Gloria Copeland — His Divine Favor Part 5
Let’s not be like the Galatian Christians. Christ became of no effect to them. They fell from grace—they deprived themselves of the ministry of the Holy Spirit from Whom they received daily grace for daily living. You and I need not spend one day in darkness and defeat if we will be obedient to God and listen to His Spirit.
We read in Romans 8:13-14: “...if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”
The word sons in the Greek means “mature sons” of God. “For they [our earthly fathers] verily for a few days chastened [or disciplined] us after their own pleasure; but he [God] for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10).
The Holy Spirit is here for our profit. He is here to instruct us. The word chastened does not mean He makes us sick or knocks us in the head. It means He teaches, instructs, admonishes, corrects and disciplines us. “Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go. O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isaiah 48:17-18).
God teaches us to profit. He is in us to teach us to profit in all things, first of all spiritual things. When we profit in spiritual things, profit in the natural realm is the byproduct.
He will teach us how to be holy as He is holy. We are to be separated from the world so we live like the Father instead of like the world.
Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Wherefore lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled (Hebrews 12:11-15).
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 7
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
Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 6
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
Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 5
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.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Kenneth Copeland — Exposing the Deadly Nature of Grief Pt 4
Webster defines grief as “a heavy emotional weight resulting from loss.” That’s how it feels, isn’t it? Like a heavy weight on your heart that’s aching for release. When you give in to it, there’s a rush, a wave of emotion that rolls over you and the tears overflow. It feels good. Your friends nod, pat your back and say, “Go ahead...just let it all out.” So you do, and the pressure lets up for a while.
Then later, when all the mourners and the back patters have gone home, that grief comes rising up in you again. This time it comes with an overwhelming pain of loneliness that is almost unbearable.
That’s the agony that woman in Oklahoma had been through for years. People had probably told her that time would help. But it didn’t, because once she allowed these spirits of grief and sorrow to get inside her, they just kept on doing their deadly work.
Contrary to popular belief, grief and sorrow don’t come to help you. They come to hurt you. They’re deceivers sent for one purpose: to choke the Word of God out of your heart.
In Mark 4:18-20, Jesus warned us about that. He told us that the devil would come to steal the Word from our hearts, and one way would be through the lusts of other things entering in. Most of us have assumed that phrase referred only to sex and pleasure. But the Holy Spirit has shown me plainly that the spirits of grief and sorrow fall in this category.
If you’ll look up the word lust in the dictionary, you’ll find that it literally means “applied pressure.” Sorrow comes when the devil applies pressure to our emotions. He pressures us to give in to the fleshly tendency to grieve—to lust after and long for that emotional flood and release that sorrow initially provides.
So what should we do about all this? If grief and sorrow are not inevitable—if, in fact, they’re part of the devil’s bag of misery and death—how do we get rid of them?
Isaiah 51:11 says, “The redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and [grief] shall flee away.” Did you hear that? It said sorrow and grief will run from us!
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