Once your focus and your fellowship is in place, press. To press means “to act with steady force or weight; to be insistent about; to exert pressure.” It means “to go forward with energetic or determined effort.”

Paul said, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14).

To be a winner, you press. You press in to what God has called you to do. You don’t float into it. You press forward by faith, believing the Word of God and not what natural circumstances say.

No matter where you are today in your spiritual growth, you won’t progress without pressing. Remember what I said about those Olympic athletes? They know what it means to press toward a goal. They know what it means to put everything else aside and live like winners.

If natural people with natural discipline and desire to reach a goal can do that, certainly you and I can do it in the Spirit! We can do it with the power of the Holy Ghost in us and the Word of God in our hearts and in our mouths. We can press until we finish the race God has called us to run.

Remember, the natural world will always tell you that you can’t do it—it’s too big for you. You’re too foolish. You’re too weak. But God just says, Do it, and I’ll make up the difference.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

The fact is, if you want to lay hold of the authority of God and walk in the supernatural, you can’t do it from your easy chair. You have to press in. Jesus said, “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it” (Luke 16:16). Paul wrote, “…I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own” (Philippians 3:12, The Amplified Bible).

Press in. That’s as important a concept for us today as it was in Moses’ time. Moses pressed in the Spirit. He wanted to see God’s glory. I’m that way too. I’d want to see God’s glory even if I knew I wouldn’t live through it.

That heart cry to know God keeps us pressing in to lay hold of more of His kingdom each day of our lives. It pushes us toward the goal of knowing Jesus and finishing the race God has set before us.

If you want to go on with God like Moses and Paul did, then that desire is going to have to become the cry of your heart. Paul’s heart cry to know the Lord made him determined not to quit. He was determined to press on until he laid hold of every task the Lord had for him.

One day while on a journey to bring persecution to the Church, Paul was laid hold of by Jesus. The King James Version of the Bible says he was “apprehended” by Jesus. From that time until the day he went to be with the Lord, Paul was committed to fulfilling the calling for which he was apprehended. He would not quit early. Even with his intense desire to be with Christ in heaven, Paul was willing to stay on earth knowing the need of believers to whom he ministered (Philippians 1:21-26).

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

Some time ago, God dealt with me on the subject of healing and how important it is for believers to live free from sickness and disease. His words to me then were so strong they echoed in my spirit for weeks. He said, “I want My people well!”

God wants every believer to be healed and whole: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth” (3 John 2).

After Jesus was raised from the dead, He appeared to His disciples and issued certain decrees that would affect the world forever. Healing was one of those decrees. In Mark 16:15-18, Jesus said:

Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

These words are vitally important to every believer today. Jesus commanded the Church to go forth in His Name, and part of this Great Commission is that believers lay hands on the sick. At that moment, Jesus set the Church against sickness and disease.

Healing is God’s masterstroke of evidence that He is alive and doing well. It is physical proof of His existence and willingness to meet our needs on every spiritual level.

No two people are exactly the same spiritually. Each is at his individual level of spiritual growth. But generally, there are three categories of spiritual life:

The world—sinners or unbelievers, who do not know God.
The carnally minded Christian—spiritual babies, who do not have God’s Word working proficiently in their lives.
The mature Christian—spiritual adults, skillful in the Word of God.

God’s Word is designed to minister to individual needs at each level of spiritual growth.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries