BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The human race without Jesus is going toward death. In order to reach toward life, you must turn around to go upstream. And it takes a lot of strength to row upstream. It takes effort not to live the way the world lives—in doubt, fear, poverty and failure. All you have to do to get in doubt and unbelief is relax your faith in God a little. The negative tide of this world will just sweep you downstream. Poverty comes just as easily! All you have to do to be poor is to go to bed. The Bible says, “A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to lie down and sleep—so will your poverty come like a robber...” (Proverbs 6:10-11, The Amplified Bible). Prosperity takes hard work and diligence. You can’t get it by sleeping your life away. To resist poverty, fear, doubt and disease demands strength—lots of it! That’s why your entire being continually cries out for strength. If you don’t stay alert, Satan will take advantage of that need and lie to you. He’ll tell you that strength is in dope. He’ll tell you it’s in alcohol. He’ll tell you it’s in food. He’ll tell you that it’s in sex. Now sex is a good thing, but God didn’t design it to live on. When people get it out of its proper perspective, it’ll destroy them like a rattlesnake. Death is connected to adultery. It doesn’t bring life and peace. Adultery produces death and destruction. The strength you really need can only come from one source: the joy of The LORD. Joy is the strength you need to go upstream in a downstream world. So now the questions arise, where does joy come from, and how do I release it? Joy comes from The WORD of God. Galatians 5:22 shows us joy is a fruit of the spirit. It is a spiritual force born into the spirit of man at the time of conversion along with faith, love, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness and temperance. It’s really not something we have to “get.” It’s already in every born-again believer. Because of its kinship to faith, it’s easy to apply many of the same verses that talk about faith to joy. Romans 10:17, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Joy also comes by hearing The WORD. First John 1:4 lets us know that. So, joy is a product of The WORD like everything else that comes from God. Don’t look for it to come from other sources. It’s inside you—look there as you meditate The WORD. Joy comes from a revelation of Jesus, which is a revelation of the Father—Almighty God. I discovered this vital truth by meditating the things Jesus told His disciples just before He went to the cross. At the end of His earthly ministry, The LORD made the following statement to His disciples. He astounded them by saying, “It is expedient [or more profitable] for you that I go away” (John 16:7). You have to understand why those men were so astonished by this statement. It was difficult for them to believe that it was better for them if Jesus left. While He was in their midst their every need was met. He calmed the storms. He fed the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes. He raised the dead and healed the sick. Obviously, while He was with them everything was better than it had ever been before. Yet, Jesus said, “It is better for you that I go away.” ****KC continues on next page**** ****************************** The Truth Will Make You Free by Gloria Copeland Do you ever long to be absolutely free of selfishness? Do you yearn to throw off every fleshly bondage and hindrance so you can walk fully in love? As amazing as it seems, we can do it! Jesus told us how: “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:31-32, New American Standard Bible). That’s why, again and again, we must meditate on the truths in the Word that tell us we’ve been made partakers of God’s divine and loving nature. We must continually grow in our revelation of the fact that God’s love has been shed abroad in our hearts. The more fully and deeply we come to know that truth, the freer we will be! It simply doesn’t work for us to try to free ourselves out of sheer, human self-discipline from our unloving habits and behaviors. It doesn’t work when, by the force of our own efforts, we try to make ourselves “act nice.” When we do that, we inevitably fail, and get frustrated and discouraged with ourselves. As a result, we end up more irritable and short-tempered than we were before! The only way we can truly succeed at walking in love is by drawing on the grace of God within us. The only way we can truly love like Jesus loves is by letting His nature, which dwells within our reborn human spirits, flow out through us. The more we know about His nature, the more we can do that. As 2 Peter 1:2 says, God’s grace is multiplied to us through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord! That’s true in every area of the Christian life. We can’t receive something from God that we don’t know about. We have to hear the truth about it. Then, when we hear it, faith comes. As we believe and begin to act on that truth, we see the power of it go to work in our lives. So dig into the Word and find out more about the loving nature of God that abides in you. Meditate on it. Confess it and say, “God’s love lives in me!” Then, begin to act by faith, and the bondages of the flesh will be broken. You will know the truth, and it will make you free! V “Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” 2 Peter 1:2-4 ******************* MAR '14 : BVOV : 19

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