Gloria Copeland — Who Is Your Enemy? Part 3
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
Kenneth Copeland — Secure in Jesus
Luke 10:19
Behold, I give unto you power to tread on
serpents and scorpions, and over all the
power of the enemy: and nothing
shall by any means hurt you.
Jesus gave Himself as the last sacrifice of
the old covenant. He became the sacrificial
lamb, offered upon the altar of the Cross for
one reason: to defeat Satan.
The blood Jesus shed is protection for
those who will receive it by faith. In Egypt,
the Israelites who applied the blood of the
sacrificial lamb to their doorposts were
delivered from the death angel. How much
greater is the protecting power of “the precious
blood of Christ...a lamb without blemish and
without spot” (1 Peter 1:19).
By His blood we are separated from every
curse of the law of sin and death and given
access to every promise of the Spirit of life
(Romans 8:2). By His Spirit we have the same
anointing power in which He “went about doing
good, and healing all that were oppressed of
the devil” (Acts 10:38).
Principalities and powers were spoiled in
Jesus’ victory over death. He destroyed the
authority of the devil and every demon of hell,
bringing them down to nothing and stripping
from them the armor they had trusted in!
Moments later, He stepped out of that tomb.
He walked out of there and said, “All power
is given unto me in heaven and in earth”
(Matthew 28:18).
That’s not where it ended either. He said,
“Therefore you go into all the world. You take
My Name. You lay hands on the sick and they’ll
recover. You cast out the devil. I whipped him;
you go enforce it.” (See Mark 16:15-18.)
How do we do it? Jesus said, “If ye abide in
me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask
what ye will, and it shall be done unto you”
(John 15:7). We abide in Him by filling ourselves
with the Word so that we bring its promises
and authority into every situation that comes
before us.
The Word you meditate and act on
concerning your protection is the Word that’s
alive in you, and it will perform all God sent
it to do on your behalf. Just as we receive
wholeness for our bodies through faith, we
will walk in all the protection that is ours in
Jesus’ victory over our enemy, Satan, if we will
believe God for it.