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Living‰ in the

How much of Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s power would you need to conquer the challenges you are facing right now? < Would the kind of divine muscle He used to create the earth be enough strength to get you through? Would the supernatural light that set the sun and stars ablaze be enough to brighten the darkened corners of your life?

Would the divine life force that animated every living creature on the face of the earth be enough to enable you to do the things you need to do?

by Kenneth Copeland

He never intended us to wander around without a clue about how to use

the glory and power within us.

He wants us to comprehend it well enough to put it to work just like Jesus did when He was on the earth.

Sure it would. There’s no question about it. Even a thimbleful of that kind of power would blast every problem you’ve ever faced right into total oblivion. It would answer every question. It would meet every need.

And, if you are a born-again believer, that kind of power is available to you right now.

Oh, come on, Brother Copeland, you might be thinking, where on earth did you get that wild idea?

I got it from the Bible. It tells us quite plainly that Jesus—our own Savior and Lord—is the One who made this universe. He is the author of all Creation, the very source of all life. John 1 says it this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (verses 1-5). | Most of us don’t have any problem accepting those verses. It’s easy for us to believe that Jesus has within Himself the awesome creative power that established and sustains this universe. But that passage doesn’t stop there. It goes on to say that “as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (verse 12).

Look at that verse again. What does it say that Jesus gave us?

Power. He gave us His very own power.

The first thing that power did was make us sons of Almighty God. It filled our darkened spirits with eternal light and life. That in itself is a marvelous miracle, yet it’s not all that power was meant to do. It’s also been given to us so we can live every day of our lives in the glory of Jesus Himself.

Wait a minute, someone might argue, Jesus doesn’t share His glory with anyone. His glory is that of an Only Begotten Son! Not anymore it isn’t.

The New Testament tells us that Jesus is no longer an Only Begotten Son. Now He is the Firstborn of many brethren…and He is sharing His glory with them. He said so Himself. In John 17:22, He spoke to the Father and The Most Powerful Substance That Exists

said, “The glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.”

That’s a powerful statement because the glory of God isn’t a vague, religious concept. It’s not just a feeling that gives us goose bumps or a sparkly, spiritual mist. God’s glory is the most powerful substance that exists. It’s the power that emanated from Jesus when He walked the earth. It’s the power that reached into the pit of hell and resurrected Him from the dead (Romans 6:4).

Yes, that’s the glorious power that is abiding in every born-again believer. That’s the power that’s abiding in you. | If that’s true, why was Jesus able to do so much with it…and we’ve done so little?

We haven’t tapped into the wisdom He had. You see, no matter how much of God’s power and glory we have, it won’t do us (or anybody else) any good if we don’t know how to use it. That’s why Proverbs 4:7 says, “Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

Some people claim such wisdom is beyond us. They say God’s glory is so mysterious, His power is so unpredictable, that we could never possibly comprehend it.

If that’s true, the Apostle Paul must not have known it because he prayed for believers to “comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of the love (or power) of God and be filled with all His fullness (Ephesians 3:18-19). He also said that God “who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6).

The word translated knowledge in that verse is the Greek word gnosis. It means “to have a working understanding of something.” It’s one thing to have general knowledge, but it’s something else altogether to have a working understanding. If you have a general knowledge about airplanes, for example (enough to know they can fly), you’ll be able to ride in one. But if you want to fly one, you must have much more specific knowledge of it. You must know how to operate in it.

That operational knowledge is the kind of spiritual knowledge God has made available to us. He never Wisdom Is the Principal Thing

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Faith-filled words release the creative power and glory of God

that’s residing within you. They transfer the life of Jesus, which is heaven’s power, to earth. intended us to wander around without a clue about how to use the glory and power within us. He wants us to comprehend it well enough to put it to work just like Jesus did when He was on the earth. He wants us to operate in it.

That’s why we’ve been given the Holy Spirit. He’s been sent to be our teacher, to show us what to do with this glorious inheritance of divine life that belongs to us as joint heirs with Jesus. Because that inheritance surpasses anything our eyes have ever seen and our ears have ever heard, it does at times seem like a mystery. But the Bible says it’s a mystery that has already been revealed to us by His Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:9-10). | For us to benefit from that revelation, however, we must cooperate with God. We must begin to believe in our hearts and confess with our mouths that He will do what the Bible says He will do. Instead of saying, “I just don’t know how to access God’s power. I don’t understand how to operate in His glory,” we must start declaring that we have the wisdom of God. We must start saying and believing that we have the very mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Recently, while I was attending Citation X flight school I experienced for myself the difference that can make. I realized within the first few days of classes that, naturally speaking, I was going to have difficulty retaining all the information we were receiving. It was like trying to drink water from a fire hose. There was just too much to take in.

When I prayed about the situation, a close friend reminded me of Psalm 119:97-99. It says: “O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation.”

As soon as I took hold of those promises by faith and began confessing them several times a day, my retention in those classes went up at least 50 percent. During the final exam, the Holy Spirit gave me wisdom again and again. When I’d start to give a wrong answer, He’d correct me. If I got stuck figuring a mathematical problem, The Holy Spirit Will Tell You the Answer

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I’d pray in the spirit and He’d show me where I was missing it. The very wisdom of God Himself became mine at flight school because I believed it in my heart and declared it with my mouth. | “That’s fine for you, Brother Copeland, because you have a special ministry. But that kind of thing won’t work for me.”

Yes it will. According to the Bible, faith-filled words will work for anybody who will put them to work. Jesus told us so Himself in Mark 11:22-23. He said: “Have faith in God. 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.”

According to those verses, it doesn’t matter who you are—whosoever is whosoever. If you have faith in God and believe what you say will come to pass, your words can move mountains.

Why is that?

It’s because faith-filled words release the creative power and glory of God that’s residing within you. They transfer the life of Jesus, which is heaven’s power, to earth.

That shouldn’t surprise you. After all, God has been using words to release His power from the beginning.

He created everything on earth by speaking words.

Jesus is called the Word of Life and the Bible says He upholds all things by the Word of His power (1 John 1:1; Hebrews 1:3).

God’s very life and glory and power have always been contained in and conveyed by His Word; and—wild as it may seem—as His children, we’ve been given the privilege and the divine command to put His Word to work. God has instructed us to keep it before our eyes, in our ears and in our heart; to draw faith out of it; and then speak it. When we do, it releases God’s creative power and glory just as surely as if Jesus Himself had spoken it.

Hebrews 3:1 confirms that. It says Jesus has been appointed and anointed to see to it that when we declare Are You Saying What God Said?

His Word, it comes to pass. He is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.

The problem is, we’ve been fouling things up by filling our mouths with stuff Jesus never said. Instead of saying, “I’m healed,” we’ve been saying, “Oh, I believe I’m getting the flu.” Instead of saying, “God meets all my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” we’ve said, “I’ll never be able to pay these bills.” He said we would have what we say. We’ve been saying what we have.

All the while, the very glory of God has been there inside us with enough power to heal every sickness and enough ability to meet every need. But we haven’t had the wisdom to open our mouths and put it to work.

I can tell you f rom personal experience, exercising that wisdom will make all the difference. I was reminded of that again recently as I was overcoming a problem I’d had with my back over the past few years.

I first prayed and believed I received healing for it in August 2000, but the full manifestation didn’t come as quickly as I knew it should.

As I sought the Lord about it, He led me to get Dodie Osteen’s little book, Healed of Cancer.

There is a list of healing scriptures printed in it and I began confessing those scriptures every day…every day…every day. For a while, I just had to make myself say them. But the more I confessed them, the easier it became.

Revelation just kept rising in my spirit until one day those words began to fly out of my mouth with power and faith behind them.

The more I did that, the more God’s power worked in my body. When I started, I couldn’t walk five minutes without excruciating pain.

Now I can walk on the treadmill for an hour. I’m a healed man. I’m a free man spiritually and physically because those faith-filled words released the glory of God into my bones and nerves and muscles.

Even today, I’m still speaking…and it’s still working. I don’t intend to stop either. I

mean to stick with it and encourage every other believer who will listen to do the same. I am convinced it’s time for us to live in the glory we’ve been given. It’s time for us to operate more fully in the life and power of Jesus that’s within us.

It’s time for us to keep rising and rising in that glory until one day before too long, the trumpet blows and we take one more step of faith, out of these old, carnal bodies and into the glorified bodies God has prepared for us.

Even now, we’re barreling toward that moment like a freight train. Jesus is coming soon, so let’s start living in the glory. Let’s put it to work transforming not only our own lives but the lives of those around us.

Let’s use it to heal the sick, deliver the oppressed and win the lost by the millions.

If we’ll live in the glory, when Jesus comes for us we will surely be ready to go. V ictor y

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Eight Steps to

Destination: Prosperity Overflow

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od has a place He wants us to go: Destination: P rosperity Overflow. | I believe with all my heart that God wants us to prosper. In fact, I believe that prosperity is an expression of God’s love to us. Now please understand, I’m not just talking about money. | Prosperity includes money, but it is more than money. God wants you to prosper in your spirit, soul, emotions and physical body. He wants you to prosper in your anointing, relationships, marriage and job. He wants you to excel toward the promises of God. God has already done His part. He’s already made lots of things available to us, but if we don’t understand the process that we need to take to arrive at our destination, we could live the rest of our lives without ever coming into what God fully intended for us.

There are eight steps in this process. If your destination is Prosperity Overflow, you’re going to have to understand and respect this process. So let’s look at it carefully and see how each step impacts your life.

Step 1: The Word of God | The Word of God. This is where everything in the process starts. If you’re going to end up at Destination: Prosperity Overflow, you’re going to have to start with the Word. “In the beginning was the Word” ( John 1:1).

The Word is the incorruptible seed,

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the seed that will always produce, the seed that will never fail. It is the origin for all prosperity—the gateway to the blessings of God. We can’t achieve prosperity without it.

Prosperity is Word-determined, not money-determined.

No matter what we give, our money won’t have a future if it’s not backed up by a “Word seed,” that is, a revelation from the Word of God. It’s the Word seed that causes that money seed to increase. So many of us want to give a money seed, but we don’t have a Word seed. And so You’ve got to look we release the money seed without any at your thinking force behind it.

For instance, imagine a preacher and what influences who has never experienced a finanyour thinking, cial breakthrough. When the offering because everything comes, he always puts something in, that’s going on in but things never get better for him. your life can be Why? Because even though he gave

traced back to how you think.

a money seed, he never received a revelation f rom the Word concerning his financial breakthrough. He planted the money seed, but it had no future without the Word seed.

It’s the Word of God, the Word seed, which determines prosperity in every area of life. Word seed will prosper you when the doctor tells you you’re sick. Word seed will prosper you when you feel like you’re about to lose your mind. Word seed will prosper your marriage when things seem down and out.

The process to Destination: Prosperity Overflow starts with the Word.

If you ask people why they read the Bible, they’ll give you all kinds of answers. But the reason you should read your Bible is because it governs your thinking. It shows you what type of mind-set you should have. And that’s the second step in this process: Word thinking, or prosperous thinking.

Third John 2 states, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” The prosperity of your life is based on the prosperity of your soul—that is, your mind, will and emotions.

You will be as you think. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he.” If you think you’re going to be poor all your life, you probably will be. If you think you’re going to break out of this financial situation, then you’ll break out of it.

Consider how you think. Do you have a lack mentality? A poverty mentality? A sickness mentality? A mentality of defeat? You’ve got to look at your thinking and what influences your thinking, because everything that’s going on in your life can be traced back to how you think.

Step 2: Your Thinking

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Step 3: Your Emotions | The Word of God will lead you to start thinking thoughts that are in line with the Word. And thinking that lines up with the Word will produce emotions that line up with the Word.

God gave us emotions. They are a gift. Jesus had emotions. The Bible says He was touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). It is fine to have emotions…but we must make sure that emotions never have us.

Emotions are feelings caused by pain or pleasure that will direct you or move you in a direction. God has given you emotions. If you don’t learn how to control them, they will move you to places you don’t need to go.

If the devil’s going to move you out of the will of God where prosperity is concerned, then he’s going to

do it by enticing your emotions. He tried to do that with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was sweating blood because He was “deeply distressed” (Mark 14:33, New International Version). He was resisting, not allowing His emotions to take charge.

As Jesus resisted, the King James Version says He “went forward” (verse 35) and kept praying. When your emotions try to move you out of God’s will, do like Jesus and keep moving forward. Keep doing God’s will, regardless of how you feel.

You have authority over your emotions. | It’s extremely important that we understand how to govern ourselves and take charge of our emotions because how we feel will determine the next step in this process: the decisions we make.

Life is a series of decisions. Every day you wake up, you make a decision. According to Deuteronomy 30:19, you’re a free moral agent. You can choose life or death, blessing or cursing. And when you make decisions in line with the will of God, heaven will back you up.

Look what happened when Jairus made a decision and interrupted The type of character you Jesus’ plans in develop will determine Mark 5:21-23: your destination in life.

“When Jesus was passed over again by ship unto the other side.… Behold, there cometh one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name; and when he saw him, he fell at his feet, and besought him greatly, saying, My little daughter lieth at the point of death: I pray thee, come and lay thy hands on her, that she may be healed; and she shall live.”

Now, look at what Jesus did in verse 24: “Jesus went with him.”

Did you get that? Jesus stepped off the boat, ready to accomplish the will of God for His life. But when Jairus interrupted Him, Jesus turned and went with him.

Then in verse 28, right in the middle of this situation, a woman with an issue of blood arrived. She had made a decision, too: “If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole.” Jesus stopped and healed her right there on the spot. Shortly after that, Jairus’ daughter was healed, too.

In both circumstances, Jesus was doing one thing when He was directed elsewhere. There’s a powerful Step 4: Your Decisions

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principle here: Jesus has put His ministry and His Anointing into the hands of people who will make decisions that line up with His will. When you make a decision that lines up with His will, He will stop, turn and show up at your house to remove burdens and destroye yokes.

That’s how powerful a decision is! | Your decisions will determine your actions. And your actions cause the increase.

Faith without works is dead ( James 2:17). So start acting like what you just decided. Start talking like what you just decided. You may not be able to buy a $500 suit right now, but get yourself a good suit and have it dry cleaned. Get yourself a nice tie and a little handkerchief.

Start walking like you’re already in the overflow. God weighs your actions (1 Samuel 2:3), so start doing what you can. Let your actions show what you believe.

Step 5: Your Actions

Your actions will deter- mine your habits. You will develop in whatever you are doing on a daily basis. So you’ve got to check what you’re doing and saying every day, because what Step 6: Your Habits

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you do and say determines your potential.

If you lie, you have a potential to become a developed liar. If you sneak around looking at pornography every day, you only have the potential to develop in that. So make sure you look at your actions because your actions will determine your habits, and you don’t want habits in your life that are out of line with the Word of God. | Your habits will produce Step 7: your character. Character is what people have come to expect from you. Understand this: You will never rise above the limitations of your character.

Over the years, Brother Kenneth Copeland has defined character as doing what’s right because it’s right and then doing it right. The character we should desire is, of course, the character of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. What was His character? Love. We should begin to develop in the character of agape love so we can learn how to love people with agape love.

Step 7: Your Character

Step 8: Your Destiny | Finally, the type of character you develop will determine your destination in life.

What’s your destiny? In John 10:10, Jesus says it succinctly: “I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” ( The Amplif ied Bible). There’s your destiny. Enjoy life! That’s where God delights you’re headed. Amen! in the prosperity The Word produces your thinking; of His people. your thinking produces your emotions; What is true prosperity? your emotions produce your decisions; your Kenneth Copeland andecisions produce your actions; your swers from the Word of actions produce your habits; your habGod, and shows you how its produce your character; and your to establish your heart in character produces your destiny. Where the new covenant. The you end up in life will be based on how Laws of Prosperity teaches you how to make deposits you handle that progression. and withdrawals from your You’re destined to live an overflowheavenly account so you ing life. You’re destined to be healed, can overcome debt and to be at peace, to be wealthy. You’re give to every good work. destined to be happy. You’re destined to be sound. That’s what you were born to Put the laws to work in enter into. Life in the overflow! That’s your life that set Kenneth and Gloria Copeland debt your Destination: Prosperity Overflow. free in only 11 months!

Order today and discover practical insights into God’s financial laws…

The Laws of Prosperity!

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Creflo A. Dollar is the founder and senior pastor of World Changers Church International, a nondenominational church with more than 25,000 members located in Atlanta, Ga. For more information, visit creflodollarministries.org.

BenjaminRush

ChristianEducator

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e h a s b e e n c a l l e d t h e “ Fat h e r o f A m e r i c a n M e d i c i n e ” and the “Father of American Psychiatry.” Dr. Benjamin Rush was a medical pioneer, one of America’s founding fathers and s i g n e r of t h e D e c l a r at i on of I n de p e n de n c e . B u t t h e r e wa s another side of him that few people ever knew.

Benjamin Rush was a committed Christian who was keenly interested in education. A founder of America’s first Bible society, and noted professor, he also helped found some of America’s first colleges and promoted the idea of public schools made available to all—efforts that earned him another title as the “Father of Public Schools.”

A prolific writer on a number of subjects, Rush authored books and pamphlets including A Defence of the Use of the Bible in Schools, in which he said, “[It] should be read in our schools in preference to all other books from its containing the greatest portion of that kind of knowledge which is calculated to produce private and public temporal happiness.”

In his Essays, Literary, Moral and Philosophical he commented on the “Mode of Education Proper in a Republic,” stating that “the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in Religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty….

“We neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.”

But the religion I mean to “And these words, which I recommend in this place, is command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou that of the New Testament.”

This Christian founder shalt teach them diligently was not af raid to let his unto thy children….” views be known in writing, (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) and made a point of plainly recommending the gospel as the answer to the country’s problems. Today’s Americans would benefit by taking his unapologetic advice: “I lament that we waste so much time and money in punishing crimes, and take so little pains to prevent them,” Rush once wrote. “We neglect the only means of establishing and perpetuating our republican forms of government; that is, the universal education of our youth in the principles of Christianity by means of the Bible.”

God and His Word are still the answer. It’s time for more Christians to be like Benjamin Rush—boldly state our position and give our children the best possible chance to succeed. It’s time for America to return to its foundation of Bible-based education.

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by Gloria Copeland

Stepping into the

Good Life

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Ken and I had been married only four months when, in a quest to live “the good life,” we entered a new business venture. Two weeks later, the company went broke and we suddenly found ourselves in a very bad position—no jobs, no money for groceries, no furniture. We didn’t even have a refrigerator or stove. At 19, I was in the most desperate place I’d ever been.

At that point, I didn’t know anything about the Lord, but I picked up a Bible Ken’s mother had given him. In the front she had written, “Ken, precious, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you. Matthew 6:33.”

I obviously needed a lot added to me, so I turned to Matthew 6. What I read stunned me: “Look at the birds. They don’t need to plant or harvest or put food in barns because your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are” (verse 26, N ewLivngT ransltio n).

For the first time, I discovered that God loved me. If He cared for the birds, He had to care for me. What a revelation! When I realized that, I naturally responded to Him. I said something like, “Lord, I’m giving You my life. Take it and do something with it.”

