BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

The Light of the Lord Two days later, Jack announced that he was going to New Orleans for a business seminar. Peggy Joyce couldn’t be left alone so she went with him. The first night on the road they stayed with Jack’s best friend from high school and his wife. “We have so much to tell you!” the couple said. “We’ve received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit!” Jack and Peggy Joyce sat up half the night listening and asking questions. For the first time in eight years, Peggy Joyce felt excited. The next night they stayed with Peggy’s cousin. As soon as they arrived, his wife began telling them about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. It was all Jack and Peggy Joyce could talk about during their drive the next day. When they got to New Orleans they found a Christian bookstore and bought a couple of books on the subject. “I hadn’t read anything for pleasure in eight years,” Peggy Joyce remembers. “But we were so excited that we read all night and then Jack got up and went to the seminar. As soon as we finished our books, we bought more. Before the end of the week, both of us had received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. “The moment I received the Holy Spirit, I was free!” Peggy said. “As soon as I got home I flushed all my medications. I realized that everything we’d done, until the night I cried to God from my heart, had been mental. For the next two years I walked around in a bubble of peace. I was so happy, I wept for joy! Life with Jack was like living a honeymoon.” Then, one day those same old fears returned. “We knew a little bit about the Holy Spirit, but nothing about spiritual warfare,” said Peggy. “The torment was worse than it had been before. I ran to the medicine cabinet frantically throwing old bottles of medicine around looking for an antidepressant. There was nothing. I felt myself falling into a pit. I felt so crazy that I forgot those two years of peace.” Setting the Captives Free Someone suggested Peggy Joyce go see a pastor who dealt in deliverance. “I won’t be a demon chaser!” Jack declared. But as the torment got worse, he finally said, “I’ll try anything.” The pastor exercised his spiritual authority to break the power of oppression over Peggy Joyce, and all the fear and confusion left. Back in her right mind, Peggy Joyce listened as the pastor told them how she could stay free. He sent them home with stacks of teaching tapes by Kenneth Copeland and some other ministers. The two devoured the tapes and then asked for more. Peggy Joyce spent the next several months with her Bible and a notebook as the Lord taught her about spiritual warfare. She realized that the enemy kept ensnaring her because she hadn’t known how to take her thoughts captive, and because she hadn’t made a firm decision to make God’s Word her final authority. “Before I went into that woman’s apartment, I’d never been a fearful or negative person,” Peggy Joyce says. “But from that day forward I’d been bombarded with fearful, negative and confused thoughts. My mind had been cluttered with harassing spirits, doubts and fears—day and night!” Directing her to meditate on 2 Corinthians 10:5—“Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” ("New King James Version")—the Lord told Peggy Joyce to exchange every fearful and negative thought that came to her mind with His Word. “Thank God that pastor had given us Kenneth Copeland’s tapes!” she said. “We’d never even heard of him. Just when God told me to exchange my negative and fearful thoughts, Brother Copeland came along and taught me how to do it. I also learned from him about the authority of the believer and how to resist the devil. He was the first person I ever heard teach that God was good. I remember getting down on my knees and thanking God for deliverance. I knew God was using Brother Copeland to help me.” +++ article concludes on page 15 +++ ****ADVERTISEMENT***** I’m one in a million “‘We are preparing for the largest, most unusual gathering of souls into the kingdom of God in the history of mankind, and we are preparing the message that will explode throughout this earth and cause men to come to the foot of that Cross and come to the glory of His resurrection and walk in the kingdom of God, kings and priests along with their King and their Priest,’ thus saith The LORD.” —Kenneth Copeland* Partner with us today! kcm.org/partner 1-800-600-7395 (U.S. only) +1-817-852-6000 * Prophecy delivered by Kenneth Copeland during the April 15 edition of the "Believer’s Voice of Victory" broadcast. *********************************** BVOV : 13

• Cover