BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** "Faith Opens Prison Doors" Don’t allow debt, lack, sickness or fear keep you behind bars! Learn how faith and the words you speak will work together to bring deliverance, soundness and healing to every area of your life. Order today and step into freedom! "Faith Opens Prison Doors" by Gloria Copeland 2 CDs $5.95 reg $10 #B190702 kcm.org/mag 1-800-600-7395 U.S. only FREE standard shipping included. Offer price valid until July 31, 2019 ********************************************* * * * * article from p. 27 continues * * * * Jesus said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32). So, from those early days when we first began learning about faith until now, we’ve continued in God’s Word. We’ve put it first place in our lives, believed it and obeyed it. We enjoy being free, and God’s written Word is our freedom Book. It tells us how to think, talk and act in such a way that God can be free to come into our lives and work supernaturally all the time. It tells us how to walk by faith, and the more we do that the freer we get because faith opens prison doors! Victors, Not Victims “Well,” someone might say, “I don’t think we can really be free from things like sickness and lack on this earth, because it’s been corrupted by sin. Since Adam’s Fall in the Garden of Eden the curse has been operating here.” Yes, it’s operating here, all right, but we, as believers, don’t have to live in bondage to it. We’ve been liberated from it by Jesus. As Galatians 3 says, He “redeemed us from the curse…being made a curse for us…that the blessing” might come on us (verses 13-14). He paid the penalty for sin so that we could be made righteous and victorious, be well and prosperous, and have every need met. The Bible is clear about that. What’s more it just makes spiritual sense. After all, we’re God’s children and He’s a good Father. We can learn a lot from Him when it comes to being good parents. If we had 10 children, would we want five of them to be prosperous and five to be poor? Would we want eight of them to be sick and two of them to be healed? No! As good parents, we’d want all our children to be thriving in every way—and that’s what God wants too. He doesn’t want us to be dominated by the negative conditions in this world. He doesn’t want us to be victims of the devil and the demonic corruption he’s brought on this earth. On the contrary, God created us to be victors. He said it plainly in 1 John 5:4: “Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Faith has always made God’s people overcomers! We see it even in the Old Testament with the Israelites. Time and again, the amount of victory they experienced corresponded directly to their level of faith. When they came out of Egypt, for instance, they believed and acted on what God said and His power was present to heal, prosper and deliver them from their enemies. “He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes” (Psalm 105:37). When they got to the Promised Land, on the other hand, they got into unbelief and God couldn’t do much for them. They doubted His Word, got out from under His BLESSING, and wound up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. We see the same principle at work in the New Testament in Jesus’ ministry. When people didn’t believe what He preached, He couldn’t help them very much. When they did, He could work miracles for them. He could minister to them the healing, delivering, liberating power of God. He was free to prosper them exceedingly. That’s what happened with blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10. He was sitting outside Jericho begging one day when Jesus passed by. He’d heard that Jesus preached recovery of sight to the blind, and because he believed it, he started hollering, “Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me” (verse 47). He made such a ruckus that the people around him told him to hush, but he refused to be silenced. He kept crying out more and more, “Thou son of David, have mercy on me,” until eventually…“Jesus stood still, and commanded him to be called. ... And Jesus answered and said unto him, What wilt thou that I should do unto thee? The blind man said unto him, Lord, that I might receive my sight. And Jesus said unto him, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole. And immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way” (verses 48-49, 51-52). To the world, Bartimaeus was a nobody. He was just an old beggar, hopelessly imprisoned by blindness. But his faith got Jesus’ attention. It stopped Jesus in His tracks and opened the door for Him to set Bartimaeus free. 28 : BVOV

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