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

Actually, the Life of God in your heart will not only heal you when you get sick, if that Life abides in you fully, it will continually keep you in divine health. The Proverbs 4 prescription for healing says it this way: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life” (verse 23).

What are the issues or forces of life that flow out of your heart when you’re feeding on the Word and fellowshiping with God? They are things like “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23). The Bible calls theses forces the fruit of the spirit. They are the life of God flowing from your heart in abundance. You’ll find it is as hard for you to get sick as it used to be for you to get healed. The devil might try to bring sickness on you, but he won’t be able to make it stick.

Years ago, the Lord showed me an illustration of that principle I’ll never forget. I was in the Philippines, preparing to preach in a meeting at the time and I’d been studying the fruit of the spirit. As I looked out the window of my hotel room, the Lord brought to my attention a fountain in the courtyard below. He pointed out to me that as long as water was flowing from that fountain, no trash could remain in the mouth of it. Someone might toss some trash in, but the force of the water would just push it right back out again.

I realized then that our hearts are like that fountain. As long as the forces of God’s Spirit are flowing out of it, we’ll be free from the devil’s junk!

How can we make sure those forces keep flowing from our hearts? We must watch over them with all diligence. When we’re tempted to get into bitterness or unforgiveness, we must refuse that temptation and instead yield to the fruit of the spirit: Then we must turn the water of Life up higher by (you guessed it!) turning our attention back to the Word.

Remember this: The forces of life and power coming out of your heart will be in direct proportion to the amount of Word that goes into you.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

The Word tells us to “count it all joy when
we fall into divers temptations” (James 1:2) or,
as the Greek text says, “into different trials
and tribulations.” What does the Word say
about joy? There is a difference between joy and
happiness. Happiness is controlled by the
condition or the comfort of the five physical
senses. Joy is not. The Bible says that joy is a
fruit of the spirit. It is a spiritual force—it is
born inside the human heart. We read in
Nehemiah 8:10 that the joy of the Lord is
our strength, so we can count it strength
when these trials and tribulations come our
way. Don’t count it defeat—count it strength!
Don’t count it negative—count it affirmative!
Jesus said, “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your
joy may be full” (John 16:24). Count it
answered prayer.

To count it all joy does not mean that you
are to thank God because your child is sick.
Let’s look at a portion of the Scripture here
that is often misunderstood.

Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing.
In every thing give thanks: for this
is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning
you. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Some of us have read this verse and
thought, “The will of God is for me to give
thanks for everything.” That is not true. That
thing or circumstance
is not the will of God for you—giving
thanks is the will of God. When
you praise God and give Him thanks in the
midst of your situation, you step under the
protective umbrella of the will of God. You
may not know what the Word says about
your particular situation, but the Word does
say to give thanks. Then, while you are under
that protective umbrella, Satan can’t touch you.

You may ask, “How do you count it all joy, Sister
Copeland?” I had a good opportunity to do this one
night when my little daughter had a high
fever. I went into her room, laid hands on
her and prayed, “Father, in the Name of
Jesus, I count it all joy to prove once again
that the Word is real and filled with power.
I’m a faith man, and I’m not moved by what
I see. I’m turning her over to You, and I
believe that You will take care of her in Jesus’
Name. Now, I just praise You and thank You
for her healing.” I didn’t praise God for her
fever because it wasn’t hers and God didn’t
give it to her. Jesus bore her sickness and
disease. If it belonged to anyone, it belonged
to Satan, who was trying to put it on her.

I have accepted Calvary as the sacrifice
that paid the price for my total redemption—
from sin, sickness, poverty, and death. I
believe that and I stand on it. I have certain
rights, called righteousness, in the kingdom
of God and one of these is the right to a
healthy body. Jesus has provided it for me,
and I take hold of it with my faith.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

There is one particular area in which the
Body of Christ has been trouble-minded for a
long time. We have taken one verse of
Scripture, lifted it out of context, and misused
it terribly. In Romans 8:28 the Apostle Paul
wrote this, “And we know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose.” You
have probably heard this quoted over and
over again in the light of trouble.

