BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** 2018 events Teaching You How to Use Your Faith Southwest Believers’ Convention / Fort Worth, Texas July 30-Aug. 4 Hidden Springs, Ariz. : Aug. 17 Healing of the Nations Motorcycle Rally cofaz.org Brooklyn Park, Minn. : Aug. 23-24 2018 Upper Midwest Faith Explosion lwcc.org Orlando Victory Campaign Orlando, Fla. / Aug. 30-Sept. 1 Dallas, Texas : Sept. 7 Jesus Regional Dallas jesusimage.tv Forest Park, Ill. : Sept. 10-11 2018 International Faith Conference billwinston.org or livingwd.org Charlotte Victory Campaign Charlotte, N.C. / Sept. 20-22 Branson, Mo. : Oct. 19-22 Autumn Assembly of Prayer billyebrim.org/events Autaugaville, Ala. : Oct. 26 Greater Glory Canaan Land canaanland.com Washington, D.C. Victory Campaign Woodbridge, Va. / Nov. 8-10 register now kcm.org/events FREE EVENTS* 1-800-600-7395 (U.S. only) * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Built to Last Men’s Conference Newark, Texas / Sept. 14-15 Eagle Mountain International Church (fee required) *Except where a fee is noted Schedule is subject to change without notice. Contact the host church for details! ********************************************** * * * * * * article continues * * * * * * I remember an experience I had a few years ago that gave me a sense of what Eden must have been like. I was sitting in a meeting, waiting to preach, and from the platform I was watching the people in the congregation. They were all praising God and enjoying His presence. Everyone was singing, jumping up and down, shouting, and getting happy. Suddenly, I heard The LORD speak to me as plain as can be. 'If it hadn’t been for sin,' He said, 'I never would have had a serious thought!' I realized when I heard that, God isn’t somber by nature like most people think. He’s joyful and likes to have fun. If it had just been up to Him, life on earth would have been one big Garden of Eden party. But satan got in and messed things up. He pulled his stupid stunt that Adam and Eve fell for, forfeiting THE BLESSING and opening the door to the curse. That didn’t change God’s original desire, though. He still wanted to treat us like sin never existed, and He had a plan that would allow Him to do it. His plan of Redemption would put us right back in the middle of His BLESSING and satisfy His great big heart of love. Understanding that love, is part of mastering the basics of faith. Since “faith…worketh by love” (Galatians 5:6), the more you know about and believe the love God has for you, the stronger the foundation of your faith will be. Forget Feelings, Believe The WORD! “Yeah, but Brother Copeland, that’s exactly where I struggle. I have a hard time feeling like God really loves me. Given all the times I’ve sinned and fallen short, I feel like He must be mad at me.” Then stop believing your feelings and start believing God’s WORD. According to The WORD, God loves you so much He wiped out all your sins. He put them on Jesus when He went to the cross and poured out on Him all His wrath about sin. He got rid of all His anger about it so that He could say to you what He’s wanted to say to mankind all along: "With great mercies will I gather thee…. with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee" (Isaiah 54:7-10). God isn’t mad at you over your sin! He couldn’t be. He left all His wrath about it at the cross. He doesn’t have any more. All He has for you now is mercy. What’s more, He wants you to know it! He wants you to be able to rest so completely in the fact that He’ll never be angry with you, He settled it in an oath that’s as irrevocable as the oath He swore to Noah after the Flood. You remember that one. It was instituted after the flood waters had receded. God said to Noah and his sons: "I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And…This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth (Genesis 9:11-16). Talk about a strong, unrelenting covenant! That one so marked the consciousness of mankind, most people still know about it today. You can go into any church anywhere and ask the question, “Is God ever going to destroy the earth again with a flood?” and everyone in the congregation will get the answer right. They’ll respond with a resounding, unequivocal, “No!” 6 : BVOV

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