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Posts Tagged ‘Word of God’

Developed in Perfect Love

14 Oct

by Kenneth Copeland

Not long ago, the Lord told me that we need a much higher degree of revelation that God is love, and that His love is in us to be used.
As you develop and exercise that love, He said, it will not only fill you up, it will flush the fear out of your soul. Once fear is flushed out and you begin to step out in faith and love, an area of protection will develop around you, an area of joy which is your strength—an area that the world has no explanation for. They’ll begin to wonder, “Who is this that even stops and stills the storms?”
We can read 1 John 4, and clearly see how this process works. There, the man known as the Apostle of Love says:

Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us (1 John 4:15-19).

Notice the very first thing that we need to do once we’ve confessed Jesus as our Lord is to know and believe the love God has for us.
We have to develop faith in that love and have it secure in our hearts. When we do, there won’t be an ounce of fear in us. Any time the devil threatens us with some kind of harm, we can rebuke him and say, “You’d better not touch me. I am a dearly beloved child of Almighty God. If you do anything to hurt me, you’ll have my Daddy to deal with and we both know you don’t stand a chance against Him. So just back off right now!”

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Gloria Copeland — What if We All Prayed in the Spirit?

29 Aug

Kenneth And Gloria Copeland

Now think of all the different people it takes to make up the Body of Christ in the world today. What if we all prayed an hour each day in the Spirit? How many hours of praying the perfect will of God would that represent?

Once the Body of Christ rises up and becomes obedient to God, with each individual doing what he is told, we will reap the harvest of souls that God desires—and we will do it quickly!

God might tell one person to pray five hours. Someone else may be told to pray 15 minutes. The important thing is that we do what we are told. I was told to pray an hour each day, and it has changed my life. (Now I pray in English as much as in the Spirit—just whatever direction I receive.)

If you prayed in the Spirit one hour a day, by the end of the year you would have prayed 365 hours of the perfect will of God. Just 15 minutes a day would be 91 hours. Don’t you think that would affect everything in your life for good? It certainly did mine. I wouldn’t consider not spending time in prayer every morning.

I want you to realize that God will deal with you right where you are today. He might tell you to pray five minutes each day. He may ask you to start there and then increase. Five minutes is important when you are praying the perfect will of God. It is God praying through you. He gives the utterance, you give Him your authority and your voice. When you pray in the spirit, your intellect will not get in the way because you are not praying out of your head, but out of your spirit.

We must come to a place where we keep God’s Word, obey His guidance and simply do what we are told—a body of people that God can depend on to do His will in the earth.

What God said exactly was “Don’t take up all your time with natural things…but see to it that you give heed unto your spirit and give your spirit opportunity to feed upon the Word of God…
and give your spirit opportunity to commune with the Father above and build yourself up on your most holy faith…just an houror two out of 24, just pay a tithe of your time unto Me, saith the Lord and ALL WILL BE WELL.”

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

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Gloria Copeland — Praying in the Spirit Part 2

11 Jul

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Often we don’t know how to pray as we ought. But the Spirit of God knows. The Spirit of God is in you to pray through you—to give you utterance in the perfect will of God. That is what praying
in other tongues is all about. He prays God’s answer through you. Praying in the Spirit overcomes the weakness you have because of lack of knowledge as well as the weakness you have because of
living in a natural body. It helps your spirit to receive enlightenment and strength to dominate your actions.

“He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries” (1 Corinthians 14:2).

Jude 20-21 says, “But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ
unto eternal life.”

Romans 8:27 reads, “And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit….”

He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. God looks on the heart, and you look so much better in your heart than in your flesh. But He wants you to look as good on the outside as you look on the inside. Following after the Holy Spirit will bring that to pass. Following after the Word of God and the leading of God in your spirit will cause you to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).

In our hearts we must desire to please God. We must despise things in our lives that we know are not right before Him. As born-again believers, we do not want to sin. We want to be free. We want to please God.

The problem we’ve experienced has been getting our souls and bodies in agreement with our hearts. The Word of God and praying in the Spirit is the answer. We must give ourselves over to the Spirit of God, begin to pray in the Spirit, and allow the washing of the water of the Word to present us a glorious Church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing and without blemish (see Ephesians 5:25-27).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

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Gloria Copeland — Give God Control

28 Mar

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit… (Hebrews 4:12).

The Word of God divides the soul and the spirit. The Word of God will distinguish, clarify or separate the soul and the spirit. When I look back in my own life, I can see how I was held back spiritually. It was not my willingness to disobey God. I have been willing to obey Him since I first began to study His Word. It was my inability to hear from God and recognize His leading that held me back spiritually. It was not through any willful determination. I just did not recognize most of the time what God wanted me to do. When I had to make a decision, I would try to figure out the best way for me to go. I didn’t know
how to recognize my spirit.

Thank God, that is not the way you and I have to walk. We should not walk according to our own intellect or reasoning. We should walk according to the Spirit who knows all things. But we must make the decision to allow Him to direct our actions. “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:6).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

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Gloria Copeland — Harden Not Your Heart

21 Jan

Kenneth And Gloria Copeland

For so many years I walked on the written Word of God and depended on it. It changed my life. The Word renewed my thinking. I began to think like God thinks in many ways. But one area in which I was insecure was making decisions when the Word did not give me specific directions.

The Word does not tell us whether to move to another city or what person to marry. We have to make these individual decisions by the direction of God’s Spirit in our spirits. We have to learn to listen to our spirit who is being communicated with by the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:16 says the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirits.

You cannot wait until you see a burning bush or hear an audible voice to follow God. If you did, you would not know where you are going most of the time. I wish it were so plain when God talks to us that we could hear His audible voice, but that audible voice happens too rarely to rely on for everyday guidance.

Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness…. Again, he limiteth a certain day, saying in David, Today, after so long a time; as it is said, Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts (Hebrews 3:7-8, 4:7).

You must be willing to hear His voice and harden not your heart. How do you harden your heart? You resist the Word of God and the promptings of the Spirit. You decide, “No, that is not my will; I have decided to go another way.” You might not make that actual declaration, but if the Spirit of God leads you to do something and you fail to do it, essentially you are saying, “I shall do my own will in this matter.” If you harden your heart, it is unbelief to the written Word and to the voice of the Spirit of God that comes up within you. Harden your heart and you will not live in rest.

One definition of harden is “to make firm, solid or rigid.” In Ezekiel 36:26, God says He will take away the stony heart and give a heart of flesh, or a soft heart, a pliable heart. You could say it is a heart that the Holy Spirit can maneuver.

So, if you harden not your heart, what happens to you?

“There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (Hebrews 4:9, 11).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

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