All the way through Romans 8, Paul is
talking about the difference between the law
of death and the law of life—that these are
two different laws. He tells us that we are not
governed by the law of death, we have been
delivered from it. “The law of the Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law
of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). He shows us
the difference between being carnally minded
(or flesh-minded) and being spiritually
minded (or Word-minded). He says, “For to
be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace” (Romans 8:6). There
is the division between the two. You can’t be
trouble-minded and spiritually minded at the
same time. Trouble isn’t born by the Spirit of
God—it is born by Satan.

Now, look at Romans 8:26, “Likewise the
Spirit also helpeth our infirmities:
for we know not what we should
pray for as we ought: but the Spirit
itself maketh intercession for us.”
The Spirit of God is not interceding
for us—He is helping us to intercede.
That’s His ministry. The Holy Spirit leads us and
takes up where we fall short of spiritual knowledge.
The word translated helpeth actually is
three Greek words combined. It literally says
“takes hold together with us against.” This verse
literally reads, “The Spirit takes hold together
with us against our infirmities.”

For we know not what we should
pray for as we ought: but the Spirit
itself maketh intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered.
And he that searcheth the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,
because he maketh intercession for the
saints according to the will of God. And
we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them
who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he
also did predestinate to be conformed
to the image of his Son, that he might
be the firstborn among many brethren.
(Romans 8:26-29)

The Apostle Paul is talking here about
intercessory prayer—how it works, how it
operates. By being trouble-minded, we have
subconsciously read verse 28 like this: “For
we know that all bad things work together
for the good of those that love God.” But it
doesn’t say that at all! It wasn’t talking about
bad things—it was talking about good
things—about intercessory prayer.

He says in verse 29, “he also did predestinate
to be conformed to the image of his Son.”
What tools does the Holy Spirit use to conform
us to the image of His Son? The nine
gifts of the Spirit, the Name of Jesus, the
blood of the Lamb, the Word of God, and
everything that the New Testament guarantees
the believer in this life and in the world
to come. When the believer begins to move
into intercession, when he begins to intercede
for the Body of Christ as he should,
then these tools come together and operate
against our infirmities, so we pray accurately
and powerfully by the anointing of the Holy
Spirit. In this way, all these things work
together for the good of those that love God.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Now there are times when a situation looks
as if God is behind it. It may have all the
symptoms pointing to that. But Satan is a
deceiver; he wants you to think God did it.
If he can get you to go against God, he’ll
run rampant over you. The religious idea
that God chastises His own with sickness
and disease and poverty is the very thing
that has caused the Church to go 1,500 years
without the knowledge of the Holy Spirit or
the gifts of the Spirit.

We just became so passive, and double-minded
that the whole Church was schizophrenic,
except for a few men here and there who
refused to believe it—and most of them were
kicked out of their churches.

Now let’s look at this a little closer. “For
whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.”
The word scourge means “to beat on.” God
is the Father of spirits. He doesn’t scourge the flesh, He
scourges the inner man. How does He do this? With His Word.

Every Scripture is God-breathed
(given by His inspiration) and profitable
for instruction, for reproof and conviction
of sin, for correction of error and discipline
in obedience, and for training in
righteousness, So that the man of God
may be complete and proficient, well-fitted
and thoroughly equipped for every
good work. (2 Timothy 3:16-17, AMP)

The Lord chastises His own with the
Scriptures. Put yourself in subjection to the
Word. The Sword of the Spirit is two-edged—
one side is for Satan and the other side is for
you. It trims away the flesh and the lusts, and it
sanctifies us.

I’ll show you some examples of this. The
Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 7:8-9:

For though I made you sorry with a
letter, I do not repent, though I did
repent: for I perceive that the same epistle
hath made you sorry, though it were
but for a season. Now I rejoice, not that
ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed
to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a
godly manner.

This is the way in which God convicts, brings
repentance, chastens, and scourges us—with
His Word! He sent His Word to the church at
Corinth, and it hurt so badly that they would
have preferred being beaten with a stick!
They knew how to handle sickness and
disease, but when God reprimanded them with
His Word, it cut deep into their spirits and they
were sorry. Proverbs 17:10, The Amplified Bible,
says, “A reproof enters deeper into a man of understanding
than a hundred lashes into a [selfconfident]
fool.”

