10Oct/110

Practice Makes Perfect

When developing your faith in God’s love, you must not only allow it to flow to you but through you to others. As 1 John 4:12 says, “…If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us.”
Remember the old saying practice makes perfect? That’s absolutely the truth. The way to perfect God’s love in you is by practicing that love toward other people.
Don’t just practice it on the easy ones either. Don’t just focus on loving the people who are kind and gracious to you. (The Bible says even rank sinners can do that.) Determine to love those who irritate you and act ugly toward you. Purposely love those who have hurt you.
Start by making sure you have forgiven them of any wrong they have done to you. Even if you don’t emotionally feel like forgiving them, do it anyway by faith. Say, “Father, I am forgiving this person out of obedience to your Word. I refuse to hold anything against them. Right now by faith I receive from You the grace to love them.” Then pray for that person. Ask God to help them and bless them.
Don’t sit around waiting for some kind of supernatural warm, fuzzy feeling to make you do it, either. Just pray for them by an act of your will. Ask God to help you see that person the way He sees them.
Faith without action is dead, so take the time in prayer to “see” them the way God does. Start by picturing them in your mind and then visualize Jesus coming right up behind them and taking them in His arms. See them totally engulfed in Him. Then think Yes, Lord, that’s the way You treated me. You loved me and had mercy on me when I didn’t deserve it. Help me do for them what You did for me. Lord, I let Your forgiveness and compassion for them find expression through me.
You may think you can’t do that right now. But I guarantee you if you’ll step out in faith, you’ll tap into the love of God and find out you can. You’ll find that the more you believe the love God has for you and the more you practice it toward others, the more it is perfected in you.

15Aug/110

Kenneth Copeland — Our Commandment Is Love

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Strife will cause the grace of God to fail in our lives. Strife, unforgiveness, being critical—these things restrain the Holy Spirit from moving on our behalf. He will be hindered in blessing
and favoring us, because the Spirit of God ministers grace through our obedience.

“This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12). We are to love as Jesus loved. If we don’t walk in love, we won’t be able to walk in the manifested grace of God on a day-to-day basis. If we fail to keep this commandment, the work of God’s Spirit is greatly hindered in our lives.

If you have been praying for some specific needs, but have not been getting results, check your love life. Are you loving the people with whom you come into contact? If not, the power of God is restrained in your life because you are walking in disobedience. Until the love of God begins to operate in your life, the Holy Spirit will be unable to minister unhindered to you to accomplish in your life the good that God desires.

The Bible says when man subverts his ways, his heart frets against the Lord (Proverbs 19:3, The Amplified Bible). Many times we go about living the way we want and simply expect God to fill in the gaps when we get into trouble.

When trouble comes, we say, “God, why did You let this happen to me?”

God did not let it happen to you. You let it happen to you by being disobedient.

You might say, “Well, I didn’t know any better.” Then you need to become more knowledgeable. You cannot stay in ignorance and stay in blessing at the same time. Satan will cram defeat down your throat as long as you will stand there and take it.

The word grace means “free, undeserved favor.” The Greek word for grace is charis. When Christians believe in the gifts of the Spirit, they are called charismatics. What are the gifts of the Spirit? They are simply gifts of God’s grace shed abroad in our midst. We don’t deserve them. We can’t earn them. They come at God’s will. They are a manifestation of His grace. Many times a person who receives a gift will not even be standing in faith. (In this situation, someone’s faith is active, but not necessarily the one who receives.) God just comes down by His grace and distributes the gifts of the Spirit as He wills. Why? Because God is good. The gifts of the Spirit are gifts of grace. God lavishes them upon us because of His goodness and His mercy.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Tagged as: commandments, faith, gift, grace, Holy Spirit, love, prayer No Comments

12Nov/100

Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 7

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Those kinds of supernatural experiences don’t come to you when you’re squalling and bawling, yielding to the devil’s henchmen. They don’t come to you when you can be bought off with a two-bit rush of emotion called grief. They come to you when you’re willing to fight the devil and live by faith, yielding to the Holy Spirit. They come when you refuse to give in to sorrow—even when the devil puts the pressure on. Can you see how we’ve been robbing ourselves by playing the devil’s deadly game?

Several months after Stanley left, while Gloria and I were in a meeting, a woman who had a prophetic ministry came and spoke to Gloria. “I don’t know what this means,” she said, “but a fellow told me to give you this message.”

Then she explained that she’d been praying and interceding recently when, in a vision, God had caught her away to heaven. She found herself standing in a huge dining room, having a discussion with someone. Their discussion had nothing to do with Gloria and me. Yet while she was there, a young man who had been setting places at the big table nearby came over to her. He said, “Tell Gloria, Stanley wasn’t in the truck.”

Do you see? This stuff is real! Real, you understand? It’s a lot more real than this death game we’ve been playing!

