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VICTORY LIVE
BRANSON, MISSOURI
April 2-4, 2020
With Kenneth Copeland & Jerry Savelle
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* * * * article from p. 4 continues * * * *
Why? Because, if we do that, by the time we’re 120 years old we’ll be walking in so much of the power and life of God, that people will say about us what they said about Peter and John in Acts 4:13, that surely “they had been with Jesus!”
That’s what believing for long life and increasing impact in ministry is all about. It’s not just about us chalking up a lot of birthdays, or people being impressed with us. It’s about them being impressed with Jesus. It’s about us being vessels through which God can increasingly touch people’s lives and manifest the light of His kingdom in this sin-darkened world.
One of the people in the Bible we can look to as an example of this is Daniel. An Old Testament Jew, he was taken captive as a teenager to Babylon and conscripted into the service of King Nebuchadnezzar. He started out as simply a servant, but he kept being promoted from one government position to another. He shone so brightly in that secular, ungodly environment that eventually he became so highly respected that during the reign of King Darius: “It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; and over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage. Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm” (Daniel 6:1-3).
Think about that! Daniel went from being a servant in the palace to essentially being the prime minister. His influence grew until it affected the entire nation. Why did it happen? What caused him to be preferred above others?
An excellent spirit was found in him.
Mastering the Fundamentals
If Daniel could operate with that kind of excellence and have that much impact under the Old Covenant, think what we can do as New Covenant believers!
We’ve been born again in the image of Jesus, about whom God said “from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We’re partakers of His “excellent ministry.” We’ve been made one with Him and inherited His most “excellent name.” (See 2 Peter 1:17; Hebrews 8:6, 1:4.)
By our very nature in Christ, we’re created to excel!
To excel means “to go to the highest place or to prosper.” It’s what God was talking to me about that day in Lagos. He was saying that, like Daniel, we’re to operate with such excellence that in our walk with Him and our ministry to other people, we continually advance.
“But Brother Copeland, how exactly can I make sure I do that? What practical steps can I take to make sure I keep moving forward, so that I don’t wake up in five or 10 years and find that I’m still in the same place I am now?"
For one thing, you can continue to develop yourself in the basics of faith.
6 : BVOV