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

We have seen that the word chastisement
means “punishment by inflicting pain” and
that Jesus bore our chastisement, or our punishment,
with pain on the cross.

The Greek word translated chastise in the
New Testament actually means “to instruct or
to train.” The question often arises, “How does
God chastise His own?”

How does God instruct and train us? Does
He unleash His bad dog to bite us on the leg,
so we will learn to wear our boots? No, He
does not!

For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,
and scourgeth every son whom
he receiveth. If ye endure chastening,
God dealeth with you as with sons; for
what son is he whom the father chasteneth
not? But if ye be without chastisement,
whereof all are partakers, then are
ye bastards, and not sons.

Furthermore we have had fathers of
our flesh which corrected us, and we
gave them reverence: shall we not much
rather be in subjection unto the Father
of spirits, and live? (Hebrews 12:6-9)

Jesus said, “That which is born of the flesh is
flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit”
(John 3:6). Our fleshly fathers correct us in the
flesh, but God is a spirit and He uses spiritual
tools, not carnal tools. He uses spiritual
weapons, not carnal weapons. Jesus said, “My
words are spirit.” He chastises with His words.

“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.”
A loving God doesn’t send tornadoes or cancer
to His children. God never told me not to pray
for someone’s healing because He had put sickness
on them. Jesus said, “If you’ve seen Me,
you’ve seen the Father” (John 14:9). He never
told a leper that he would have to keep leprosy
so God could teach him something. The Word
says in Acts 10:38, “God anointed Jesus of
Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power:
who went about doing good, and healing all that
were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
God did these things through Jesus. God is not
double-minded—He is single-minded.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

James 1:4 tells us that, if we will let
patience have her perfect work, we will be perfect
and entire, wanting nothing. A patient
man is a stable man. He is a constant man. He
is a single-minded man. He doesn’t have to ask
himself, Who is my enemy? Is God my problem or
is Satan? Is there a shady area between the two?

This poses another question many
Christians are asking today. Does God use Satan
to discipline His family? What is the chastisement
of the Lord? Does it mean the same in the
New Testament as it does in the Old?

To answer these questions, you must know
how to rightly divide the Word of Truth.
Where do you rightly divide the Word? At the
cross and resurrection of Jesus. One side is a
promise—the other side is a fact.

Isaiah 53 is a prophecy of Jesus, the
Messiah. Isaiah is prophesying here and is
speaking of the things that are to be laid on
Jesus. Notice verse 5:

But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for
our iniquities: the chastisement of
our peace was upon him; and with
his stripes we are healed.

The English dictionary defines chastisement
as “punishment by inflicting pain.” Jesus bore
our sins so that we don’t have to bear them. He
bore our sicknesses so that we don’t have to
bear them. He bore our punishing chastisement
so that we don’t have to bear it. Praise God!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Let’s find out what God’s Word has to say in
the book of James about our troubles and shed
the light on religious tradition.

My brethren, count it all joy when
ye fall into divers temptations;
Knowing this, that the trying of your
faith worketh patience. But let patience
have her perfect work, that ye may be
perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If
any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of
God, that giveth to all men liberally, and
upbraideth not; and it shall be given
him. But let him ask in faith, nothing
wavering. For he that wavereth is like a
wave of the sea driven with the wind
and tossed. For let not that man think
that he shall receive any thing of the
Lord. A double minded man is unstable
in all his ways. (James 1:2-8)

Notice that James 1:3 says that the trying of
your faith works patience. It does not say that
the trying of your faith is to teach you, or that
it perfects your faith, or that it makes your
faith strong. Faith is strengthened by the Word
of God. “So then faith cometh by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). So,
the trying of your faith exercises patience.

Now, what does patience mean? The definition
of patience is not “to put up with” like
many of us think. The dictionary says that to
be patient is “to be constant, or the same way,
all the time regardless of the circumstances.”

This is the way we, as believers, must be—
patient, stable, consistent, the same way all the
time. Regardless of our circumstances, regardless
of what life throws at us, we should always
respond in exactly the same way: “Thus saith the
Word of God!” When we respond this way, we
take on the same attribute as Jesus—the same
yesterday, today and forever. This is the reason
Jesus is always the same—He never varies to the
right or to the left from the Word of God.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

“But, Gloria,” you say, “all that sounds
so simple!”

