BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

February 2016

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.

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More Than Conquerors It seems that there is a lot of emphasis today on how to cope with problems and circumstances facing Christians in everyday life. Just about every publication I receive, with a few exceptions, is saying how to handle this problem or how to deal with that problem. We are having conventions and seminars to learn how to cope with our problems. Christians are being bombarded with understanding, sympathy and pity. Worse yet is the teaching that God is putting you through a situation to perfect you, or God is allowing the devil to test you for your good. After all, isn't God shaking His Church? No, He is not! Nowhere in the Bible does it say God is shaking His Church. Ephesians 5:26 says that Christ is sanctifying and cleansing His Church with the washing of water by the Word. That is not shaking the stuffing out of it. Hebrews 12:28 says we have received a kingdom which cannot be shaken. Jesus said, “The gates of hell shall not prevail against [the Church]” (Matthew 16:18). He went further in Luke 10:19 to say, “I give unto you power...over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” If we are not careful, we will make crybabies and weaklings out of today’s Christians by dwelling on the problem. The Bible does not teach us to cope with problems. The word cope means “to oppose with equal force.” If all you do is cope, then you will never overcome. The Bible says we are to overcome the world with our faith (1 John 5:4). To overcome means “to oppose with a greater force than the problem.” In Romans 8:31, 35-36, Paul says, “What shall we then say to these [problems]? If God be for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Is that what we are supposed to say? No, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us” (verse 37). Defeated Victory I am very concerned with these self-centered, “woe-is-me" messages today. We are not to be self-centered, but Christ-centered. We are not supposed to be spending all our time, energy and money fixing ourselves and each other. We are supposed to be preaching the message of Christ, the message of faith, not a message of defeated victory. If a manufacturing plant spent as much time fixing its broken machinery as the Body of Christ does ministering to itself, it would go broke. Can't you see that is what is happening to many believers? Satan doesn't mind you talking about victory as long as you don't have any. Many Christians (including preachers) live defeated lives while knowing somewhere in their hearts they should be having some victory. Defeated victory is putting victory off until the future and being defeated in the here and now. How do we turn it around? By preaching the message of faith. By contending for faith. God gave us the revelation of living by faith for this generation, for the harvest of the world. Why do you think there have been so many enemies of faith? Why do you suppose the message has been watered down by those who are afraid to stand strong? It’s because Satan is afraid of faith. He is not afraid of self-helps or religion, but is terrorized by a man or woman of faith. The faith message is coming full circle. And in the days to come, the faith message will again be the loudest voice in the land, charging and challenging people to stand on God's Word. In Luke 18:8, Jesus said, “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” Don’t live in defeat. Get up, brush yourself off, vow never to be defeated again! Begin to study faith. If you have pulled away from faith, regardless of the reason, get back into it. Don’t allow yourself to live in defeated victory. Contend and fight for the faith. V Happy Caldwell and his wife, Jeannie, are founders of Agape Church in Little Rock, Ark. Caldwell is also president and founder of Victory Television Network. For ministry materials or more information, go to vtntv.com. BVOV : 23

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