Kenneth Copeland — What’s in Your Heart? Part 1
“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
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 — Who Is Your Enemy? Part 2
In the world of the spirit, there is a challenger, a
counterfeit, an opponent of God who knows his
business. But there is also the armor of
God, the Word of God and the power to defeat
this opponent. The Bible says to resist Satan,
and he will flee from you (James 4:7). But when
a man hesitates—not opposing, but wondering—
then Satan can easily defeat him. We must
clearly distinguish between what is coming
from Satan and not blame God for something
that is not His doing. This is why it is so
extremely important to rightly divide the Word
concerning this issue.
Whenever God reveals His Word to a man,
Satan comes immediately to steal the Word
from his heart. Jesus said that he would. He
said the sower sows the Word, and Satan
comes immediately to take away the Word
which was sown. (See Mark 4.)
Satan has no defense against the Word
of God. He has no defense against the lordship
of Jesus or the Name of Jesus. He has no defense
against the bornagain believer who is walking in
faith and acting on the Word of God. He has no defense
against these because Jesus said that all power
has been given unto Him both in heaven and
in earth (Matthew 28:18). Satan has been
stripped of his power.
The devil knows he is defenseless, so in
order to stop the revelation of God’s Word in
the believer, his only tool is deception. He
must sow a deception—something that sounds
good and looks good but is really a wolf in
sheep’s clothing, He usually does this most
successfully in the area of religion. He uses
religion to blind and deceive the people. By
sowing the seed of deception through religious
tradition, Satan has robbed the Church of her
power. He has no defense against our real
spiritual weapons, but he can easily defend
himself against our carnal, religious traditions.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Gloria Copeland — What You Plant Always Grows
“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
Gloria Copeland — What Did You Say?
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.