It is simple! Sometimes I think that’s
why God chose me to teach it. Because
I’m simple. When I read the Word of
God, I just believe it is speaking to me
personally. I don’t worry and fuss and
say, “Well, I wish that would work for
me, but I don’t think it will because of
this or that….” I just expect God to do
what He says.

You can do the same thing. You can
come to the Word like a little child
and say, “Lord, I receive this. I believe
Your Word above all and I trust You
with my life.” If you will, you’ll never
be disappointed.

How can you get that simple, childlike
faith? By hearing the Word of God.

Romans 10:17 says, “Faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word
of God.” But you need to know something
else: Doubt comes by hearing
also. That’s why Jesus said, “Be careful
what you are hearing…” (Mark 4:24,
The Amplified Bible).

What you’re hearing can be a matter
of life and death when you’re dealing
with healing. If you’re going to a church,
for example, that teaches healing has
passed away or that God uses sickness
to teach you something—and you keep
hearing that Sunday after Sunday—what
do you think will grow in your heart?
Doubt, not faith.

What you plant in your heart grows—
always. Doubt will grow and keep you
bound. Truth will grow and make you
free. So be careful what you’re hearing.
Listen to the Word of God. As Proverbs
4:21 says, “Let them [God’s words] not
depart from thine eyes; keep them in
the midst of thine heart.”

Read the Word every day. Make
notecards for yourself using the
healing scriptures and tape them to
your mirror.

Play audio teaching resources. Listen
to them in your car. Listen to them
while you dress in the morning. If you’ll
listen to the Word while you’re driving
back and forth to work every day, you’ll
be surprised how fruitful that time will
become. It will change your life. I challenge
you to try it!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Isaiah 55:11 says the Word of God
prospers (or succeeds) in the thing for
which it is sent. That means His Word
about healing will produce healing. It
may not produce it right away, but the
more you let the Word work in you, the
greater your results will be.

In other words, the size of your
harvest will depend on how much
seed you plant. How much time and
attention you give to the Word of God
will determine how much crop you
will yield.

You see, your heart is actually your
spirit. Its capacity is unlimited. You can
plant as much seed in your heart as
you have hours in a day.

If you’ll build your life around the
Word, you can have a full return.
Jesus called it a hundredfold return
(Mark 4:20).

Now some people will argue about
that. They’ll say, “Well, it didn’t work for
me! I put God’s Word about healing into
my heart and I’m still sick!”

But these people give themselves away
the minute they say such things. Jesus
taught, “…of the abundance of the heart
his mouth speaketh” (Luke 6:45). If those
people had actually planted God’s Word
in their hearts in abundance, they’d
be talking about healing, not sickness!
They would be saying, “By His stripes I
am healed!”

The same is true for you. The more
you put God’s Word in your heart, the
stronger you’ll become. Eventually
that Word inside you will begin to
come out of your mouth in power
and deliverance.

Don’t wait until you have a need to
start speaking the Word. Start speaking
it now.

I’ll never forget the first time I realized
the importance of speaking
God’s Word. It was years ago when
Ken had just started preaching
and I was staying at home with our
children. We were in a desperate
situation financially and I was eager
for answers.

One day as I was sitting at my typewriter,
typing notes and listening to tapes,
I read Mark 11:23. “For verily I say unto
you, 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.”

Suddenly, the truth of that last
phrase just jumped out at me. And the
Lord spoke to my heart and said, In
consistency lies the power.

He was telling me it’s not just the
words you speak when you pray that
change things, it’s the words you
speak all the time!

If you want to see your desire come
to pass, you need to make your words
match your prayers. Don’t try to pray
in faith and then get up and talk in
unbelief. Talk faith all the time!

Romans 4:17 says God “…calleth those
things which be not as though they
were.” So if you want to receive something
from God, follow His example.
Speak it. That’s the way faith works. You
speak the Word of God concerning what
you want to happen.

If what you’re looking for is health,
then go to the Word that tells you,
“By His stripes you were healed,” and
put that in your mouth. Don’t talk
sickness. Talk health. Don’t talk the
problem. Talk the answer.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries