BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

“Sure,” I said, and right at that moment—wham!—the girl hit the floor. Talk about an emergency! The devil was tearing at that girl something awful. She was having a hard, hard seizure. But instead of reacting to it, I just stood there and checked my spirit. When I did, I heard this real big on the inside of me: 'No! No! No!' I hollered it just as loud as I heard it. “No! No! No!” Then The LORD spoke up inside me again and said, 'Hush now. That’s enough.' So I didn’t say another word. I walked back around to the podium and picked up my Bible. All the while, that girl was still thrashing around on the floor. When the seizure finally stopped, her family bundled her up and carried her out. Of course, my natural mind tried to go wild over that. I had to fight away the idea that I hadn’t done enough, that I should have said or done something more. The devil tried to tell me that the girl didn’t get anything from God—that she left as sick as she came. But I refused to interrupt the process of faith. I cast down that Imagination. “That’s not my thought,” I said, “and I’m not thinking it. I bring those thoughts into captivity.” Years passed and I never heard anything more about that girl. One day, her face flashed across my mind and I asked The LORD to let me know whatever happened to her. Just a few days later, someone handed me her testimony. Her mother had written about it. It turns out, she never had another seizure from that night on. She graduated with honors, and 25 years later, she was still healthy and living her life for God. That’s the kind of thing that happens when we activate the process of faith the way Jesus did. It changes everything when we follow the example of the Master, who so often was—and is—a Man of few words. V ****************************************************************************************** The Place of Prayer by Kenneth Copeland “And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath.” Acts 2:18-19 Now, more than ever before, it is vital for every Christian to understand that we are in the last of the last days. We are on the edge of the greatest outpouring of God’s glory this earth has ever seen. Amazing, supernatural things are beginning to happen just as the Bible said they would. Yet many believers are sitting back, watching these events like spiritual spectators. They seem to think God will sovereignly empty some great glory bucket, spilling signs and wonders over the earth. But it won’t happen that way. It will happen the way Acts 2 reveals it. If you’ll read that last phrase in today’s scripture, taking out the punctuation that was put in by the translators, you’ll see a divine connection. You’ll see that God is saying when His servants and handmaidens prophesy, when they speak out His divine will and purpose in intercession and faith, then in response to their speaking, He will work signs and wonders. That means, if this last outpouring of glory is to come in its fullness, all of God’s servants and handmaidens must be in their place. What place? The place of prayer! Some years ago, I had been studying the authority of man, and I had seen over and over in The WORD how the prayers of God’s people precede His actions on the earth. Yet I hung on to the idea that God still did His most important works independently of man. One day, as I was praying about it, I said, “LORD, You brought Jesus into the earth sovereignly, didn’t You?” 'No, I didn’t,' He answered. “You mean there were people who interceded for the birth of Jesus?” 'Yes,' He said. Then He told me about Simeon. As The LORD revealed to me the account of Simeon in Luke 2, I saw how he was led by the Holy Spirit to the temple the day Joseph and Mary dedicated Jesus. I read how he had fervently prayed, asking God to send the Redeemer. It’s amazing enough that when Simeon saw Jesus, he immediately recognized who Jesus was. It’s even more amazing that he knew Jesus was bringing salvation to the Gentiles (verse 32)—a fact the rest of the Church didn’t find out until Peter went to Cornelius’ house, 10 years after the day of Pentecost! We must get on our knees and start praying for the fullness of the final outpouring in these last days. We must start speaking out God’s WORD and His will for this last hour in prophecy and intercession so He can do signs and wonders. We must enter into that place of prayer. V 34 : BVOV

• Cover