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

“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