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That day, I was born again. I started over. For the first time, I really did have the possibility of living “the good life.”

Road to Victory | The good life is not reaching out for things. It’s reaching out for God and allowing Him to add to us all that He intended. It’s walking in His unconditional love and blessing. It is a life beyond what we can ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

I’ve never regretted the decision I made that day. I am so grateful God has truly given me a good life. I love having the victory over any circumstance that comes my way. I love being able to draw from the Holy Spirit to give me answers. I love having enough money when a need arises. I love being healed when I’m attacked with symptoms. I love having the victory and the peace and

power of God! Don’t you? Of course you do!

First John 5:1 says, “Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God....” The first word in that verse is, W h osoev er. That means this scripture will work for anyone. It will work for you, me, homeless people, sick people, rich people, poor people...anyone! Anyone can live a life of victory in God. To be b orn of G od is to be born over again in your spirit—to make Jesus the Lord of your life. It is “the new birth.” It’s when you say, “Yes, Lord Jesus,” and yield your life to Him. The new birth is the great equalizer. That means it doesn’t matter what your background is, where you came from, how smart or rich or poor you are. When you make Jesus the Lord of your life, you are born again. You literally start over in H is likeness.

That’s why my life turned around—and so did Ken’s—after we were born again. We started over in God. All the disadvantages we had at the time of our new birth were taken away. We were enabled by God’s Spirit to succeed at anything He called us to do. Our backgrounds didn’t matter. Our mistakes didn’t matter.

That’s why all believers who are filled with God’s Spirit can have victory. They are reborn, filled with Himself, and nothing in the world can overcome them.

calling on You. I pray and ask Jesus to be Lord over my life according to Romans 10:9-10 which says, “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” I do that now. I confess that Jesus is Lord, and I believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead.

If you just prayed that prayer, you have been born again! Jesus has accepted you. He receives anyone who chooses Him. Your life will never be the same. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” You are now born of God, alive unto Him. Your future is bright.

Welcome to the family of God! Power of the Holy Spirit | Because God loves you

so much, He’s made a very special provision for your ensured success: the Holy Spirit (1 John 2:27).

About six months after I was born again, Ken’s parents invited us to a church meeting in East Texas. Even by today’s standards, this meeting was pretty wild. As I sat there, I kept wondering if all I was seeing was of God. I had never heard anyone speak in tongues, nor had I been taught anything about it. So, at one Miracle of the New Birth | When a point I thought, I th in k I’ ll goupstairs, person makes Jesus Christ the Lord of h av e a cigarette an d prayab ou t th is. his life and is born again, he is changed Can you believe that? But that’s in the innermost part of his being. exactly what I did. I went upstairs, lit up Every person is a spirit, and has a soul a cigarette and said, “Lord, I don’t know (which is his mind, will and emotions) if this Holy Spirit is of You or not, but is not reaching out for and lives in a body. A person’s spirit, if it is, well, I’ll take it.” It didn’t bother things. It’s reaching out which was dead to God, becomes alive me to smoke, but I sure wanted to be for God and allowing unto Him. His spirit is full of God’s careful about receiving the Holy Spirit!

Him to add to us all life. Therefore, for the first time, he has That’s how goofy an unrenewed mind that He intended. the ability to live a life without defeat! can be! Thank God, during that meet The day I read Matthew 6, I needed ing, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit that ability. I was defeated. No one around me had any with the evidence of speaking in tongues. Pretty soon, answers, but God did. Your circumstances may be just as those cigarettes were gone forever! I didn’t need to desperate. You may feel that nothing is working, or you smoke. I was lit up with the fire of God. That just goes have nowhere left to turn. Well, I have good news for to show you that you don’t have to know very much to you. God has all the answers and you can always turn receive Him. to Him. If you have never made Jesus the Lord of your Being baptized in the Holy Spirit means being life, then pray the following from your heart: empowered by God (Acts 2). Many times you don’t know how to pray to strengthen yourself against temptation, or Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of what the answer is to a problem. But your spirit is in conJesus. Your Word says, “Whosoever shall call on the tact with God (Romans 8:26-27), and praying in tongues name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). I am enables you to pray the perfect will of God for your life

The good life

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(1 Corinthians 14:2). You don’t even have to understand with your mind.

I had been born again six months when I received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, but you don’t have to wait even a day. The Holy Spirit is available to you now. Just pray this prayer: Father, You said in Your Word, “If ye then, being evil,

know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). I’m asking You to baptize me with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, I fully expect to speak with other tongues as You give me the words (Acts 2:4).

Then, begin to praise God for filling you with the Holy Spirit. Speak those words and syllables you receive—not in your own language, but the language given to you by the Holy Spirit. Boldly worship Him in His words. It’s a language of the Spirit.

You Are an Overcomer | You can start learning about your new life in Jesus today. Open your Bible and find Ministries fulfilled and shipped 780,527 orders in 2005 and out who He has called you to be, and what He has called 198,825 the first quarter of 2006. you to do. For example, 1 John 5:2-3 says when we love And, that’s just a small part of what the dedicated employees God, we keep His commandments. This is a valuable key in the Distribution Center do—day in and day out. to understanding your new life. Jesus taught this Himself, They also: that if you love God, you’ll do what His Word says Fill and ship Print and mail Store Ship tens of thousands to do (John 14:23). nearly 1 million all letter corre- all KCM of Bibles and devotional As a born-again believer, you have the power on orders all over spondence products material to prisoners the inside of you that has overcome the world. First the world from KCM each year John 5:4 says, “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh “This year, the Mail Center is on target for mailing the world, even our faith.” more than 7,300,000 letters to our Partners and Friends,” said Doug Anderson, Faith affects every area of our lives. It’s what gives us Distribution Center the strength to walk through darkness and still be light. manager. “Our greatIt’s what enables us to be surrounded by sickness and est joy is knowing that disease and still be healthy. It’s what empowers us to every letter we mail walk through threatening situations unharmed. will carry the Word to You have to feed on the Word to keep your faith someone.” strong and to uproot the unbelief and error you’ve

bought into over the years. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith Working in KCM’s cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Distribution Center is As you spend time in the Word, speak it out of your not just a job for these mouth, listen to it and obey it, your faith will strengthen employees—it’s a calland you will have victory over the world and all darking. ness (Proverbs 4:20-23).

“The people who work in the Distribution Center love what they do,” Anderson shared. “We pray for our Yes, in Christ Jesus, you have overcome every problem.

Partners each day in our devotional time. We believe the Think about that a moment and let it get into your spirit. materials that are moved out of the Distribution Center Don’t give up because you don’t understand all of this right will deliver the Word of healing, restoration and faith now. You will as you spend more time in God’s Word.

The Distribution Center at Kenneth Copeland

right into their homes.”

Anderson remembers a time when the Word he received from KCM was the only thing that kept him going.

“Now I get to distribute that same Word every day!” he shared. “I know that the materials from this ministry will remove burdens and destroy yokes from our Partners’ lives, so we do our very best to get them delivered quickly.

“It takes a full team of people working together very hard to accomplish what we do…. Our main objective is to help fulfill the call of God in this ministry, and it’s our honor to do so.” Victory

Step Into the Victory | My decision to follow God

was the best one I ever made. I’ve never stopped wanting to know all that God has to say—about freedom from sickness and disease, walking in full prosperity and living in peace and joy. About everything!

Praise God for the great equalizer...the way for all of us to start over and be made new. When you made Jesus your Lord, you became an overcomer. At that moment, it happened...you stepped into the good life! Victory

september Believer’s

Voice

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Kenneth Copeland We Are Growers of Faith Discover how to be a grower of faith and not just a hearer only.

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Healing School

Gloria Copeland steps to the podium for a whole week of Healing School.

Get immersed in what it takes to stand for your healing and the healing of others—the Word!

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Tune in to the BVOV broadcast Monday through Friday and on Sunday each week at www.kcm.org.

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Don’t miss this second week of Gloria Copeland’s teaching on Psalm 91 and our need for a place of refuge in the days ahead.

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Gloria Copeland Healing School Another Healing School session wraps up this Sunday. Tune in to get the final word on healing.

5 Tue

Taking Refuge

Gloria Copeland Healing School Healing School is in session, and healing is at hand. Sit in on a class that can change your life—forever!

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C a l e n da r

Join Gloria Copeland as she shares from Psalm 91 on the refuge that can be yours if you’ll believe and obey God’s instructions.

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Kenneth Copeland Faith Makes Your Dreams Come True If you can dream it, your faith can bring it to pass. Tune in to find out how.

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Partnership

Join Kenneth and Gloria Copeland as they share the biblical basis for partnership, its benefits to you and how you can become involved.

Watch the BVOV broadcast again and again!

Order your audio or video copies of the BVOV broadcast now by using the form in the center of this magazine.

CD or Tape DVD or VHS Daily broadcast (one week) CDN$10 Daily broadcast (one week) CDN$15 Sunday broadcast CDN$5 Sunday broadcast CDN$10

BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY VOLUME 34 NUMBER 9 September 2006 BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY is published monthly by Eagle Mountain International Church Inc./Kenneth Copeland Ministries Inc., a nonprofit corporation, Fort Worth, Texas. © 2006 Kenneth Copeland Ministries Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY and the logo on the back page are registered trademarks of Eagle Mountain International Church Inc./Kenneth Copeland Ministries Inc., in the United States and international countries where BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY circulates. Printing and distribution costs are paid for by donations from KCM Partners and Friends. Printed in the United States of America. For a free subscription write to Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Fort Worth, TX 76192-0001 or sign up online at www.kcm.org. Because all BELIEVER’S VOICE OF VICTORY issues are preplanned, we are unable to accept unsolicited manuscripts. Partner Development Strategy Manager/Kelly Weekly Publishing Manager/Glenda Bunkofske Managing Editor/Ronald C. Jordan Contributing Editor/Don Turner Editor/Deborah Ide Writers/Michelle Medlock Adams Karen Adlong Darlene Breed Rick Bunkofske Gina Lynnes Christopher Maselli Proofreaders/John Caccomo Jean De Long Michelle Harris Eileen Hooley Senior Designer/Michael Augustat Project Manager/Lynette Lundy Type Coordinator/Joyce Glasgow

Shining Light Ministries

the enemy can’t keep East Africa a Good van Down!

