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Issue link: http://magazine.kcm.org/i/1525256
B V O V : 2 7 ever achieve on our own as the heavens are above the earth (Isaiah 55:9). When Ken and I began living by faith in God's Word back in 1966, we could not have even begun to think of everything God had planned for us. We wouldn't have known how to even imagine all the blessings He has poured out on us over the past 58 years, and He isn't fi nished yet. He has more in store for us, just as He has more in store for you. You can never catch up with God! His ever- increasing blessing stretches out so far in front of you that, according to Ephesians 2:7, you'll be experiencing "the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness" for "ages to come." His goodness is so vast that no matter how long you walk with Him, you can never exhaust it. Just thinking of it makes me want to say to God, as the psalmist did, "Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!" (Psalm 31:19). The words laid up in that verse really thrill me. They remind me that God isn't just creating what we need as we need it. Although that would be wonderful enough, He's done more. He has already prepared and provided for each of us everything we need to fulfi ll His wonderful call on our life and to be everything He has planned for us to be. It's already there in the heavenly realm, stored up and waiting for us. How do we get it from the heavenly realm into this earthly realm? By faith. As Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith is the spiritual force that causes the blessings that God promised us in the Bible to manifest in this natural world. Whatever we're hoping for—whether it's healing, fi nances, a new home or car, or whatever—faith turns that hope into a tangible substance, into something we can feel and spend and drive. Faith in God's Word is the way we receive everything from God! It's the way we received the new birth and the way we maintain our walk with Him. That's why it's important that we continually check up on ourselves in that area. "But Gloria," you might say, "I don't know how to do that. Unlike in my car, I don't have a physical gauge I can check that tells me if I have any fuel in my faith tank." Yes, you do! Jesus said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matthew 12:34). And the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:13 that "we having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak." So, according to both Jesus and Paul, your mouth is your spiritual gas gauge! You can listen to what you're saying and fi nd out if you're walking in the spirit of faith. If you're dealing with symptoms of sickness for example, and you're consistently confessing that by Jesus' stripes you were healed (1 Peter 2:24), you know you have the faith necessary for healing to manifest in your body. If you're talking about how sick you are, you don't. If, in the face of a pile of overdue bills, you're consistently saying, "My God supplies all my needs according to His riches in glory" (Philippians 4:19), you know you have the faith for the fi nances you need. If you're talking about your inadequate bank balance, you don't. "Faith is the spiritual force that causes the blessings that God promised us in the Bible to manifest in this natural world." by Gloria Copeland