by Kenneth Copeland
Start today practicing the life of love. One way to do that is by practicing God’s presence in your daily life. Develop an awareness that Love is constantly with you by talking to Him all the time.
And when you talk to Him, just get real. First thing in the morning when you open your eyes say, “Good morning, Lord. I love You and praise You today. I’m so glad You never leave me nor forsake me. I receive Your love for me and I want You to know my desire is to be a blessing to You. Help me, teach me and train me—whatever You desire for me to do, I’ll be willing and obedient. I’ll do it with a happy heart.”
When you start to practice God’s presence like that, it will change how you act throughout the day. You’ll start being more loving and kind—even when other people aren’t around to notice—because you’ll know the Lord is there and you have no desire to grieve Him.
Think of how Jesus spent time with His Father during His earthly ministry. He would get up a great while before daylight so He could pray. He would spend a whole night in prayer, communicating with His heavenly Father. After Jesus was baptized by John and the Holy Ghost came upon Him and anointed Him, He spent 40 days in the wilderness fasting and praying. Then the Scripture says He left that place in the power of the Holy Spirit.
As a result of His time with the Father, He knew what He was to do and He did it! He perfectly pleased God. Afterward when Satan came to tempt Him, Jesus knew exactly what to do to have victory.
We need to let Him teach us. We need to read His words as if we have never heard them before. Picture in your mind Jesus talking to you now, saying to you the same words He spoke to the disciples.
In Christian circles we have been raised in such a sloppy way with an attitude of “just get born again and live anyway you want to,” that it has cost us the blessings God wants to manifest in our midst.
Getting born again is not something you just do so you will miss hell. He tells us to go win the lost, so we do it, but this is not the entire purpose of the Church. Our purpose is to please God—to be His special possession in the earth and do whatever He tells us to do. We should cleave unto Him, live in fellowship with Him, and be vitally united with Him. We should spend enough time with Him that we hear and recognize His voice so we can be pleasing to Him. When we do that, winning the lost will be the result.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
In order for God to be God in the Church like He so desires to be, we’ve got to obey the Word of God and follow after the voice of His Spirit. According to John 10:15-16, that is the key to a unified Body. If we can get into agreement with God, then we can get into agreement with each other: “As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.”
No matter where we come from or where we are in the earth, we can be united with each other. You can be on one side of the world, praying, walking in the written Word, listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit. I can be on the other side, praying, walking in the written Word, listening to the Spirit. Regardless of our location, we can be in agreement. We can be one spirit with the Lord and with each other.
If we do this, then we’ll be walking under the direction of one person—Jesus. He is the Head. Our responsibility is to choose to walk in obedience so He can tell me what to do here, and can give you the same instruction there. We can flow together in the Spirit, even though we may not know one another—if we are walking in obedience to His Word and the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is in us to bring us into this unity of the faith and into the image of the Son of God. We have been predestinated to be conformed to His image (Romans 8:29). There shall be one fold and one Shepherd! Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27).
Oh, we have such adventure ahead of us! We have been living in the low life of this natural realm, when we could be walking in the Spirit. As God gives us revelation, we are able to walk in the spiritual realm with Him. He is revealing things to our generation to bring us to that place. He has made a way to help us be successful.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
A baby does not grow to adulthood overnight, so a new believer should not expect to operate as a mature Christian after only a few days. It takes time spent in God’s Word to grow and mature spiritually.
The first step to spiritual maturity is to realize your position in God. You are His child and a joint heir with Jesus. Romans 8:16-17 says: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” You are entitled to all the rights and privileges in the kingdom of God, and one of these rights is health and healing.
You will never fully realize or understand healing until you know beyond any doubt that God’s will is for you to be healed. As we have seen, God wants you healed! He wants you whole! He wants you to grow in the Word and walk in His perfect will just as Jesus did. Whether or not you accept this and purpose to walk in the reality of the truth, is your decision.
I urge you to accept it now and begin to see His will carried out in your life. Begin seeing yourself healed and whole. Put God’s Word concerning healing in your heart, meditate and think about it, then
speak it out boldly over yourself. His Word will not return to Him void, but it will accomplish what it was sent to do (Isaiah 55:11).
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
In 1 Corinthians 3:1-3, Paul refers to the two levels of spiritual maturity within the Body of Christ, the Church: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?”
Paul could not teach the Corinthian believers about deeper spiritual things because they were not mature enough to understand. They were “babes in Christ,” and he had to feed them with “milk”—basic principles of faith—as you would feed a tiny baby. Hebrews 5:13 says, “For every one that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.” First Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”
When you accepted Jesus as Savior and made Him the Lord of your life, you were “born of God” (1 John 5:1). According to 1 Peter 1:23, you were “born again,” not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God. At that moment, you joined the family of God and entered into spiritual affairs as a newborn baby. If, since that time, you have never fed on the milk of the Word, you are still a spiritual baby. You will not yet be able to operate proficiently in faith without a knowledge of the Word.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
