Gloria Copeland — Go Ahead, Assert Yourself! Part 2
Hard times demand that you take time to be with faith up.
Once you have determined to know God—to become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him—your second step is to spend time with Him. That’s always the bottom line, isn’t it? Whenever we
start pressing in, desiring to win more victories in the Spirit, desiring more power, we’re always directed back to that precious time with Him.
Look again at what Paul said, “[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him...And that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection...” (Philippians 3:10, The Amplified Bible).
Think about it. If you spend an hour with God every day, that’s 365 hours a year. Don’t you think coming into His presence for an hour every day will do something for your life? Even if you just spent 15 minutes a day, that would be 90 hours a year of prayer and time with Him. An hour is just what the Lord led me to do. Follow your own heart. But see to it that you give the Father time to impart His strength into you.
Do you want Jesus’ resurrection power to flow in your life? Then get to know Him! The more you fellowship with Him, the more you’re going to look like Him, act like Him and talk like Him.
That’s not surprising, really. It’s a fact of life. When you spend time around strong people, you begin to take on their way of talking, thinking and even their mannerisms. When you spend time with Jesus, you’ll do exactly the same thing.
So, if you spend your time watching secular television and filling your mind with the world’s news, what do you think will happen? You’ll end up being like the world and living in fear instead of faith.
What you give your attention to is what’s going to be on the inside of you. And what’s inside you will determine the outcome of your situation. Your future is stored up in your heart. (See Matthew 12:34-35, New International Version.)
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Gloria Copeland — Go Ahead, Assert Yourself! Part 1
How do you get the kind of spiritual aggressiveness, the urgency it takes to lay hold of that opportunity?
First, you must determine your focus and spend time with God. The Apostle Paul said, “[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him...” (Philippians 3:10, The Amplified Bible).
Notice Paul didn’t say, “One of my purposes is....” He said very specifically, “My determined purpose is....” I can promise you this: You won’t be spiritually aggressive unless you determine to be. You’ll let “...the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of other things” get in your way (Mark 4:19).
I need to warn you, that determination to spend time with God will run headlong into a busy life. To stay on course, you will have to bring your flesh under the rule of your spirit and be willing to simplify your life.
I discovered this as I was honoring a prophecy the Lord gave through Kenneth E. Hagin on the importance of communing with the Father:
Don’t take up all your time with natural things...give your spirit opportunity to feed upon the Word of God...to commune with the Father above and build yourself up on your most holy faith. It doesn’t take a lot of time, just an hour or two out of 24. Just pay a tithe of your time unto Me, saith the Lord, and all will be well. Your life will be changed. It will be empowered and you will be a mighty force for God.
I never was a great person of prayer. I’m really still not like some people I know. But some years ago I decided I’d pray at least an hour a day.
Can I tell you what you probably already know? When my alarm went off, I’d get up...sometimes. Other times, I’d think—and I know it was the devil—Look how dark it is outside. It’s so cold this morning. You don’t want to get up.
Sometimes in those first few weeks, I’d agree with the devil: “That’s right, I don’t,” and I’d go back to sleep. But I kept at it, and kept at it and kept at it. Eventually it became a habit with me. Now I don’t turn over and go back to sleep anymore.
You see, your body must be trained by your spirit. It will get up. My body never says to me anymore, “It’s so cold outside. It’s so dark....” My body is so used to getting up in the dark, it doesn’t even think about it.
The tithe of my time to the Lord changed my life because I purposed in my heart to not be lazy, draw back, hold back or sit down. I purposed not to spend my life wasting time on natural things. I set goals that I was going to do every day.
It wasn’t easy. When I started I could hardly pray for even five minutes—that was a long time for me. But I stayed with it. Seizing the kingdom isn’t easy. God doesn’t say it will be easy, but He does say it will be worth it.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Gloria Copeland — Finish Your Race
Just as Paul ran his race—his life’s course—there’s also a race marked out for you. God has charted that course and only you can run it. Only by pressing in to win your race will you see the fullness of God’s provision in your life.
And let me add: God didn’t choose you for that race based on your ability, intellect, or anything you could do in the natural. He planned to empower you with His ability to do the job that He prepared for you. It’s in the weakness of your natural ability that He can show Himself strong. Don’t be deceived into thinking someone else can run your race. No one can run another person’s race.
If we knew the races marked out for everyone ahead of time, we’d probably choose other people to run them. We would think, Not that person—they’ll never make it!
