BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

God—The Open Book by Kenneth Copeland God never has and never will do anything apart from His WORD. That’s an eternal, everlasting fact. It cannot be changed. Yet, we act as though that isn’t true when we try everything we can think of to get hold of God. We cry, we pray, we fast—we do all sorts of things. But we don’t stop and realize that The WORD—the written WORD of God—is just as much God as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are God. The Apostle John writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him” (John 1:1, 3). We can agree “all things were made by God.” What we fail to see, however, is that John was saying, “All things were made by God—all things were made by The WORD.” You see, the book we call “The Holy Bible” is not a book about someone. It is Someone. It is God Himself manifested to us. Moments before Jesus went to the cross, He prayed for His disciples: “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth [the Word]” (John 17:17, 19). This prayer wasn’t just for the disciples because Jesus went on to pray, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also [that’s us] which shall believe on me through their word” (verse 20). Like the disciples, we are sanctified through the truth—through God’s WORD. But notice, so was Jesus. He said, “I sanctify myself.” How did Jesus sanctify Himself? Through the truth. Through The WORD. We are sanctified the same way Jesus was sanctified. Now let’s take that a step further. In John 8:26, Jesus said, “…he that sent me is true.” So based on what we just read in John 1:1—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” we could change John 8:26 to read, “he that sent me is God.” Or, “he that sent me is The WORD.” Do you see the connection? The importance of understanding that connection is this: Jesus did not come into this earth and wake up one day with some far-out revelation of who He was. He didn’t come into this earth with any such revelation. No, Jesus received revelation of who He was and what He was called to do the same way you and I get it—through The WORD of God. He found Himself in the Book, in the book of Isaiah to be exact. While on this earth, Jesus walked in The WORD and He walked in prayer. He didn’t get His direction from God because of some special relationship He had with the Father that you and I don’t have. No, faith came for Jesus the same way it comes for us—by hearing The WORD of God (Romans 10:17). Certainly He walked in the wisdom of God and in a level of faith you and I are still reaching for. But the point is, He did it by the same means. And because of that, we can walk in that same level of faith and anointing Jesus did. You have the same access to the Father that Jesus had. You have the same access to the Holy Spirit that Jesus had. And it all comes through The WORD—the same way Jesus got it. The presence of God—the power of God—is in His written WORD. V 22 : BVOV

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