As you put God’s prescription for health to work in your life, don’t be discouraged if you don’t see immediate results. Although many times healing comes instantly, there are also times when it takes place more gradually.

So don’t let lingering symptoms cause you to doubt. After all, when you go to the doctor, you don’t always feel better right away. The medication he gives you often takes some time before it begins to work. But you don’t allow the delay to discourage you. You follow the doctor’s orders and expect to feel better soon. Release that same kind of confidence in God’s medicine. Realize that the moment you begin to take it, the healing process begins. Keep your expectancy high and make up your mind to continue standing on the Word until you can see and feel the total physical effects of God’s healing power. Really, you are “treating” your spirit which is the source of supernatural life and health for your physical body.

When the devil whispers words of doubt and unbelief to you, when he suggests that the Word is not working, deal with those thoughts immediately. Cast them down (see 2 Corinthians 10:5). Stop right where you are and say out loud, “No. I cast you down, you evil imagination. Devil, I rebuke you. I bind you from my mind. I will not believe your lies. God has sent His Word to heal me, and His Word never fails. That Word went to work in my body the instant I believed it, so as far as I am concerned, my days of sickness are over. I declare that Jesus bore my sickness, weakness and pain and I am forever free.”

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

“But, Gloria, it bothers me to say I’m healed when my body still feels sick!”

It shouldn’t. It didn’t bother Abraham. He went around calling himself the Father of Nations for years even though he was as childless as could be. Why did he do it? Because “he believed…God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). He was “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised, he was able also to perform” (verse 21).

You see, Abraham wasn’t “trying” to believe God. He wasn’t just mentally assenting to it. He had immersed himself in God’s Word until that Word was more real to him than the things he could see. It didn’t matter to him that he was 100 years old. It didn’t matter to him that Sarah was far past the age of childbearing and that she had been barren all her life. All that mattered to him was what God said because he knew His Word was true.

If you don’t have that kind of faith for healing right now, then stay in the Word until you get it! After all, “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). Read, study, meditate, listen to tapes and watch videos of good, faith-filled teaching, watch our Sunday and daily television broadcast every day until God’s Word about healing is more real to you than the symptoms in your body. Keep on keeping on until, like Abraham, you stagger not at the promise of God through unbelief, but grow strong in faith as you give praise and glory to God. (See Romans 4:20, The Amplified Bible.)

Notice that last phrase there doesn’t say you give praise to God because you’re strong in faith. It says you grow strong in faith as you give praise to Him. I like that particular translation because I’ve found it to be true. Praising God for your healing is one of the most powerful things you can do.

In fact, Psalm 103 commands us to do it. It says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases” (verses 1-3).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

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 great thing about your heart account is that, unlike your bank account, there’s no limit to the amount you can put into it. You might run out of money to deposit, but you’ll never run out of Word. You can put in as much as you want.

Of course, it takes time to make those deposits, but you’re the one who decides how much time you’re going to spend in the Word. It’s entirely up to you!

Some people are hesitant to spend great amounts of time putting the Word about healing in their hearts because they think their investment might not pay off. They think they might make sacrifices to attend to the Word and end up sick anyway. But Galatians 6:7-9 puts such concerns to rest:

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in welldoing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

This is the unchangeable law of God. Whatever you sow is what you will reap. If you sow cotton, you won’t reap peanuts. If you sow peanuts, you won’t reap doughnuts. If you steadfastly sow the Word of Life into the soil of your heart, you won’t end up with sickness and death. You’ll end up with a harvest of divine health. The New Testament in Modern English by J.B. Phillips says, “A man’s harvest in life will depend entirely on what he sows” (Galatians 6:7).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

“I’d have no problem at all believing God’s Word would heal me if He’d spoken to me out loud like He spoke out loud in Genesis,” you might say. “But He hasn’t!”

No, and He probably won’t either. God no longer has to thunder His Word down at us from heaven. These days He lives in the hearts of believers, so He speaks to us from the inside instead of the outside. What’s more, when it comes to covenant issues like healing, we don’t even have to wait on Him to speak.

He has already spoken!

He has already said, “By [Jesus’] stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). He has already said, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). He has already said, “the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up” (James 5:15).

God has already done His part. So we must do ours. We must take the Word He has spoken, put it inside us and let it change us from the inside out.

You see, everything (including healing) starts inside you. Your future is literally stored up in your heart. As Jesus said, “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things” (Matthew 12:35).