Let me tell you how God picks people for their tasks: He looks at the heart. He doesn’t always choose from the greatest universities. It’s difficult for Him to use those who think they can handle situations in their own wisdom and strength. “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him” (2 Chronicles 16:9). In this verse, perfect means “devoted, consecrated, dedicated, loyal, faithful.”
I want to tell you something that will take a lot of pressure off you and will release faith action: The race you have been chosen to run is impossible to finish on your own. Everything we’re chosen to do is impossible because God wants it done by faith.
It took a lot of pressure off me when I realized God never intended for us to know how to do what He tells us to do. He never intended for me or Ken to know how to go on television. He intended to do it through us. He knows how! We just have to do what we’re told.
Our part is to maintain our fellowship with Him. His part is to do the work through us. When you’re in God, you’re in over your head all the time. Get used to it and keep on pressing in.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Gloria Copeland — Faith Sustained By Patience
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” You must believe you are healed before you see the results in your body. You can’t wait until your body looks and feels healed before you believe it. If you do, you’ll never receive by faith. You can’t get faith’s results without exerting the force of faith. Faith is believing you receive whatever you ask before it can be seen or felt. Your evidence is the Word of God, not the sought-after result. The Word is your evidence that you have it now.
You have exercised your faith in God’s Word. Now let patience have its perfect work. The force of faith is at work, undergirded by the power of patience. Your faith connected with the Father the very moment you took His Word as the evidence of your healing. Now, confess with your mouth that it’s yours, and by your actions show that it’s yours. You must talk healing and act healing. Patience began to work from the time you believed you received, and it must be allowed to work until the last symptom leaves your body. The voice of patience says, “I know God’s Word is true. I will not be moved by what I see or feel. I will only be moved by the Word of God. I patiently rest on the truth of God’s mighty Word!”
The experience of the answer is inevitable.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Gloria Copeland — Faith in Two Places
What happens when your heart gets so full it starts to overflow? Look at Matthew 12:34 and you’ll see. It says, “...out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”
So the last step of God’s divine prescription is to speak, not words of sickness and disease, discouragement and despair, but words of healing and life, faith and hope.
You are to “Put away from thee a froward mouth, and perverse lips put far from thee” (Proverbs 4:24). In short, you are to speak the words of God.
Initially, that may not be easy for you to do. If you’re like most people, you’ve probably spent years talking about how bad things are. At the first sniffle or sneeze, you may be likely to say, “I must be catching a cold. I get one every year!” You may not even mean it. But you’ve spoken like that for so long, it’s become habit.
What’s more, people are comfortable with that kind of talk. They’ll jump right in and say, “Yeah, the same thing happens to me.” But when you start speaking the Word, you’ll sneeze and say, “I resist you, cold! I call myself healed, in Jesus’ Name! I believe I’m taking healing!”
That will sound so different to other people. That’s OK. Talk the Word anyway because for faith to work it must be in two places—in your heart and in your mouth. “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10).
Some people say that faith will move mountains. But, the scriptural truth is, faith won’t even move a molehill for you unless you release it with the words of your mouth.
The Lord Jesus told us that “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,” (Mark 11:23). Notice the word say appears three times in that verse while the word believe appears only once. Obviously, Jesus wanted us to know that our words are crucial.
It’s also important to note that He did not instruct us to talk about the mountain, but to talk to it! If we’re going to obey Him, we must talk to the mountain of sickness and cast it out of our lives. The Lord told Charles Capps, I have told My people, they can have what they say, but they are saying what they have! Instead of saying, “I’m healed,” most Christians say, “I’m sick” and reinforce the sickness or disease.
I know one minister who went to visit a young man in the hospital years ago. The fellow was unconscious and had been given up to die by the doctors. As the minister was leaving the hospital room, the Lord spoke to him to let the young man’s wife know that her husband would be healed if she would obey Mark 11:23.
So, she did! Day after day, she sat next to her unconscious husband and said, “My husband will live and not die in Jesus’ Name...My husband will live and not die in Jesus’ Name.” As a result, that young man was fully healed.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Products by Gloria Copeland
Recent Posts
- Practice Makes Perfect
- Gloria Copeland — Obeying the Spirit Part 3
- Gloria Copeland — Obeying the Spirit Part 2
- Gloria Copeland — Obeying the Spirit Part 1
- Kenneth Copeland — Our Commandment Is Love
- Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 6
- Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 5
- Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 4
- Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 3
- Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 2
- Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 1
- Gloria Copeland — The Comfort of the Holy Ghost
- Gloria Copeland — Go Ahead, Assert Yourself! Part 2
- Gloria Copeland — Go Ahead, Assert Yourself! Part 1
- Gloria Copeland — Finish Your Race
Archives
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009