D ar es Salaam, Tanzania, East Africa—Pastor Dan Koehler finished his gospel meeting and left

Morogoro, Tanzania, around 9:30 p.m., heading home to Dar es Salaam. As he drove his van,

he came upon two large trucks parked on either side of the road. A fire was in the middle of the road, and a man was waving a flashlight to slow traffic. To Koehler, it had all the earmarks of a police stop. But as he slowed his van, armed bandits began shooting at Koehler and the ministry team riding with him.

As Koehler sped off, the bandits shot There is a sense of urgency to bring the word a hole in the driver’s door. Another of faith to every region as fast as we can.” bullet shattered a window, but no one Last year, the Koehlers held meetings in inside the van was injured.

Dar es Salaam, Morogoro, Mbeya, Iringa, “When I looked at the size of the hole Dodoma and Tabora, Tanzania as well as in the door and how God protected them,” Kalemie, Congo, and saw attendance double Koehler’s wife, Melinda, said, “I could only thank with more than 1100 people saved and bapTanzania God that we had covered them in the blood of Jesus tized in the Holy Spirit. and commissioned His angels to keep them. I prayed A man from the Morogoro meeting testified God would spring every trap of the enemy, and He that he had always seen himself as the tail, but certainly did!” after seeing what God’s Word said about him, he God commissioned the Koehlers to fulfill a three-part realized that he is the head, Melinda recalled. vision: establish churches and Bible schools, translate “What a powerful revelation this is to see ourselves as faith-building Bible-teaching books into Swahili, and hold God sees us rather than as the world sees us,” she said. seminars to teach God’s people faith. Their primary goal is “I was transformed by this revelation years ago while listo train nationals to reach their own people in places the tening to Brother Copeland, and the same revelation is Koehlers are not able to go. working in the people of Africa “The key to reaching any country,” Dan Koehler said, too…You can only imag“is to get the local people trained for ministry and evanine how these people have gelizing.” To this end, the Koehlers also produce radio broadcasts and publish articles in several newspapers weekly to bring their teaching to other churches and pastors.

“Our greatest focus now is to do faith seminars,” Melinda said. “Because of the recent elections and strong Islamic influence in the country, we don’t know how long we will have to preach the gospel in Tanzania.

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changed as they see themselves in the Word.”

For one week before the attack, Melinda had asked their Naturally, when God has done a marvelous thing the Partners to cover them in prayer. She sensed there was a devil tries to find ways to stop it. For Dan and Melinda, tremendous spiritual attack and darkness against them in the and their Shining Light Ministries, transportation is key spirit realm—especially a spirit of death. to taking the Word of God to remote areas of East Africa.

“Many nights I had gotten up to wrestle in the spirit And the enemy has worked hard to block their work in and pray through this thing,” Melinda said. “I even did a Africa since it began in 1986. prayer walk up and down the road in front of the church The couple were excited to return to Congo after while pleading the blood of Jesus. I kept feeling like we 13 years. The country had been at war and they knew were going to be attacked from the road. I knew the Lord their return was a divine appointment from God. But the would deliver us from whatever this darkness was but I day they were to leave, a flash flood outside their home in didn’t know what all this meant until the next morning.”

Dar es Salaam swept away Dan and his van.

Melinda and her children fell to their knees “When we got to Congo, we and cried out to God for Dan’s life to be realized why the devil had spared as the flood waters tried to wash him withstood us so much. Literally and the van out to sea.

“The Lord gave me Isaiah 59:19: ‘When the hundreds were ministered to enemy shall come in, like a flood the spirit of and healed, and 57 people were the Lord shall lift up a standard against him,’” filled with the Spirit.”

Melinda said. At that moment, the van caught on a log and didn’t move any farther. “When we got to Congo, we realized why the devil had withstood us At 8 a.m. on Palm Sunday, the Koehlers pulled up in so much. Literally hundreds were ministered to and healed, front of their church. Dan parked the car. Melinda and and 57 people were filled with the Spirit.” their daughters, Hannah and Bekah, went into the church Following the Congo meeting, the Koehlers traveled while Dan waited for their son, Caleb, to put on his shoes. to meetings in Tabora, a place in Tanzania few people Melinda was in the office getting ready for the service visit because of the bad roads. Once again, Satan tried when she heard Caleb scream, “Come quickly, they are to stop them. On a rocky mountain road, Dan crushed killing Daddy! They’re stoning him!” the transmission in the van. Traveling in a separate car, Melinda ran out to the street to find Dan with blood Melinda was able to hitch her vehicle to the van and tow running down his face. A band of thieves had tried to it to be repaired. That evening, God delivered them from take his phone and briefcase. When Dan resisted, they armed bandits by sending Arab truck drivers with guns to threw him down and began to stone him. Roadside venaccompany them the rest of the way to Tabora. dors from across the street had come to Dan’s rescue. He “The hunger of the people at Tabora for the Word of suffered a small gash on his head and a large lump on his God was amazing,” Melinda said. “Some of them woke forehead, but he was OK. up at 5 a.m. to walk to the meeting in an area where there “We can say with the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3:11: are black mamba snakes that can kill up to 20 people at ‘What persecutions I endured: but out of them all the one time. When people come with that kind of hunger, Lord delivered me,’” Melinda said. they will not go away empty. God met them Not only was Dan delivered from being in a big way.” shot, swept away in a flood and stoned, but One of the greatest miracles, the Koehlers God also delivered Melinda from injury in a said, has been God giving them a new head-on collision when a truck struck her car church building in the middle of Kinondoni. at high speed. The car was badly damaged, The structure used to be a well-known but Melinda escaped without a scratch. bar and disco, and house of prostitution “I felt a hand or blanket over me as the and drugs. truck just passed over me but didn’t touch “We definitely knew we were in the right me,” Melinda said. place when, within the first three months Dan and Melinda thank God for their “The key to reaching of occupying the building, Pastor Dan was deliverance in 2005, and they are grateful for any country,” Dan attacked by thieves and stoned on Palm Sunday the part Kenneth Copeland Ministries plays Koehler said, “is to morning,” Melinda said. “But once again, the in helping them to continue taking the Word get the local people Lord miraculously spared his life.” to every corner of Tanzania. V ictor y trained for ministry and evangelizing.”

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No More Migraines!

All my life I’ve had terrible headaches. During the past five years they developed into migraines, totally controlling my life. I would get so sick with pain I’d be blinded in one eye and vomiting. An MRI revealed a spot in my head.

But glory to God, I’m healed!

I was healed during Healing School. I also believed God would heal me of endometriosis and I knew in my heart He did. Then, when I saw it raining outside it hit me…I don’t have a migraine. Previously, whenever it rained my head hurt.

Glory to God! Thank you for showing me God’s Word!

GoodNewsG “He sent his word,and healed them, and

delivered them from their destructions.”(Psalm 107:20) Mystery Malady Yields to Mother’s Faith

One Monday morning after an exhausting weekend, my daughter woke up with a low-grade fever and swollen tonsils and glands. Tuesday she was worse, so I took her to the doctor who prescribed an antibiotic after a blood test for mononucleosis was negative.

Despite the medication, she continued to get worse, and developed severe abdominal pain. We made a trip to the emergency room, saw our family doctor and even met with a specialist. Still she got no better.

I was about to give up when I remembered a tape series by Alesa Vargas-Palma | West Plain, Mo. Brother Copeland that I had been listening to—The Image of God in You. Brother Copeland explained that if we have faith, study the Word, love the Lord above all others, and imagine the things we desire—we can be like Jesus. We can move mountains, calm the waters and heal the sick.

That night I thought about the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment and the Syrophenician woman who asked Jesus to heal her daughter.

Unforgiveness , me That’s exactly what I prayed for and Fear Overco that night. I knew in my heart the Cancer Defeated Lord would do it. cer and in 1999 a When my daughter woke up the In 1998 I had can next morning, she was much better. rage, unforgiveness, stroke. I had a lot of The swelling in her throat had gone continual offense. fear, and lived in down and she was actually hungry. s book eth Hagin ’ By the third day, her color was better I began to read Kenn scriptures. and she was able to get up and do a few s Medicine with the God’ things without being tired. It was wona day, my mind As I did this twice derful!

I know the Lord was and is with ela tion insigh t. From us, and that He performed a miracle. opened up with rev Thank you, Brother Copeland, for s teaching s I learned Kenneth Copeland ’ your words of inspiration. to speak only the how to overcome fear, M.S. | Michigan live through the Word words of God and to ant life overflows.

BVOV Reaches Husband in Jail of God until His abund

Thank you for making your magazines free and thanking Today, I am cancer available in county jails. My husband found forgiveness ation. of his sins through your BVOV magazines while he was God for total restor incarcerated.

He came home a very changed man. .

- Richland, Mo Bernadette Borchelt | S.M. South Carolina

we can

move mountains, calm the waters and

heal the sick

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azette Par tnership Blessings

Within a few months of becoming Partners, our finances began to improve noticeably.

