No, we say, “Hey, what’s wrong here?” Then we check the gas gauge, look under the hood or call a mechanic because we know we’re not going anywhere until we identify the problem and get it fixed.
We ought to respond much the same way when our faith fails to function properly. If we pray and believe God for something and don’t get results, we should grab our faith manual—the Bible—and find out what’s messing up the system. One of the first verses we should look at is John 14:21 where Jesus said: “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.”
Right there, in that one scripture, we can see how to fix almost any seeming “faith failure.” We do it by having and keeping Jesus’ commandments; by hearing, believing and obeying His WORD. When we do those things, He can manifest Himself to us—and when Jesus is in manifestation our faith always gets results.
“Well, Brother Copeland,” someone might say, “I don’t know if I agree with that. It sounds like legalism to me. I don’t think we have to earn things from God by keeping commandments.”
Of course we don’t. Jesus already earned everything for us and made us His joint heirs. Through Him, every spiritual blessing in heavenly places and every promise God made is ours just because we’re born again. That’s the beauty of the New Covenant. It has empowered us and set us free, not to disregard Jesus’ commandments, but to keep them—just because we love Him!
Love Lessons From God
Over the years, The LORD has taught me a lot about this through my relationship with Gloria. We just celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary. We’re seldom apart for any reason and we’re stronger together now than we’ve ever been. Gloria gets most of the credit for this because she’s always excelled in her love walk.
I, on the other hand, haven’t. Particularly in my early years as a believer, I needed extra help from The LORD when it came to operating in love, so I often asked Him about it. One day He was teaching me how to be a better husband and He said something to me I’ll never forget.
He said, If you want to be like Me, if you want to love like I do, listen to Gloria and when you hear her talk about something she likes, then make it your business to find a way to get it for her.
BVOV : 5
