Can you see what happened to me? I could have been sitting there seething over that stolen camera. I could have been sitting there getting offended, cutting myself off from the Anointing of God. But I wasn’t! I had forgotten all about that thief. I was too busy being thrilled with the new camera God was giving me to worry about how the thief had done me wrong!
A few days later, Gloria and I were walking along the street in San Francisco when I spotted a Nikon F camera box sitting in the window of a small shop. I went in and asked the store clerk how much they
wanted for it.
“We don’t have a Nikon F,” she answered. “Yes, you do. It’s right there in the window.”
She reached over and got it, looked puzzled and carried it to a Japanese gentleman in the back of the store. “How much is this?” she asked him.
He threw up his hands and said something in Japanese that I didn’t understand. So I just dug around in my pocket and found some traveler’s checks. “Here,” I said, “I have $250. Will you sell it to me for that?” “OK!” said the Japanese man.
Of course I was excited about getting just the body of a Nikon F for that price. But before I had a chance to say anything about it, the store clerk dug around in a drawer, found a Nikon 50 mm lens and handed it to me along with the camera. Glory to God, my crop was coming up!
It wasn’t finished yet, either. Just a few days later in another city, Gloria and I were walking along the street again and we stopped in a camera store. I looked up and noticed that way up high on the top of a display shelf, there was a lens case for a Nikon 200 mm lens.
The same thing happened again. The store owner didn’t know he had it, and didn’t know what to charge for it. So he sold it to me for $100!
I don’t mind telling you, by the time that deal was done, I was almost hoping someone would steal something else from me. But then I realized, Hey, I can give it without someone having to steal it! I liked that kind of harvest! You’d like that kind of harvest too, wouldn’t you?
Well, you can have it. Just start taking those opportunities for offense and planting them as seeds. Instead of crying over how badly you’ve been hurt, turn those hurts into harvests and start laughing at the devil. Take everything ugly he has ever thrown at you and sow it as a seed.
Begin now by praying: “Father, in the Name of Jesus, right now I sow as seed in the kingdom of God every hurt, every bad feeling, every theft, and every evil thing any person has ever done or said to me, my family or my ministry. I release every person who has ever hurt me and I forgive them now. I lift each one of them up to You and I pray for those people. I pray, Father, that they’ll come into a greater knowledge of You. I pray that their spirits be saved in the Day of the Lord.
“Now I declare before You, My God in heaven, that I expect a reward. I believe Your Word and by faith I set my sickle to my harvest. I believe I receive a hundredfold return for every wrong deed done to me, every unkind word spoken to me and every dime stolen from me. I expect to receive a blessing of equal benefit. I claim it. It’s mine and I have it now in Jesus’ mighty Name!”
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
