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/311562
I don’t mean just living on what it says about your dreams (although that’s important) but about other things as well. Things like walking in love and holiness, for instance. We can’t live a loose and immoral life and truly believe God for the fulfillment of our dreams, because disobeying God in any area will undermine our faith. As supernatural receivers, our heart’s desire must be, first and foremost, to please God. Everything else must be secondary. This means we can’t just pick out the scriptures we like best and focus only on them. We can’t just concentrate on verses about increase, for example. Although it’s fun to increase (especially if you’ve been living in lack for a few years) if you want to have strong faith you must also pay attention to verses about tithing and obedience in every area of life. In other words, you must dedicate yourself to the whole will of God and follow the instructions in Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” As faith people, we aren’t supposed to be conformed to this world because it’s trying to go to hell fast. People who don’t know God are putting so much trash in front of their eyes and in their ears they hardly even know the Ten Commandments exist anymore. They watch so many ungodly television programs and movies they think sin is the normal way of life. But for us, as believers, sin is not normal. Holiness is normal. Obeying God and living by faith in Him is normal. That’s why another vital part of the faith program is spending time feeding our hearts and minds on God’s Word. The Word teaches us how God wants us to live. It provides us with exceedingly great and precious promises, makes us partakers of His divine nature, and empowers us to escape the corruption that is in this world (2 Peter 1:4). What’s more, “Faith cometh by hearing...the word of God” (Romans 10:17). So, as we read and meditate on the Word our faith grows stronger—and faith is what God needs from us to bring our dreams to pass. The Choice Is Yours The Bible is truly a supernatural book. No matter what is happening in your life at any given time, you can open the Bible every day and the Spirit of God will quicken to you the words you need to empower and sustain you. He will direct you to the scriptures that will move you toward the fulfillment of your dreams. Yet, as vital as the Bible is to your success, God won’t make you read it. He will let you choose your own level of faith. He’ll let you go as far with His Word as you choose. It depends on how much or how little attention you give it—how much you keep it in front of your eyes and in your ears—and whether you receive it, believe it and act on it. You can either have faith that’s strong enough to make your biggest dreams a reality, or you can limp along on just enough faith to get you into heaven. As God said in Deuteronomy 30:14-16: “The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your mind and in your heart, so that you can do it. See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil. [If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God which] I command you today, to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you” (The Amplified Bible). One thing about God is He doesn’t stutter. He just tells it like it is, and this is how it is: We have a choice. God has given us His Word and through it He has set before us life and good, blessing and cursing. Now it’s up to us to decide what we’re going to do about it. What do you choose? I don’t know about you, but by the time I got saved, I was fed up with doing things my own way and eager to choose God’s way. Even though I was young, I was desperate. Ken was too. Both of us were tired of being broke. We were tired of sleeping on a rented rollaway bed. We were tired of cooking potatoes in our coffeepot. And we were tired of looking at unpaid bills. We wanted out of that situation. We wanted out of lack. We wanted a decent car to drive—one that we knew would actually get us where we wanted to go. We had a dream of being BLESSED! So, when we saw in those verses that all we had to do to receive THE BLESSING was to believe and obey God’s Word, we dove headfirst into the deep end of the pool. We totally immersed ourselves in the Word. We weren’t satisfied just to go to church and listen to a sermon once a week. We spent time reading the Bible every day. We were continually looking in the Scriptures and listening for the promptings of the Holy Spirit to find out what God wanted us to do. Take the Next Step I’ll never forget those early days in the Word! One of the first things the Lord showed us was that He wanted us to move to Tulsa so Ken could enroll as a student at Oral Roberts University. To this day, that was one of the biggest faith steps God ever asked us to take. ******continues on p. 31***** JUNE '14 : 29