BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

He had a plan for me, and He has a plan for you too! Well, I'd sure like to know what it is, you might think, because I certainly don't like the way things are in my life right now! That's exactly how Ken and I felt right before we discovered and got on board with God's plan for us. Although we'd been born again for several years, nothing was working for us. God was trying to lead us. He had put it in Ken's heart to go to Oral Roberts University, but Ken didn't see how that was possible. I have a wife and family to support, he thought. I can't move to Tulsa and become a student at ORU. I don't have the money! He wasn't intentionally being rebellious. We just didn't know anything about living by faith back then. We had no revelation from the Word of God to go on. So rather than trusting God and going where He was directing us to go, we just kept going the wrong way. As a result, we experienced one failure after another. Already in debt, the fi nancial hole we were in just kept getting deeper. Then, we had a bad car wreck. Our son, John, who was just a baby at the time, broke his rib and I was hurt as well. God preserved us, but we knew what had happened. We'd put ourselves in harm's way by getting out of God's will. That was it for us. We couldn't stand it anymore. We decided to go with God's plan, no matter what it took. That's often what it's like when you're in the position we were in back then. You don't know enough of God's Word to trust Him and His plan. So, you go your own way until you can't stand it anymore. Then you say, "OK, I surrender!" and you go after God. You get serious about seeking Him and His ways. You put His Word fi rst place, believe and act on it, and begin to get with His plan for your life. Once you do, you start fi nding out how good He is and how good His plan is. As His plan keeps unfolding, you realize it never runs out. He always has something new and better for you. Looking back now, I think about how far God has brought Ken and me and what He has done with us, and I'm amazed. It's beyond anything we could have dreamed of! Yet the Lord had it planned all along. I know He did, because shortly after we moved to Tulsa, Ken was praying one day down by the Arkansas River, and God talked to him about winning nations. Nations? We were so broke we could hardly a ord to get across town. Yet even then, God had an international ministry planned for us. God Has No Ordinary Children "But Gloria," somebody might say, "I'm not called to have an international ministry like you and Brother Copeland are. I'm just an ordinary believer." You aren't ordinary! God has no ordinary children. If you've made Jesus the Lord of your life, you are born of God. You've been re-created in His image by His Spirit—and that makes you extraordinary. It also means you are very important to Him, and so is whatever He's called you to do. If you're a parent with several children, you know how that is. You don't have one child who's important and another who's not. All of your children are important and precious. Each one of them, while they have di erent gifts and callings, is part of you. They're your own fl esh and blood. For God, the same is true about you. You're part of Him. You're as much His child as Jesus Himself is. According to Ephesians 1:4, God actually picked you out for Himself as His own in Christ before the foundation of the world (Amplifi ed Bible, Classic Edition). How could He not have extraordinary plans for you? That wouldn't even make sense! What's more, it would contradict the Bible. Time and again it 2 8 : B V O V 2 Trust God's ability to work out His plan for you regardless of your circumstances. (Rom. 8:28, AMPC) 3 God picked you out for Himself in Christ and prepared a calling for you. (Eph. 2:10, AMPC) 4 Claim for yourself the promises God made to Abraham's seed about their Promised Land. (Gal. 3:29) 1 Even if you don't yet know what it is, believe God has a good plan for you. (Jer. 29:11) 5 Put God and His Word fi rst place in your life and be attentive to the leadings of His Spirit. (1 Cor. 2:9–10) POINTS TO GET YOU THERE: You're as much His child as Jesus Himself is.... God actually picked you out for Himself as His own in Christ before the foundation of the world.

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