“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

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

We’ve already learned from that scripture

that hope must be present for faith to

produce. But the reverse is also true. Hope

can’t produce anything without faith! Faith

is the substance.

I remember years ago when I first started

studying the subject of faith, I discovered that

many people were trying to get by on hope

alone, and it wasn’t working. They’d say,

“We’re just hoping and praying,” and I’d know

right then they wouldn’t get anything, because

without faith their hope had no substance.

Hope is only the blueprint. You can’t take

a blueprint all by itself and make a house

out of it. You won’t be able to live in the

thing because it’s paper. But if you’ll take

some substance—lumber and steel and

stone—you can follow the blueprint and

build a place fit to live in. Faith and hope.

Blueprint and building materials. You must

have them both.

Remember though, as I said before, the

only truly workable blueprint comes from

the Word of God. All other blueprints will

let you down.

That’s why you often hear people say,

“Don’t get your hopes up.” They’ve had

experience with natural hope (hope based on

circumstances and human knowledge instead

of on the Word of God), and they know that

kind of hope will leave you disappointed

more often than not.

In Colossians 1:23, Paul warns us not to

be moved away from the “hope of the gospel.”

That’s because any other hope besides “gospel

hope” can be spiritually dangerous.

Say, for example, you were dealing with

a physical disease and your doctor told you

that you only had a small chance of recovering.

He’d say that because, based on the

natural information he’d have, that might be

all he could medically expect—and he

wouldn’t want to offer you a false hope that

might leave you disappointed.

But the Bible says when we operate in

the hope of the gospel, we’ll not be ashamed.

So, instead of clinging to that flimsy thread

of limited hope which man has offered you,

you’d be much safer going to the Word of

God that says, “By [his] stripes ye were

healed!” Because those words aren’t based on

fragmented human information. They’re

based on the knowledge of God Himself.

Instead of holding on to natural hope, if

you built up supernatural hope by meditating

on that truth and looking at it night and day,

you’d soon have some inner images of strength

you could wrap your faith around. You’d even

be able to use that supernatural hope to

combat the natural evidence around you. Then,

instead of having a small hope for recovery,

you could have a sure hope for recovery!

Look at Romans 4:18 and you can see

what happened when, in the midst of a naturally

hopeless situation, Abraham chose to

build his life on that kind of supernatural

hope. He had received a promise from God

that he would become the father of many

nations. The problem was, he was already

old. So when he turned around and looked

at his 90-year-old wife and then looked in

the mirror and saw a 100-year-old man, he

had no natural hope.

Natural knowledge told him there was

no way he could ever have a child. Don’t

you know that negative knowledge

bombarded his thinking? So what did he do?

He took the promise of God, and the hope

of that promise, and combated the negative

hope coming against him which said, “No

way, you can’t do it. It’s hopeless.”

The Bible says, “He hoped against hope.”

In other words, he used supernatural hope

to overcome natural hope. He locked his

mind onto what God said and drove out

everything else.

Verse 19 says, “Being not weak in faith,

he considered not his own body now dead...

neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb.”

Now, how did he do that? How can you

consider not your own body when you’re 100

years old and thinking about having a baby?

It would be tough, but Abraham was able to

do it because “he staggered not...through unbelief;

but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

and being fully persuaded that, what [God] had

promised, he was able also to perform” (verses

20-21). God’s promise was at the center of his

hope, his faith and his persuasion.

Abraham was fully persuaded. You can

be fully persuaded, too. But you can’t get

that way by sitting around watching television

or by spending all your time messing

around with the world. You get fully

persuaded by purposely meditating on the

promise of God until it gets inside you so

deeply that no one can get it out.

Another thing that caused Abraham to be

fully persuaded was the fact that God changed

Abraham’s name. God stopped calling him

Abram and started calling him Abraham, which

means “father of a multitude.”

If you’ll pay attention to this principle,

you’ll find you can use it in your own life.

For example, I learned a long time ago to

stop calling myself “poor boy.” It didn’t

matter that on the outside I looked broke. I

decided—based on the Word of God—if

anyone hollered, “Poor boy!” I wouldn’t

answer, ever again.

Now, if they were to start hollering for

someone who has all his needs met according

to God’s riches in Christ Jesus, I’d come

running. But I decided I wouldn’t go by what

things looked like anymore. I wouldn’t go by

what I felt. I had based my life on something

bigger than feelings. I had gotten the hope of

the gospel inside me.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries