Once we decide we will take a devil-sent
opportunity for offense and turn it into a
harvest of blessing, the first thing we need
to know is what God wants us to do in that
situation. If we’re not supposed to strike
back, or get our feelings hurt and go off in
a huff, what are we supposed to do?

First Peter 4 answers that question:
“Beloved, think it not strange concerning the
fiery trial which is to try you, as though some
strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice,
inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings;
that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye
may be glad also with exceeding joy. If ye be
reproached for the name of Christ, happy are
ye; for the spirit of glory and of God resteth
upon you…” (verses 12-14).

God doesn’t want us to cry and complain
when someone does us wrong. He doesn’t want
us to sue them. He wants us to REJOICE!
I can just hear your old flesh groan:
“Man, you have to be kidding! I’m supposed
to rejoice when someone does me wrong?
What do I have to rejoice about?”
Plenty!

According to Jesus, persecution sets you
up for blessing. It opens you up for great
rewards! Jesus made that very clear in
Luke 6. He said, “Blessed are ye, when men
shall hate you, and when they shall separate
you from their company, and shall reproach
you, and cast out your name as evil, for the
Son of man’s sake. Rejoice ye in that day, and
leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great
in heaven” (verses 22-23).

To get the full meaning of what Jesus
was saying there, you have to realize what
the word blessed means. It’s not just a weak,
religious sentiment. To be God-blessed means
you’re empowered by Almighty God Himself
to prosper and succeed. It means you’re
empowered by the Holy Spirit to be exceedingly
happy with life and joy in spite of any
outside circumstances.

Think about that for a moment. When
people mistreat you, they’re actually giving you
the opportunity to receive greater measures of
power and success from the Spirit of God.
They are opening the door for you to step up
to a higher plane of heavenly reward!

Religion has taught us we couldn’t enjoy
such heavenly rewards until after we die.
But nothing could be further from the truth.
God intends for us to make use of our
heavenly rewards here on this earth where
we need them!

You see, as believers, we each have a
heavenly account that functions much like a
natural bank account. The Apostle Paul refers
to that account in his letter to his Philippians
partners. He commended his partners for
giving to him, not because he wanted gifts
from them, but because he desired fruit that
would abound to their account.

Paul’s partners had made deposits into
that heavenly account through their giving,
so he was able to boldly say, “My God shall
supply all your need according to his riches in
glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

Jesus also spoke of that heavenly account
when He said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures
upon earth, where moth and rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves break through and
steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in
heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through
nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will
your heart be also” (Matthew 6:19-21).

If you’ve studied the Word under this
ministry any length of time, I’m sure you
already know how to lay up treasure in your
heavenly account by giving financially into the
work of God. You know about the spiritual
law of seedtime and harvest. You know that
when you give to God of your material
resources, He multiplies it and gives it back
to you a hundredfold (Mark 10:30).

But let me ask you this: Did you know
you can do the same thing with persecution?
Did you know that you can plant it as a seed
by obeying God, by leaping and rejoicing in
it instead of taking offense?

Sure you can! And when you do, it will
bring forth a harvest of blessing!

What’s more, because persecution attacks
your soul and the very Anointing of God on
your life—which is far more precious than
anything money could buy—the value of the
harvest it brings is absolutely priceless. The
seed of persecution when planted according to
the Word will be worth far more to you than
any financial seed you could ever plant!

Now, I’ll be honest. It’s a tough seed to
sow. You have to sow it out of commitment.
It doesn’t feel good to do it. But the harvest
is worth the pain.

I know that not only from my own experience,
but from watching the experience of others.
For instance, one friend of mine
has refused to take offense at the bigotry
directed against him because of the color of
his skin. He has so succeeded in blessing and
loving the white people who have persecuted
him that now some black people are mad at
him. “He doesn’t even know he’s black
anymore!” they’ll say.

But my friend doesn’t take offense at
them either. He just prays for them and goes
right on gathering up his harvest. It’s quite
a harvest, too! That man has favor everywhere
he goes. He’s invited to places few
people get to go. He’s blessed financially
beyond most people’s wildest dreams.
The man is getting rich off racism!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Christianity is not just another religion.
It is the life of God abiding within and
flowing out of the believer. Other religions
leave you the same person you were before.
But the wonderful thing about the Christian
life is that it will completely transform you.

When you are born again, your spirit is
instantly transformed into the image of God.
Your spirit is the part of you that takes on
the nature of God. According to the Word,
once that happens you should immediately
start the process of changing your soul. The
Bible calls it “renewing the mind.”

Your soul is your mind, will and emotions.
Spiritual growth is determined by how much
your soul is changed by the Word of God. The
more you know the Word, the more you
conform to the image of Jesus. When you are
born again, nothing is wrong with your spirit—
the life of God is in there—but you are hindered
from living a spiritual life by a soul (mind) that
thinks like the world instead of like God.

After becoming a Christian, the Bible
instructs you to “put on the new man, which
after God is created in righteousness and true
holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). This means your
soul and body are to take on the same image
that is in your spirit. This happens through the
process of changing your mind, your will and
your emotions to understand and walk in the
ways of God. We are to conform to the image
of God’s Son (Romans 8:29). You and I ought
to act just like Jesus. The only thing that stands
in the way is our soul. Without a renewed mind,
we could not dare to walk and act like Jesus.

That’s why Romans 12:2 tells us, “be ye
transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
The word transformed is translated from the
Greek word from which we get the term
metamorphosis. This Greek word is used in
the Scripture in two other places.

One such account is when Jesus was
transfigured on the Mount. The other is in
2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all, with open
face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from
glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the
Lord.” Changed is the same word in the Greek
as transformed and transfigured. Our souls are
changed when we spend time beholding the
Lord in the Word and in prayer. It is a natural
process like metamorphosis.

Renewing our minds causes our outer
being to be transformed in much the same
way as a caterpillar is changed into a butterfly.
As we behold Him, our outer man
changes to match the inner man which is
created in righteousness and true holiness.

The world would have you think that
God is a liar. Yet God tells you that Satan
is the liar, and in between these two adversaries
is your soul. Here is where the spiritual
battle is fought. Therefore, your soul must
be anchored. Anchored to what? To the
Word. To eternal things. If it is moored to
this world, you will never walk in victory or
in the power of God. If your soul is not fixed
on eternal things, it will not hold steady in
the time of crisis.

When you become a Christian, you are
sustained from the inside. Your spirit is
steady in adversity. You are upheld and maintained
by your spirit man and not by your
intellect or reasoning. “For the word of God
is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any
twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints
and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).

God’s Word divides (distinguishes between)
the soul and the spirit. Nothing else
can cause you to recognize whether you are
being led by your soul and natural thinking
or whether you are following your spirit
which is led by the Holy Spirit.

Every problem, weakness or difficulty you
have could be solved immediately if you could
know the mind of God. But it takes effort,
dedication and faithfulness to renew your mind.
Mind renewal is not like the new birth. It is a
process and doesn’t come overnight. Though
your spirit is renewed and transformed, your
soul must be saved. Saved from what? From the
world’s influence and thinking.

James 1:21 is quite clear concerning this:
“Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity
of naughtiness, and receive with meekness
the engrafted word, which is able to save your
souls.” You can’t just read the Word. It must
be implanted in your soul (your mind) and
be received with meekness.

Meekness is often misunderstood. It is a
thing of power, not weakness. It is an attitude
in which we accept God’s dealing with us as
good. Therefore, we do not resist His correction
or guidance. Meekness is giving your will to
God and letting Him change it. So, your soul
is saved as you yield your will to God’s will.

The Scripture says that God energizes and
creates in us the power and the desire to will
and to work for His good pleasure (Philippians
2:13). He works from the inside out, not
from the outside in. He takes the image of
the Word in our spirits and grafts it into our
souls as we behold Him. Only then can we
outwardly express the image of Jesus that we
inwardly possess.

But this takes conscious effort. If you are
just going to give God a couple of hours a
week, your mind will not be renewed. The
Word won’t be implanted in you. You might
know it with your head, but it’s the engrafted
Word in your soul that changes you. It’s the
Word of God that controls your thinking and
transforms your life.

So, take the time to get away from the
world and study God’s Word. Meditate on
it, and let it change you from the inside out.
“Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to
you” (James 4:8). Make a conscious effort to
allow the Word of God to be engrafted into
you. Only then will you begin to understand
His Word and His will. Only then will you
be on your way to renewing your mind.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

You may not feel like you have any joy
to release right now. But I can assure you,
you do. If you’re a born-again child of God,
you have His own joy residing in your spirit.
You just need to prime the pump so it will
start to flow. You need to purposely stir up
the joy of the Lord.

How can you do that?

First, by meditating on the Word of God.
You can understand why the Word is so
important to your joy when you read some
of the last things Jesus told His disciples
before He went to the cross. He 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…. If ye
keep my commandments, ye shall abide
in my love; even as I have kept my
Father’s commandments, and abide in
his love. These things have I spoken
unto you, that my joy might remain in
you, and that your joy might be full…
ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy
may be full (John 15:7, 10-11, 16:24).

When you meditate on the Word of God
and revelation begins to rise in your heart, joy
comes! It comes because you begin to have a
deeper and clearer knowledge of the Father. It
comes because you realize you can go boldly
before Him in prayer based on the Word, and
be confident your prayers will be answered.

If you’ve been sorrowing over a wayward
child, for example, you can replace your sad
thoughts with a revelation of God’s promise in
Isaiah 54:13, and joy will come into your heart.

Suddenly, instead of crying over what the devil
is doing to that child, you start shouting about
what God will do. You laugh and say, “You
might as well forget it, Devil. Just pack it up
and go home right now, because as far as I’m
concerned, the victory is won. All my children
shall be taught of the Lord. And great shall be
the peace of my children!”

Then, when the devil comes back at you and
says, “Maybe so, but aren’t you sorry over all
the years that child has wasted?” you can shoot
the Word right back at him. You can say, “No,
I’m not sorry. I don’t have to be sorry because
Jesus bore my griefs and carried my sorrows
(Isaiah 53:4). So I believe I’ll just go ahead and
have myself a grand time rejoicing in Him!”

Proverbs 15:23 says, “A man hath joy by
the answer of his mouth….” When you start
answering the troubles and trials you’re
facing with the Word of God, it will release
joy in you and run the devil off. He can’t
stand the joy of the Lord!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

April 1992, hopelessness hit the headlines.
It grabbed the attention of the nation
as it drove angry, violent crowds into a
destructive rage on the streets of South
Central Los Angeles.

Businesses were burned. Stores looted.
Innocent bystanders were injured and even
killed as people who felt trapped by circumstances,
condemned to poverty and powerless
over their own futures, erupted in frustration.

As the startling scenes reached into living
rooms across this country by television,
people began to ask, “What can we do? These
people are hopeless! How can we change this
situation?”

Some answered by calling for more
government programs. Others cried out for
financial aid. Still others called for more
educational and employment opportunities.

But I can show you by the Word of God
that none of those things by themselves
would have solved the situation. They
wouldn’t have gone to the source of the
problem. In Ephesians 2:11-12, the Lord
reveals what that source is. Describing the
condition all of us were in before we were
born again, He says: “Wherefore remember,
that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh…
were without Christ, being aliens from the
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from
the covenants of promise, having no hope, and
without God in the world.”

According to the Word of God, hopelessness
isn’t caused by lack of money. It isn’t
caused by lack of education or negative
circumstances. Hopelessness comes from
being without God in the world. It comes
from being a stranger to His covenant.
Anyone, anywhere can have hope if they
know Jesus and the covenant promises of God.

Your background, race or financial status
doesn’t matter. You can live in the worst ghetto
in the world and still have hope in God
because He isn’t limited by man’s resources.
He isn’t limited by man’s prejudices. God is
an equal opportunity employer!

Some people have said to me, “You
shouldn’t preach that prosperity message in
poverty-stricken areas. You’ll get those
peoples’ hopes up, and they don’t have the
same opportunity to prosper that you do.”
Yes they do!

I’ve seen God prosper people in places
where there was absolutely nothing. No food.
No jobs. No welfare program. Nothing!
There is one country in Africa where the
government wanted a tribe to die out so they
just stopped the flow of food and began to
starve them to death. But that plan failed
because some Holy Ghost-filled African
Christians refused to give up hope. They
knew their covenant, so they prayed “give us
this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Do
you know what happened? The people got
fed and the government went under!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

I want you to look with me at a word
most people think they understand. It’s a word
you’ve heard thousands of times, in church
and out. A word you’ve used yourself over
and over again—probably without having the
foggiest notion what it really means.
I’m talking about the word hope.

“Oh, Brother Copeland, I know what the
word hope means!”

No, you don’t. Not unless you’ve studied
it in the Word of God. Because in today’s
language the word hope has lost its meaning.
It doesn’t even resemble the hope spoken
about in the Bible.

For example, these days you might hear
someone say, “I sure do hope Joe is coming
for dinner.” What does that mean? It means,
“I don’t know if Joe is coming for dinner,
but I sure wish he would.” In that context,
the word hope is the same as the word wish.
It carries with it an element of doubt.

But real Bible hope isn’t like that at all.
In fact, it’s just the opposite. If you look up
the Greek definition of the word hope, you’ll
find it means “to be intensely expectant, to
be confidently looking forward to something
you fully expect to happen.”

You can see this kind of hope in action in
Philippians 1:19-20. There, the Apostle Paul
says, “I know that this shall turn to my salvation
through your prayer, and the supply of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation
and my hope…” For emphasis, Paul used
the two Greek words there that mean earnest
expectation. In other words, he was saying to
them, “This thing is so inevitable I’m just
burning up with expectancy!”

Kenneth Copeland Ministries