My friend, we can’t afford this devilish game of grief and sorrow anymore. It is killing us—it is stealing the real and powerful experiences God wants to give us, and destroying us in a far deeper way than we ever imagined.

So don’t give in to it anymore. When the devil tries to burden you with grief and sorrow, resist him. You may have to walk the floor all night long. But instead of worrying and crying, walk the floor and quote the Word until that sorry spirit leaves and the real rush and overflow comes—the joy of the Lord, which is your strength.

Remember who you are! You’re the one who shall obtain gladness and joy. You’re the one sorrow and grief shall flee away from. You’ve got no business singing the blues. You’re the redeemed of the Lord.
Don’t you think it’s about time you started saying so?

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Tagged as: blues, emotions, faith, grief, joy, sorrow, Spirit, strength, vision No Comments

4Nov/100

Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 6

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Let me tell you about an incident that happened in our family. It will show you clearly what I mean. One of Gloria’s younger brothers went home to be with the Lord quite suddenly because of a car wreck.
Stanley’s departure took us all by surprise. No one was prepared for it.

When we got the news, the spirit of grief attacked like a flash, trying to get a foothold. I walked up and down my den floor fighting it in the Name of Jesus. Every time my emotions would try to rise up, I’d
say, “No, no, no! I will not partake of sorrow. I partake of joy and gladness.” Up and down I walked, praising God until it was whipped.

Once I got grief and sorrow out of the way, I began praying for Gloria’s mother, Mary. As I prayed, the force of compassion came up on the inside of me so powerfully that it just gushed up through me. When it did, I had a vision. I saw Stanley in heaven. I saw him just as plainly as I’ve ever seen anyone.

To fully appreciate the vision, you have to understand that Stanley was a brick and rock mason, a very powerful man, physically. He worked hard with his arms so he used to cut the sleeves out of his shirts. You just couldn’t get him to wear a shirt with sleeves in it.

When I saw him that day, he was running across a pasture. (Yes, a pasture! Heaven’s not made of clouds, you know. The earth is a copy of heaven, so the two look a lot alike.) Anyway, he was wearing
a robe, a good-looking robe, and life was all over him. The wild thing was, that robe didn’t have any sleeves in it!

Now isn’t that just like Jesus to give Stanley a robe without any sleeves in it? When I saw him, the Lord spoke to me and said, Tell Mary I snatched him out of that truck before the collision. He never knew anything about it.

Here’s what I want you to see. If I’d let grief and sorrow come in and take over the way they tried to, I wouldn’t have been able to receive that wave of compassion. I wouldn’t have been moved by God’s power, and I certainly wouldn’t have seen Stanley. I wouldn’t have seen anything but grief and sorrow.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Tagged as: compassion, death, earth, family, grief, heaven, joy, praise, shirt, sorrow, vision No Comments

28Oct/100

Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 5

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

As a believer, you’ve been redeemed from the curse of grief and sorrow by the blood of Jesus Christ. You don’t have to put up with them any more than you have to put up with sin, sickness or disease. So,
if you’ll follow the instructions in James 4:7 and resist them, they’ll have to flee from you!

Psalm 107:2 tells you how to do that. It says, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!...” That means when sorrow and grief start bearing down on you, say, “Oh no you don’t! I’m the redeemed of the Lord. I’ve been delivered from the likes of you. So you just get right on out of here!”

God started teaching me about this personally several months before my mother went home to be with Him in August 1988. Every time He’d show me something about it, I’d put it into practice. (You ought to do that with anything God is teaching you. Start practicing it immediately so you can walk in it when the time comes!)

So, eight-and-a-half months before my mother went home to be with the Lord, I began standing against grief and sorrow. I made a decision to “sorrow not.” Immediately the devil began to attack my emotions.

But I’d say, “No. I won’t receive that. I take authority over these feelings in Jesus’ Name. I’ve given my body as a sacrifice well-pleasing to the Lord, and I won’t partake of anything but His joy.” Then I’d start speaking the Word and praising out loud. “I sorrow not. I’m the redeemed of the Lord, and I’m not going to tolerate grief, you understand? I rejoice; I rejoice in my momma’s homegoing! I release her to You, Lord Jesus!”

When I did that, the spirit of grief would go away for a while. Then it would come back and try again. I went through three rugged days of that, and each time I resisted it. The last time that spirit came at me, he was whimpering. “Please?” he begged. I just said, “Nope. Get!” After that he was gone.

What I’m telling you is this: You’re going to have to stand against grief and sorrow. They don't belong to you. They are not from your heavenly Father. But the devil’s a scoundrel. He’ll put them over on you if you’ll let him get away with it.

We’ve let him saddle us with grief and sorrow for too long. It’s time we put a stop to it. Once we do, some glorious things will happen.