow out of you and take authority over the things coming against you. That’s God’s plan of dominion. Words of authority are words of faith from the heart.
Faith—the Believer’s Lifestyle
A lifestyle of faith is the lifestyle of a true believer. Romans 1:17 declares, “The just shall live by faith.” That passage in The Amplified Bible says, “The man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith.”
Faith pleases God because it makes a way for Him to work in our lives. It connects us to His supernatural anointing. Look at Abraham. God promised to bless him saying, “A father of many nations have I made thee” (Genesis 17:5). Though it seemed impossible, Abraham believed God who “calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God” (verse 20).
When he agreed with what God said, he saw the promise come to pass. He received the promise because he believed God.
Believers today can walk in the same favor Abraham enjoyed. Galatians 3:29 declares that “if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Verses 7 and 9 say, “Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.”
It takes faith for the blessings of God to manifest in our lives.
Hebrews 6:12 instructs us: “Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” God’s Word will come to pass in your life if you will put it in your heart and in your mouth. Be patient. Don’t dig up your seed with words of unbelief.
Satan comes to steal the Word that has been planted in you. He’ll try to make you quit. But when pressure comes, recognize the source and the reason. Persecutions and afflictions arise for the Word’s sake (Mark 4:15-17). The enemy tries to get you to believe something other than what God has said in His Word.
But don’t quit believing! Don’t quit confessing the Word. Don’t let pressure cause you to speak negative, unbelieving words that give the enemy license to operate in your life. And don’t focus on the circumstances or talk about them. Instead, talk to them.
Be a faith person—someone who not only says the right things in church on Sunday, but who consistently says the right things all the time. Even in challenging circumstances, a person of faith believes God’s Word is true. Even when it looks hopeless, talk the Word.
The things you continually say are the things that come to pass in your life.
God’s Book of Remembrance
God hears all of our words. And He loves to hear words of faith—words that release the provision He so earnestly desires to shower on us. Malachi 3:16-17 says:
Then those who feared the Lord talked often one to another; and the Lord listened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who reverenced and worshipfully feared the Lord and who thought on His name. And they shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, in that day when I publicly recognize and openly declare them to be My jewels (My special possession, My peculiar treasure)” (The Amplified Bible).
Not only is God listening. He is making note of those who believe Him and speak about His goodness. God calls them His jewels, His treasure.
That’s the group you and I can belong to if we speak words of faith from our hearts and obey those words with our actions!
In each of the challenges Ken and I have faced, something would happen as we listened to a tape or attended a meeting. The Word of God would correct us, drive out the disobedience or unbelief and destroy what was holding us down. Hearing the Word would bring us out of discouragement. It would cause us to stir up our faith again. We would stop seeing ourselves in the hole or in trouble. We would start believing and saying that we had the victory.
Although nothing in the natural changed immediately, something happened in the supernatural. Something happened in our hearts. God saw it too—He looked at our hearts. He heard our words. He knew faith was there. The turnaround came! The mountain was moved! Whether it was a $6 million television bill or some other kind of trouble—each time we came out.
God helped us. Even when we got under it and acted defeated and murmured in our tent, He restored us to that place where we had enough faith to quit saying and doing the wrong things and to begin saying the right words. We discovered it pays to speak words that please God.
So, if wrong words come out of your mouth, repent and get back on the truth of the Word. When you speak words that are crosswise to what you’re believing for, repent and say, “I break the power of that in the Name of Jesus. I’m believing the Word of God, and I’ll not accept that opposing word coming out my mouth. Father, forgive me.”
Make all your words agree with the Word of God. Speak faith words that give your heavenly Father the freedom to do what pleases Him most—to bless you with the abundance of His life and provision. Give God the pleasure of entering your words of faith in His book of remembrance. Let Him note you are one of those who believe Him and speak about His goodness.
Fulfill His joy of calling you His jewel…His special possession…His peculiar treasure.
Give Him words of faith from your heart.
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