Some 20 years ago we began watching Kenneth Copeland on TV. Within a few months of becoming Partners, our finances began to improve noticeably, and for no apparent reason except that now we were Partners with KCM. We had six houses we rented or sold on land contract.

And miraculous things happened—like new tenants or buyers appearing at exactly the right time—situations in today’s business world that just don’t happen. But God can do all things and with the strength and prayer power of Kenneth and Gloria, it all happened.

Then in 1996 my husband “graduated to heaven.” I was left with the six properties and couldn’t do repairs as my husband, Ray, had always done. I was overwhelmed. But by the end of 1996 the rental was sold and four of the five land contracts were paid in full. I had to have the fifth contract owner wait until January to pay us off so our profits for 1996 wouldn’t be too much. By January 1997, one year after Ray passed away, I was free of all responsibility! Thanks be to God and I know KCM played an integral part!

Another reason I am pleased to be a Partner is that I get Kenneth’s letter each month. He teaches the Word of God and explains it in a way that helps me in my day-to-day life.

I have learned more from him over these 20+ years, than from any other minister or source. I thank God for KCM and pray daily for you as well.

Edith Stokely | Illinois

Prison Time Brings Freedom

From 1984-98, I was a struggling Christian. Addicted to drugs for 26 years, I was a needle user, and couldn’t get f ree. In 1998 I went to prison, where I recommitted my life to Jesus. The only ministry I wrote to was KCM. You sent me the BVOV magazine and monthly books of my choice.

Before I was released from prison, my wife died of an overdose and I was left with no one. When I remarried, my new wife’s family were strong Christian ministers to the homeless. At one point, we found ourselves without a church home and began a Bible study in my mother-in-law’s living room. Well, it grew and in November 2004, we founded a church in Oklahoma City.

Kenneth and Gloria, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for investing in me and instilling the principles of victory that have kept me for the last seven years.

S.H. | Oklahoma

Fear Revealed, Victory in Sight

Kenneth’s teaching on the God Channel concerning the different ways that fear can manifest in our lives has made a real difference to me.

It has led me to realize that fear is triggered in me when I think someone is trying to take advantage of me. All my life I have been quick to react sharply—easily provoked. Try as I would, I seemed unable to conquer it. Now that I know the cause is fear, the struggle is over and victory is in sight. I now confess “my God will supply all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

J.M. | United Kingdom

Healed and Praising God!

I had a stomachache and had made my healing confessions, prayed with friends and also been to the hospital—scans were made and tests were done, but the doctors found nothing. I kept standing on 1 Peter 2:24.

One evening last week on the BVOV broadcast, Gloria prayed and made some declarations, and said we should get up and do whatever we couldn’t do before. Because of the stomachache, I couldn’t walk too well, but thanks to the healing power in Jesus Christ, I was able to walk and started running about. The pain was gone! Thank God for the effectiveness of 1 Peter 2:24 and for using Gloria to pray and believe God with me. I am also growing day by day in my faith, prayer life, love walk and my personal relationship with God and the Holy Spirit through the teachings of Ken and Gloria Copeland.

A.K. | United Kingdom

A

by Melanie Hemry Missy and Russ Matthys slipped into the doctor’s office and sat quietly while happy couples chattered about due dates and ultrasound results. After waiting five years to conceive, today was the date for Missy’s first ultrasound. She looked pale and exhausted as she leaned her head against the wall and waited. Russ kept a watchful eye on her and helped her to the exam room when a nurse called her name. • “How are you doing?” the doctor asked, bustling into the room. • Looking as though his heart was breaking, Russ pulled something out of his coat pocket. With trembling hands, he held the tiny form of their daughter, Rebecca Rose. The night before, Russ had awakened to Missy writhing in pain. He’d laid his hands on her and prayed until the pain stopped and Missy drifted off to sleep. But this morning she’d passed the baby she had miscarried.

Acting on faith was one thing.

Pushing an empty stroller down the street was another.

“There’s no need for surgery,” the doctor told them after a thorough examination.

“You can go home.”

The trip home felt as long and barren as the past five years had been. Russ, a magnet for children, and Missy, a schoolteacher, had planned their family and named their children before they were married. After two years of marriage they’d been ready for their first child. Two years later, they’d gone through the basic battery of infertility tests, but doctors found nothing wrong.

As years passed with no children, they researched about adoption and got information about drug regimens and aggressive treatments for infertility. Although they had f riends who’d successfully started families through adoption and infertility treatment, Russ and Missy felt the Lord telling them to do what they’d been doing for years…wait on Him.

The Thief Comes to Steal

“We were very involved in our church,” Russ recalls, “and I worked with a youth outreach to high-school kids.

Through that outreach we met Keith and Kristin Peterson, a couple from another church who were different from the rest of our friends. The most unusual thing about Keith and Kristin was that every time we got together they prayed! This was not normal in our circle of friends.

In addition to praying, they spoke scripture to us! They attended a church that taught faith and believed in all the gifts of the Spirit.

“I’d heard about speaking in tongues in a local church at an information session on the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. But after being freaked out by speaking in tongues once, I never did it again. Missy wasn’t interested in speaking in tongues at all. But when Keith and Kristin invited us to attend Bible study at their church, we were drawn there and eventually joined.”

A few days before Missy miscarried she’d been driving down the street praising God when she found herself praying in tongues! When she woke in pain the night she miscarried, she began praying in tongues again—this time like a rapid-fire machine gun.

“We’d just begun to learn about faith when we lost our baby,” Russ recalled. “I was furious with God. I felt like I was dealing with two huge losses: losing our baby

and being betrayed by God.” Home from the clinic, the phone rang steadily with calls from jubilant family and friends wanting to hear about Missy’s ultrasound. Russ stayed home and answered the calls. When Kristin called, Russ unleashed his anger, and told her how furious he was that God had taken their child.

“Russ,” she gasped, “God didn’t do this!”

“What?”

“You’ll find the answer in John 10:10. It says, ‘The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly’” (New King James Version).

“That’s right!” Russ said. “God didn’t do this!”

Russ and Missy spent the next two days mourning for their child. The following night they had dinner with Keith and Kristin. As usual, they spent the evening praying. Unlike usual, Keith, Kristin and Missy spent the evening praying in tongues.

“It was the most amazing experience of my life,” Russ explains. “Every time a question crossed my mind, Keith stopped praying in tongues and answered it in English!

“I fell to my hands and knees and sobbed. The weeping rose from the depths of my inner being, and I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t get up. I knew the Holy Spirit was ministering to me. After a while, the sobs turned to tongues! For 10 minutes I prayed in tongues, and then tongues gave way to laughter. When I got up off the floor I was refreshed and renewed.”

Pregnant With Faith

Missy began getting up early to watch Believer’s Voice of Victory, the daily broadcast of Kenneth Copeland Ministries, before work. She and Russ also read the devotions in From Faith to Faith daily. By doing so, they learned that giving 3 percent of their income was not a tithe. Soon after becoming Partners with KCM, Missy and Russ searched the Bible for God’s will regarding children. Then they wrote out a prayer petition and faith agreement, basing it in part on the following scriptures.

“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of

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your days” (Exodus 23:25, New King James Version).

“You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock” (Deuteronomy 7:14, New King James Version).

“He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children. Praise the Lord!” (Psalm 113:9, New King James Version).

The Lord comforted Russ and Missy, and they began sowing into the lives of children. They gave gifts to children, hosted baby showers and babysat for friends.

“When we found out that we’d lost Rebecca because of a problem with her placenta, we immediately began praying over our next child’s placenta,” Missy recalls.

“Every day I confessed, ‘A godly seed has been planted firmly in my womb. I’m well able to carry children. I’ve been designed by God to do it. It’s a protected womb and a perfect placenta….’”

Your Miracle Is Here!

When Marty Copeland studied the story of Hannah, she had an “ah ha!” moment. Hannah had great faith to believe God for a miracle—and it came! Knowing God is no respecter of persons, Marty realized that if He opened Hannah’s womb and she conceived, God could do the same miracle for her.

In this faith-affirming message, Marty shows you how to stand for the miracle you need and find answers to questions like: Where is God in my situation?

Why does it seem like my faith is not working?

What is the greater purpose of not letting go of my miracle?

And much more!

; ; ; ;

Whatever you’re believing God for, don’t give up. Learn how to have faith like Hannah and believe God for your miracle today!

Hannah’s Miracle Child

by Marty Copeland | CD $ 5 #B060907

Having Done All—Stand

Years passed with no manifestation of their promise.

On one occasion, a family member told Missy, “Honey, your eggs are old!” Missy went to the Lord and He gave her a promise in Psalm 92:14, “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age.”

Although she was rapidly approaching 40, Missy refused to allow fear or discouragement to derail her faith or steal her joy. Instead, she chose to act on her faith. First, she finished decorating the nursery that had been left in shambles when she miscarried. Next, she and her pastor’s wife went on a shopping spree and bought baby clothes.

“We started expecting to be expecting,” Missy explains.

“We prayed daily and determined to be obedient to do everything the Lord asked us to do. At one point He told me to change my diet, eating more broccoli and yams.

“The biggest change may have been our attitude,” she said. “We made a choice to be joyful. No longer did we allow my monthly cycle to send us spiraling into depression. As our faith grew, all that cycle meant to us was that we were one month closer to having our baby. We also learned that when people said thoughtless or unkind things, we had to forgive because faith is linked to love.”

When the Lord told Missy they should buy a minivan, Russ took her shopping and bought one. They were in agreement every step of the way—until the day the Lord told Missy to buy a stroller and walk around the neighborhood.

Acting on faith was one thing. Pushing an empty stroller down the street was another. Russ refused to buy one.

