BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Victorious Living A Word About Your Children by Gloria Copeland The world has much to say about your children these days—and most of it is bad. We’re being told their economic futures are bleak, their ethics are waning and, for the most part, they’re on a downward slide. But if you’ve made Jesus Lord of your life, God has something very different to say about your children. He says they’re headed for heaven, not hell. For a blessing, not a curse. So ignore the world and trust the Word. It has the power to turn your children’s lives around! Here are some scriptures that will help you stay focused on God’s promises regarding your children. • “Thus saith the Lord; Refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord; and [your children] shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end, saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own border” (Jeremiah 31:16-17). • “And all thy children shall be taught of the Lord; and great shall be the peace of thy children.” (Isaiah 54:13) • “...The seed of the righteous shall be delivered.” (Proverbs 11:21) • “...Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed.” (Psalm 112:1-2) • “...I will contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy children.” (Isaiah 49:25) • “The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.” (Psalm 145:9) • “...I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring” (Isaiah 44:3). • “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.” (Isaiah 59:21) V * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * continued from p. 5 * * * * * It’s understandable for the world to have that attitude. But it ought to be totally foreign to us, as believers. It’s not compatible with our identity. It’s not who we are! We’re of the same spirit that was on Daniel in the Old Testament, and the Bible says that he had the exact opposite of an “oh-that’s-good-enough” spirit. It says that after he was taken captive by the Babylonians as a young Jewish teenager and conscripted into government service, “This Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him” (Daniel 6:3). Who was the “excellent spirit” in Daniel? The Spirit of the living God! The same Spirit who’s in you and me, as believers. We’ve been born again of God’s “excellent greatness.” We’ve been made joint heirs with the King of all kings. (What’s the title of a king? Your Excellency!) We’ve been made kings in Him, inherited His “excellent name” and His “excellent glory.” We have an excellent heritage because our spiritual DNA is exactly like His. (See Psalm 150:2; Hebrews 1:4; 2 Peter 1:17.) One of the first people who helped me understand this was Brother Oral Roberts. Back when I was a student at Oral Roberts University, serving as part of his ministry team, he often talked to us about excellence. He said if we were going to demand it of the students, we must demand it of ourselves. Having a sloppy attitude could cost you your job on Brother Roberts’ team. But he wasn’t unfair about it. He set the example for us by living and ministering in excellence himself. “Well,” someone might say, “that was just his personality. It was because he was a perfectionist.” No, it was because he knew that excellence is a hallmark of God’s power, that it’s connected to the manifestation of His glory and His Anointing. He had a revelation of what the Apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:7: “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” Brother Roberts understood that the excellency of the power and glory of God is already in every one of us as believers, and it’s our responsibility to release it. To stir up that excellent power and put it to work in our lives. Golden Vessel? Or Clay Pot? In Philippians 3, the Apostle Paul wrote about how he did this in his own life. He said, “I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ” (verse 8, italics mine). The word Christ literally translated means “the Anointed One and His Anointing.” So what Paul really said was that he counted all things loss compared to knowing and winning the excellency of the Anointing of Jesus. “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing…forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in [the Anointed One and His Anointing].” (Philippians 3:13-14). I press toward the prize! That’s what all of us, as believers, ought to be saying. We ought to have the attitude that this is the one thing we do above all: We reach forward with everything in us to lay hold of the excellence of the anointing that’s ours in Jesus. We don’t want to have a sloppy, second-place mindset where walking in the power and Anointing of God is concerned. Paul certainly didn’t. He didn’t approach his spiritual race saying, “Well, you win a few and you lose a few.” No, his attitude was you “run in such a way that you will win.” (See 1 Corinthians 9:24, "New Living Translation") That’s what he was telling us to do in 2 Timothy 2. Referring to us as vessels in the house of God he said: “But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work” (verses 20-21). 6 : BVOV

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