That means if you want external conditions to be better tomorrow, you’d better start changing your internal condition today. You’d better start depositing the Word of God in your heart just like you deposit money in the bank. Then you can make withdrawals on it whenever you need it. When sickness attacks your body, you can tap into the healing Word you’ve put inside you and run that sickness off!

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

I’ve heard people say, “Well, look what God
did to Job!” What did God do to Job? He built a
hedge around him and blessed him with abundance.
At the end of the book of James, the
Word says that God was full of pity and mercy
in His dealings with Job.

For years now, we’ve read about Job and
have blamed God for Job’s situation, thinking
that God commissioned Satan to attack Job.
That’s not true! In Job 1, Satan came to God
and said, “Put your hand against Job, and he
will curse you.” He tried to get God to do it,
but God would not. He said, “Behold [look and
see], he is in your power.” Job was already in
Satan’s power by letting that hedge fall from
around him. He quit acting in faith, began
operating in fear, and that protective hedge fell.
Then he was vulnerable to Satan’s attack. The
sacrifices he made were not made in faith. The
Word says he made the same ones continually
(Job 1:5). He lost everything he had. Job didn’t
have the written Word of God to act on like you
and I do today. He said, “That which I have so
greatly feared has come upon me” (Job 3:25).

Then he began by trial and error to figure a
way to get back his faith again. He tried crying
about it, he tried cutting and hurting himself,
he sat down in the ashes—none of this did him
any good at all. Satan sent him some very religious
men, and they certainly didn’t help him!
They were the ones that said God had done it.
God Himself told these men, however, that
they had not spoken of Him rightly.

But the very moment Job moved back in
faith by praying for those men, he moved
back on the Word of God and God replaced
double everything he had lost. When Job
began operating in faith once again, his
deliverance was instantaneous.

We need to preach this instead of identifying
with Job’s sickness and failure. People say,
“Well, I’m just like poor old Job.” We’ll, if
you’re going to be like Job, then you will have
to get healed and delivered. Job wasn’t poor
either—he was the richest man in the East
when this began and then God doubled that!
All God has ever done and all He has ever said
has been deliverance, freedom and power for
His people.

I refuse to believe that my heavenly Father
would hurt me, even though I may not know
all the circumstances. It may look as
though He is behind it, but I refuse to fall for
that. I know He sent His Son to die for me, so
I’m not going to hesitate for one moment and
give Satan the opportunity to move in on me.

Trouble-preaching—being trouble-centered
and trouble-minded instead of being victoryminded—
will give Satan just the moment’s hesitation
he needs to defeat you.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

When Peter preached the Word to the Jews
on the Day of Pentecost, it pricked them in
their hearts and they had to get saved. God
does this with spirit-power, His Word. It chastens
unbelief and purifies the human spirit in
such a way that man comes out strong, not
weak and condemned.

Daniel chastened himself before the Lord
and asked the Lord to correct him. How did
God correct him? He sent an angel to him
and gave him His Word. God has done better
than that for us. He hasn’t sent us an angel—
He has sent us the Holy Spirit to lead us into
all the Truth. We need to fully understand the
ministry of the Holy Spirit in the world today.
Let’s not take away from it. In other words,
let’s exercise our faith in this area. We need to
realize that the Holy Spirit was sent here to
teach the Church, to reveal the deep things of
God to the Body of Christ. We need to
develop our faith in the ability of the Holy
Spirit to show us these things so that we
might be filled with the knowledge of God in
all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

You know, it seems that some people have
an overwhelming desire to believe the worst
from God. They will fight to prove that God is
the one that inflicted them.

If you were to try talking this way about
my earthly daddy, I’d fight you! Don’t try to
tell me that my dad lied to me or that he stole
my property or made my babies sick. My
father is a good man. He has worked hard to
provide for me, and he would never lie to me.
He loves me—he wouldn’t hurt me—so don’t
try to tell me he’s destroying my life!

I’ve heard people say something like this,
“Well, God killed all my cattle and burned all
my crops, but He finally got me down where
He wanted me.” No, God’s not the one that did
that! Your earthly father would never hurt
you, so why do you want to believe that your
heavenly Father would? James 1:13 says, “Let no
man say when he is tempted [tested or tried], I am
tempted of God.”

How long are you going to listen when
someone says, “God put that on you”?

Kenneth Copeland Ministries