Missy knew it was crucial that she stay in a loving and submitted relationship with Russ. She couldn’t afford to get cranky about it. Faith, she realized, wasn’t about controlling things, it was about trusting God. Missy dropped the subject and trusted God to speak to Russ in His perfect timing.

Sure enough, He did.

Faith Is an Act

“We need to buy a stroller!” Russ announced one day.

They went shopping, and believing for a double portion, they bought a double stroller. When they took it out of the box and assembled it, Missy’s mother asked what they were going to do with it.

“I’m going to push it around the neighborhood,” Missy answered, grinning.

“They’re going to put you in a straightjacket!” her mother retorted.

Russ loaded the stroller into the back of the minivan.

One day after work, Missy sensed a quickening from the Lord that this was the day for her to act on her faith. In

one of the stroller seats she placed a huge Bible. In the other, she sat her purse.

The act of pushing a stroller triggered a joy in Missy that she’d never known. The joy of the Lord washed over her in such waves that she laughed, sang and praised God. That one act of obedience greatly boosted her faith.

“In 2003, the Lord directed us to travel to Israel with the Association of Faith Churches and Ministers (AFCM),” Russ recalls. “One of the most significant moments for us was when we visited Shiloh, the place where the Bible describes Hannah praying for a child.

God answered her prayers by giving her a son, Samuel.

We stepped into the site of the holy of holies and prayed for our child.

“Then, in August of that same year, the Copelands held a Believers’ Convention in Green Bay, which we attended. During the meeting, they asked for all the couples trying to conceive to come forward for prayer.

Jerry and Carolyn Savelle laid hands on us and prayed.”

Days of Refreshing 2006 September 17-22

Eagle Mountain International Church

Faith Gets Violent

It was a crisp, cold day in January 2004 when Russ and Missy went cross-country skiing. Sunlight glittered off snow-capped trees as Missy skied ahead of Russ.

Suddenly the air split with the sound of her scream.

“Devil, get your hands off me!”

Russ slid to a stop at the fury of her words. Oh boy, he thought, looking around to see how many people were listening.

Missy spiked her ski poles in the ground and continued to shout. “We have our children! Devil, get your hands off! They belong to us!”

Missy finished her tirade and skied away.

Three weeks later, she was pregnant.

“Having conceived, we didn’t let up on our warfare,” Missy says. “Russ laid his hands on me and prayed every night. When I was about to go in for my first ultrasound the devil made an end run. I started spotting and had a recurrence of some of the same symptoms I’d had when I miscarried. We refused to let fear get a grip. When we showed up for our ultrasound there was a live baby in my womb!”

Nov. 11, 2004, Lissa Faith Matthys made her debut.

Russ and Missy began their journey to become a family in 1994. A full 10 years later, Lissa lay in their aching arms.

“She’s worth every moment of the wait!” Missy exclaims.

Today Lissa is 22 months old, and her blue eyes sparkle with life and happiness. Russ and Missy love pushing her around the neighborhood in her double stroller, but Missy won’t be able to store her purse in the other seat for long.

She is already expecting their second child.

That’s a double portion of faith! V ictor y

A wave of glory has come to our shores. Come out and catch the wave with us as Kenneth Copeland, Pastor George Pearsons, Keith Moore and Billye Brim minister a timely word for the Body of Christ and the world.

Pre-service prayer with Terri Copeland Pearsons will be held 45 minutes before every evening service.

Hey, Superkids—join us for services with Commander Kellie!

Visit www.emic.org/2006dor to get more information or call us at 800-600-7395. Eagle Mountain International Church | Kenneth Copeland Ministries | Fort Worth, TX 76192-0001

by Kenneth Copeland

Partnering with Jesus

“We thank the Lord for our Partners all over the world who are standing with us, believing with us, ministering with us—as we exercise our faith together to get the job done that Jesus has called us to do.”

—Kenneth Copeland

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O

a Divi ne

Connect ion

nly one ministry exists in the earth today—the

ministry of Jesus. Only one calling exists—Jesus’ calling.

Our heavenly Father has one overall plan for reaching every tribe, every tongue and every nation in the earth today. His plan is the Body of Christ cooperating through our individual anointings and totally fulfilling Jesus’ ministry and calling.

Our partnership is with Jesus!

~ Get Connected Through

| Ephesians 4 is very plain about the Lord’s plan for growing us up together—working together, believing together—until “we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (verse 13).

That’s what we’re all about—growing up the Body of Christ. Every revelation and principle the Lord has given us by His Word that we have received and put to work, we’ve shared with you. Just as we have learned to grow from We are in a divine the milk of the Word to the connection that God meat, so have you. The Lord put in place for the has taught us step by step as sake of this world. we’ve “come of age.” And the best part, Partners, is that you are bringing your neighbors and friends and family along with you.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries is growing up into the fullness of the head—Jesus. And it’s not just KCM that’s filling up. We are partnered with other ministries around the world because we know in this day and age—these last days before Jesus returns to earth—the whole Church…the entire Body...will be perfect and entire, wanting nothing ( James 1:4). So we are out there helping ministries all over the earth.

The Body of Christ is in full force and power all over this world. Ministries of all callings and kinds, preaching in ever y tongue and ever y tribe—we’re there! That’s the reason so much satanic activity is persecuting Christians and trying to put the Church down. We don’t hear about it much in the media, but praise God, there’s more Holy Ghost activity in the earth than has ever been seen by human eyes or heard by human ears.

We are fulfilling His mission. He said: Go! Teach all the world. Make disciples. He has entrusted us to cooperate with Him as “this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations” (Matthew 24:14).

Coming of Age

| This partnership is a truly cooperative venture. We are in full partnership with Jesus. O ur Partners have become partakers of the anointing that’s on Gloria and me to prophesy, preach, teach and heal.

You are part of every outreach. You share in all we do.

You become part of us and we become part of you.

So many Partners over the years have told us how God led them to become part of this ministry, and

Partnership O Our partnership is with Jesus…and it’s all about helping you grow. We’re committed to reaching the world from the top to the bottom and all the way around with this powerful message of victory…and we want you to be a part!

As you join in partnership with us, we join in partnership with you—praying for you every day, standing for your breakthrough. Our anointings and gifts combine to restore relationships, bring financial breakthroughs and minister abundant health. We become a part of each other’s ministry!

If you haven’t already, make The Partnership Connection with Kenneth Copeland Ministries today, and you’ll receive our Partner Package. It contains information about partnership, complimentary gifts and more.

Or, if you’d simply like more information, just let us know.

Our Part

To become a Partner or learn more about partnership: call 1.877.480.3388, or visit kcmcanada.ca.

It’s time to get connected!

when they did, their ministries, The Body of Christ is their churches, their businesses— in full force and power every part of their lives—began all over this world. to take on the anointing that’s in and on us. And for us, the the body. It ’s up to God and b e n e fi t s o f p a r t n e r s h i p a re you to decide with whom you immeasurable. We become part c on n e c t i n m i n i s t r y. I f H e of your work and ministry, too. leads you to become Partners All of you, wherever you are with us, we’ll rejoice! and whatever you are doing, the This is Jesus’ ministry. He gave us full privileges in Lord has ordained it as your arena of ministry. We His ministry because we believe on His glorious Name can’t be where you are, but we are with you in all and because we love—we love God, we love our neighyou do. bors in the world and we love one For 40 years my relationship with another (1 John 3:23). It’s as simple Salvation Prayer you has been the same as Paul’s was as that. We each enter into His mintoward the church at Philippi. And If you do not know istry the same way—believing. And I know it ’s the same with you! He once in, we succeed in His mission said to them in Philippians 1:3-7: “I the same way—loving. Everything thank my God upon every rememas your else comes from that. brance of you, always in every prayer & Jesus declared His purpose for of mine making request for you simply pray the following prayer in coming to this earth in Luke 4:18-19 all with joy, for your fellowship in faith, and Jesus will be your Lord! when He said, “The Spirit of the the gospel f rom the first day until Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus. Your Word says, Lord is upon me, because he hath now, being confident of this ver y “Whosoever shall call on the name of anointed me to preach the gospel thing, that He who has begun a the Lord shall be saved” and “If thou to the poor; he hath sent me to good work in you will complete it shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord heal the brokenhearted, to preach until the day of Jesus Christ; just as Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart deliverance to the captives, and it is right for me to think this of you that God hath raised him from the recovering of sight to the blind, to all, because I have you in my heart” dead, thou shalt be saved” (Acts 2:21; set at liberty them that are bruised, (New King James Version).

Romans 10:9). You said my salvation to preach the acceptable year of would be the result of Your Holy Spirit giving me new birth by coming to live in the Lord.”

Jesus’ Ministry | Yes, we are partme (John 3:5-6, 15-16; Romans 8:9-11)

What a great and glorious plan ners with the Father, the Son and and that if I would ask, You would fill He had—to see that His mission the Holy Ghost. We are in a divine me with Your Spirit and give me the was fulfilled for all ages. How do we connection that God put in place ability to speak with other tongues put into words how much we adore for the sake of this world. We work (Luke 11:13; Acts 2:4). and appreciate Him for letting us be together with God in His great plan.

I take You at Your Word. I confess that partners in His plan? We know one He has empowered us to do the part Jesus is Lord. And I believe in my heart thing—it’s all for this purpose and we are to do. He has anointed us that You raised Him from the dead.

Thank You for coming into my heart, for the day will soon be here...“ That as He said, to do far greater works giving me Your Holy Spirit as You have at the name of Jesus ever y knee than even He Himself could do promised, and for being Lord over my should bow, of things in heaven, and ( John 14:12). life. Amen. things in earth, and things under the God is constantly speaking to us, If you have just prayed this prayer, earth; and that every tongue should and telling us how to fulfill our part please contact us and let us know confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, of the partnership—where to go, to of your decision. We have a free to the glor y of God the Father” whom to speak, what to say. He Salvation Package we would like to (Philippians 2:10-11). has called together a fully cooperatsend you to help you begin your new life in Jesus! Simply write and ask for These are the words that say it ing body of believers, and we all offer #50801, check the circle on the all—JESUS IS LORD! V ictor y must be joined to someone else in

Jesus

Savior Lord,

response form in the center of this magazine or call (800) 575-4455.

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T h e G l o ry i s H e r e !

Get Totally Immersed at Kenneth Copeland Ministries 2006 Meetings

Great Lakes

Believers’ Convention

|

Kenneth Copeland

Gloria Copeland

Jerry Savelle

Jesse Duplantis

Creflo A. Dollar

Bill Winston

August 21-26

U.S. Cellular Arena | 400 W. Kilbourn Ave. Milwaukee, WI 53203

Gold Coast Victory Campaign

|

Also join Kenneth and Gloria at these meetings:

October 5-7

September 1-3 | Thunder Over Texas Jerry Savelle Ministries International Historic Granbury Town Square 100 E. Pearl St., Granbury, TX 76048 817-297-3155 | www.thunderovertexas.com

Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre Gold Coast Highway, Broadbeach Queensland, Australia Join Gloria Copeland for Healing School Saturday at 9:30 a.m.

Perth

| October 10-11 Victory Campaign Victory Life Centre | 1 Neil St. Osborne Park, WA 6917 Australia

Washington, D.C. Victory Campaign |

November 9-11

Hylton Memorial Chapel | 14640 Potomac Mills Road Woodbridge, VA 22192

Prayer Conference with Pastors George and Terri Pearsons September 15-16

September 10 2006 Annual Word of Faith Conference Living Word Christian Center 7306 W. Madison, Forest Park, IL 60130 708-697-5000 | www.livingwd.org

September 14 | 8 Days of Glory Voice of Victory Church | Canaan Land Ministries 499 County Road 165 | Autaugaville, AL 36003 334-365-2200

September 17-22 | Days of Refreshing Eagle Mountain International Church Kenneth Copeland Ministries Headquarters 14355 Morris-Dido Road, Newark, TX 76071 (not a mailing address) | 800-600-7395

October 22 | World Harvest Church 4595 Gender Road | Canal Winchester, OH 43110 614-837-1990

| Chandos Pattison Auditorium

10238 168 St. | Surrey, BC V4N 1Z4 Canada For more information contact KCM Canada 877-480-3388 | www.kcmcanada.ca

October 25-30 Prayer Mountain in the Ozarks Billye Brim Ministries P.O. Box 40, Branson, MO 65615 417-336-4877 | www.billyebrim.org

November 3-5 Living Word Christian Center

Unable to attend? Join us via a live video or audio broadcast at getimmersed.org!

Believers’ Conventions will also feature: Superkid Academy | For kids, ages 6-12!

Commander Kellie

Join us for Superkid Academy with Commanders Dana and Linda Johnson and special appearances by Commander Kellie! It’s like a full week of Superkid Camp for FREE! And don’t miss Saturday…where you can be a part of our very own Healing School. See you there, cadets!

Victory Campaigns will feature: Speakers: Kenneth and Gloria Copeland Commanders Dana and Linda Johnson

Praise and worship by the KCM band

9301 75th Ave. N., Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 763-315-7000 | www.lwcc.org Admission is FREE. Meetings are subject to change without notice. For updated information, please log on to getimmersed.org or call the KCM office nearest you.

Partners and Friends within the United States call 800-600-7395. Partners and Friends within Canada call 877-480-3388.

One Word From God Can Change Your Life Forever! Be a voice of victory...Bring a friend!

Canada We’re Here for You—East to West

KCM

Canada celebr ates 30 year s of ministr y in 2006! Since the office first opened in 1976, we have never taken a step backward. Ever y step has been a move forward in all the Lord has planned through par tnership with people across the nation. | David Styles, the KCM Canada director, dec lares, “O ur heart is for our Partners in Canada. Everything we do through this ministry office we do to touch them more personally. Canada is a big country, and reaching all our Partners f rom East to West is a big job. We continually seek the Lord for His plan to best ser ve everyone across the nation.

“I was a Partner with the ministry six or seven years before I even realized KCM had an office in Canada,” says David. He and his family became Partners with KCM more than 16 years ago through the Believer’s Voice of Victory magazine. Today, they view ser ving KCM as a “family affair.” As staff members, he and his wife, Joan, have been serving their fellow Partners in Canada for more than two years—for them, a dream come true.

The Partners and Friends of KCM Canada were touched personally by the Copeland family last October, when Pastor Terri Copeland Pearsons ministered in several churches in British Columbia.

Heart for Partners

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We love the people of Canada—our Partners and Friends. We love having been here for 30 years. Our experiences have gone from good to great.

We thank the Lord for all of you.

—Kenneth Copeland, May 13, 2006

Her messages touched the people deeply as she encouraged them to develop a strong prayer life by having a living, vibrant personal relationship with Jesus and diligently keeping in the love of God. | In July 2005, the ministry moved into its new, debt-f ree ministr y center in Langley, British Columbia. May 13, 2006, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland dedicated the new ministr y center with Kenneth ending the day ’s events by praying: Enlarged Space—Enlarged Ministry

O Father in heaven, we receive this facility as a treasure f rom heaven. You have chosen to place Your Name here. We thank You for it.

And now this facility belongs to KCM and all of its Partners. We receive it. We dedicate it and commit its use—100 percent—to the Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and to everything He stands for. We dedicate and commit it to preach the gospel of the kingdom all over Canada and all the rest of the world. This is

God’s and our property.

We commit it to You, Lord Jesus, and its ministry to Your people. “ We have so much space!

David Styles We have become much more efficient and effective in all our ministry activities,” Styles said. “ We are grateful to have consistently shipped more than 45,000 product orders out our door and into the hands of Partners and Friends across the nation—with a 24-hour turnaround!”

H e w e n t o n t o s a y, “ KC M C a n a d a h a d a n increase of 1500 Partners in the last year. During that time, the sale of ministr y materials has also increased significantly. “ The new French version of the From Faith to Faith devotional—Le Triomphe de la Foi—is making a huge impact on our nation,” Styles said. “And, our most noticeable increase has been in incoming calls—up 24 percent. The new facility and stateof-the-art telephone technology have enabled us to both receive and respond better to the needs, prayer requests and praise reports of our Partners and Friends across the nation.” | This year Canada Partners received their first newsletter f rom the KCM Canada Ministr y Center. The purpose for this publication is to keep the Partners and Friends updated on all God is doing through their partnership. The newsletter is dedicated to our Canadian ministry family highlighting their testimonies and showing how their financial gifts are ministering throughout Canada and evangelizing the world.

KC M C a n a d a’s t w i c e - s o w n s e e d — t h e f i r s t 1 0 p e rc e n t o f a l l c on t r i b u t i on s re c e i ve d f rom Par tners and Fr iends—is changing lives across the countr y. It helps se veral pr ison ministr ies, sponsors evangelistic outreaches to people of all ages in many cities and ministers to several First Nations communities.

Styles says, “We want to be more to our Partners and Fr iends than just a ministr y facilit y or a P.O. box. We want to be their personal point of contact. Our prayer is that the Lord continues to enlarge us in every way to allow us to better connect with our Partners and Friends.”

Learn more about KCM Canada by visiting us at www.kcmcanada.ca.

Reaching Further in 2006

“The new facility and state-of-the-art telephone technology have enabled us to both receive and respond better to the needs, prayer requests and praise reports of our Partners and Friends across the nation.”

Many of our Partners and Friends have let us know how our enhanced Web site has helped them.

In the last year we received 45,000 mail pieces and sent out more than 147,000. And our greatest joy has been in shipping 7500 Salvation Packages this year.

Praise the Lord! Ever y day we receive testimonies of how the TV broadcast is affecting lives of people across Canada as it reaches a potential 30 million viewers. V ictor y

testimonies Kenneth Copeland Ministries

in prayer, resources and

Canada has been a continual

finances is so valuable to

anchor of love and support

us—together we are seeing

through the years. Your love

men become free to stand

for the First Nations people

on a solid foundation.

of Canada has helped carry

Daniel Snyder | Wagner Hills Farm

us throughout the nation reaching reserves that previ-

I just wanted to thank

ously seemed unreachable.

you for this Web site and

Your generous supply of

all it offers. We have just

books, tapes and Bibles

subscribed to high-speed

has also been invaluable

Internet and can now

to the work that NAWO is

watch all your programs

doing. The partnership of

on our computer. Thank you,

KCM Canada has been a

thank you!

true blessing.

E.M.

Brownie Bounds North American Word Outreach (NAWO)

You will be so pleased that our daughters, ages 8 and

Wagner Hills Farm is a

5 years, asked Jesus into

Christian organization with

their hearts on Jan. 23, 2006.

a ministry primarily to men

Your TV program and tapes

with addictive lifestyles. Our

are always on in our home

mission is to raise men to be

and in our car. Your devo-

the leaders God has called

tional is part of our daily

them to be in their families,

routine. Thank you, Kenneth

churches and communi-

and Gloria, for your minis-

ties, positively impacting

try, and thank You, Lord,

their nation and the world.

for drawing our girls close

KCM Canada believes God’s

to You!

Word is the life-transforming

S.D. | Ontario

power of God. That is why your partnership and support

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Take Your Healing—by Faith!

by Gloria Copeland

Take it! That’s exactly what you have to do if you want to obtain healing.

