Kenneth Copeland Ministries has been publishing the Believer’s Voice of Victory magazine for more than 40 years. Receive your positive, faith-filled magazine FREE each month, subscribe today at www.freevictory.com.
Issue link: http://magazine.kcm.org/i/1274054
God will give you the same kind of wisdom. If you’re on the right track, like Bill and Veronica were, He’ll help you fill out your card just like He did for them. If you’re on the wrong track, like I was about that million dollars, He’ll show you what you need to do. Either way, your prayer will be more effective because you will have determined exactly what you want from God, prioritized and gotten specific about it, which is the first step to prayer that brings results. The second step is this: Find scriptures that promise what you’re asking for. Don’t just rattle off a few familiar verses. Be deliberate about it and build a solid scriptural foundation for your prayer. Open your Bible and locate specific verses and promises that fit your case. Then write them down in the form of a petition. Faith begins where the will of God is known. So, once you know your petition is based on Bible facts and promises, you can bring it before God with boldness. Given that in Christ all the promises of God are yes, and amen (2 Corinthians 1:20), and that God wouldn’t promise you something He doesn’t want you to have, be certain you’re asking in line with God’s will. “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him” (1 John 5:14-15). “But Brother Copeland, what if I make my petition and I don’t feel like God heard me?” Faith isn’t based on feelings; it’s based on The WORD of God. The WORD is true no matter how you feel, so once you’ve prayed, keep The WORD as your central focus. Put your petition scriptures where you can see them all the time. Stick them on the mirror, on the refrigerator and on the dashboard of your car. Then, as you continually rehearse them, take the third step to prayer that brings results: Fix those scriptures firmly not only in your mind but in your heart. Meditate on God’s Promises Meditate on them “day and night,” as Joshua 1:8 says, “that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.” Notice that verse says to meditate on God’s WORD that you may observe: that you may see, not with your physical eyes but with the eyes of faith, The WORD coming to pass in your life. The more you saturate your thinking with the scriptures, the more real they become in you. They move from your brain down into your spirit and enable you to see yourself with the answer to your prayer. Once you can see it, you can have it. Your faith boils over, and suddenly you just know that you know that you know it’s yours! I remember one time in particular when that happened to me. I’d just started my traveling ministry, and our family was believing for a new Buick station wagon to carry all of our stuff with us on the road. We knew exactly what kind we wanted and even had pictures of it. We’d located our scriptures, sowed the seed for it and prayed. As the days and weeks went by, we kept talking about it and getting more excited. One day, I was driving down the road in our old car, and my son, John, who was just a little boy at the time, was riding in the passenger seat. “Daddy,” he said, “we have our station wagon!” “We sure do,” I replied. “Well, let’s go get it!” he said. Even as young as he was, what we were believing for had become a reality to him. That station wagon had dropped down into his heart, and he believed it was ours. When he said, “Let’s go get it,” his faith sparked mine. BVOV : 7