In fact, in every area of life obtaining the victory boils down to one thing: Just take God at His Word. What He says—what is written in His Word—is the absolute truth and it really will work if we will only take hold of it. | The fact of the matter is, healing is no problem for the Lord. The only hard part is getting people to believe what He has said about it so they can receive their healing.

Perhaps even now you are going around that mountain of unbelief and getting nowhere fast.

If so, you can take drastic faith action!

God has given each of us the choice. He said it this way: “I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19). We must choose to take what God has offered. And we must do that—“by force” Matthew 11:12 says.

If you need a healing, you can’t sit back and wait for God to drop it down on you. You have to do what it takes so you can rise up in faith and take what rightfully belongs to you!

Taking requires active faith. Having faith in God and His Word is the bottom-line answer to every problem regardless of what others may say. People are not short of well-meaning advice. I’m sure you’ve figured that out, especially if you are believing God for healing. More than likely, you’ve also figured out that most of what people say is not productive advice. I can tell you from experience, the answers that actually work are found in one place—the Word.

God’s Word has the power within it to bring itself to pass. Not only that, God’s Word teaches us to think His way which is the higher, better and smarter way (Isaiah 55:8-11). That becomes possible when His Word, His way of thinking, crowds out other thoughts and ideas.

Then you can pray in faith and receive what you need.

Faith Believes It Takes!

“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray,” Jesus said, “believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). That word receive is an action word. It means “to take.” We could say, “What things soever you desire when you pray, believe that you take them.” That is a brief lesson on faith right there! Faith believes it takes what is needed when it prays. That’s exactly what we must do when we pray for healing. We must take healing like a dog takes a bone. He clamps down hard on that bone and refuses to turn loose of it!

The fact is, you really haven’t prayed in faith if you pray about something, but don’t take it. If you get up from prayer saying, “I don’t have it. I’m still sick, I still feel bad,” then you didn’t take it…and you certainly don’t have it.

You simply cannot look at the circumstances to determine

whether or not you are healed. Second Corinthians 4:18 explains that you must “look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

See yourself taking your healing when you pray. See yourself in perfect health. Take it—by faith—and hold on to it. When you take it, you have it. And if you have it, you say you have it. You call “things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17).

To get to that point, read healing scriptures aloud and receive (take) each promise. Look at the scriptures with your eyes, and hear them with your ears as you speak them out your mouth. Rest assured they will get down into your heart and you’ll be able to release your faith.

You’ll say, “Thank You, Lord, I believe I’m healed and I take it!”

Be Relentless!

Years ago, my friend Dodie Osteen had to take healing in just that way. She was given a report that the cancer in her liver was fatal. The doctors offered no hope. So, Dodie went home from the hospital. She and her husband took forceful action! They stood in agreement on the healing promises in the Word of God. They confessed God’s Word over her body. They were relentless.

Dodie faithfully took those healing scriptures every day, just like medicine. She fought the good fight of faith by using the sword of the Word to resist fear and all the lies of the devil (Ephesians 6:17; James 4:7). It was a battle that took awhile, but Dodie was completely healed of cancer and remains free today. In fact, she has been cancer free for more than 22 years. She says she stays well by consistently taking God’s medicine.

Proverbs 4:20-22 explains this process for healing.

It says: “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.”

The Hebrew word translated health there means “medicine.” Healing scriptures are God’s medicine for your body. So, take that medicine daily, be relentless about it and take your healing.

The fact is, as a child of the living God you are more

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than a conqueror in Christ (Romans 8:37)! So, if you’re believing for healing, you can kick the devil out of your life with the Word of God! If it takes time to obtain a complete healing, don’t give up; be determined to persevere until you win! And, don’t fall prey to self-pity or seek sympathy from others. That is not what you need.

Faith is what you need.

Do the Heavy Lifting

Let ’s look at the important lesson Jesus taught His disciples about faith and receiving from God. In Mark 11, we find He charged them simply to “Have faith in God” (verse 22). By way of explanation about this scripture, the margin of my Bible says, “Have the faith of God.” Faith is imparted to us when we’re born again, and we are given “the measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). At that time, God gives us the same kind of faith He has. But, we have a responsibility to feed and grow our faith.

Faith for healing comes as we meditate on what God’s Word says about healing. When we read healing scriptures, we are building up our faith to obtain healing. A bodybuilder lifts weights consistently to build up his muscles. He becomes stronger day by day as he works out. We build up our faith in the same way—we exercise the healing scriptures over and over again until we become strong enough in faith to take our healing out of the realm of the spirit into the natural realm. Hebrews 11:1 says it this way: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Jesus told several people who received healing that it was their faith that made them whole. (See Matthew 9:22; Mark 10:52 and Luke 17:19.) And, faith will work for you the same way it worked for those mentioned in the Bible.

God is present where faith is present. Faith causes the supernatural healing power of God to come on the scene and override natural diseases and circumstances.

The Word of Faith

I’m sure you realize faith for healing won’t come by reading secular magazines or comic books. To build your faith, you must read the Bible and believe it is God speaking to you. Romans 10:17 explains, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Find scriptures that apply to your situation and take hold of those promises and apply them to your life.

That’s the truth that changed my life—knowing that the Bible is God’s Word to me, and I can take it and do something with it ( John 17:17).

The Bible tells us what God says about things. Men

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of old, anointed of the Holy Spirit, wrote down what came out of the heart of God. In regard to healing, they wrote things like “by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

The born-again spirit is a receptacle for the Word of God. His words get into us when we consistently take them in through our eyes and ears. From there His lifegiving words go down into our hearts, or our spirits and affect our entire body.

So, if you need healing, feed on healing scriptures daily. Your faith increases according to how much time you spend in God’s Word. When the Word gets down into your heart and overflows out your mouth in faith— healing will manifest!

Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, “For out of the fullness (the overflow, the superabundance) of the heart the mouth speaks” (The Amplif ied Bible). What you continually say with your mouth is what you are enjoying or struggling with in your life today. Your words either open or shut the door to the power of God working in your situation. They also open or shut the door on the devil. So if you catch yourself saying things you don’t desire in your life, repent and change your words. Speak only what you want to come to pass.

God’s Word and Your Words Are Powerful!

Every word you say is important. To have faith for healing operating in your life, you must have confidence not only in God’s Word, but in your words. Mark 11:23 says, “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.”

Faith comes by hearing and goes by saying. Faith is released by your words.

Faith is believing what God says in His Word regardless of what any person, circumstance or the devil may say. And faith speaks what the Word says. When you take the Word into your heart and it comes out through your voice, it becomes God’s Word applied to the problem. If you will keep your words in agreement with God’s Word, they will change your natural circumstances. Or, as Jesus said, “The truth shall make you free” ( John 8:32).

But if you read the Word with traditional eyes, not believing the promises are for you, you disqualify yourself f rom receiving those promises. It takes faith— believing in God and His Word—for the Word to transform your situation.

Receive the Word as truth. Then say, “That’s God speaking to me. I can have it. I take it!”

That’s faith.

Possess the Land

After you have received God’s Word for healing by faith, begin to do what you couldn’t do before. James 1:22 says we must be doers of the Word, not hearers only.

The children of Israel in the wilderness are a good example of what happens to hearers who are not doers.

Through Moses, God told this nation of people He had given them the land. At one point, Moses basically told them the Lord said they had been going around the same mountain long enough (Deuteronomy 1:6). Have you ever felt like that? Perhaps even now you are going around that mountain of unbelief and getting nowhere fast!

If so, you can take drastic faith action!

What God said to the children of Israel applies to you as well. He said: “Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers…to give unto them and to their seed after them” (verse 8).

God had promised them the land. But possessing it wasn’t automatic. He was telling them to go armed and take it. That was the only way they were going to get it.

If you need healing, that’s how you must possess it too!

You must take it!

Take It by Force!

Healing belongs to you and to me. God has given us great promises in His Word, including promises of health and wholeness. He sent Jesus to die on the cross to redeem us from sin and sickness. Galatians 3:13 says, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us….” The curse includes every sickness and every disease (Deuteronomy 28:15-68).

Jesus’ sacrifice paid for us to be redeemed from them all.

As far as God is concerned, that settles the issue of healing. It’s all done. There’s nothing left for Him to do. Healing belongs to us in Christ Jesus, and yet it’s not automatic. It’s up to us to receive it.

If you need healing, take it! Take it with your faith, and with your words. Believe you receive it and don’t waver.

V ictor y

God Wants You Healed…and so do we! That’s why we’ve created the How to Receive Your Healing Package—a special collection of materials that will encourage you and build your faith as you stand for your healing. Package includes: Healing and Love—Kenneth Copeland shows how walking in love goes hand in hand with receiving your healing.

Healing School: Know Him as Healer— Gloria Copeland teaches how to take God’s Word like medicine and receive its healing power.

Plus, we’ll also include Brother Copeland’s Declaration of Faith for his own healing,

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and You Are Healed, a powerful pamphlet with scriptural confessions, healing promises, a

How to Receive Your Healing Package | CDN$35 #B060908

Healing and Love 6-message series on 8 CDs Healing School: Know Him as Healer single DVD Declaration of Faith brochure You Are Healed pamphlet

special healing prayer and more.

Order now!

See response form for ordering information.

Kenneth & Gloria Copeland

D.C.

Washington Get Immersed at the

November 9-11

Victory Campaign

the Glory Storm is Here

Meetings are subject to change without notice. For updated information, please log on to getimmersed.org or call the KCM office nearest you. | Partners and Friends within the United States call 800-600-7395. | Partners and Friends within Canada call 877-480-3388.

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Join Gloria Copeland for Healing School Saturday, November 11 at 9:30 a.m.