BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Grace completely redeems us from the gutting the devil and sin have done on us. It doesn’t just cover sin over and put us back under some legalistic law. It doesn’t just halfway redeem us. It turns us into new creations and makes us the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It opens the door for us to live so fully in God’s BLESSING, it’s like sin never even happened. “Brother Copeland, that sounds like a wonderful way to live. But if that kind of grace is available, how come I don’t seem to be experiencing the full effects of it?” Because grace doesn’t just fall on us automatically, like a ripe apple off a tree. Although it’s been freely provided for us in abundance through the plan of Redemption, grace only goes to work in our lives when we receive it. How do we receive it? By faith! As Romans 5:2 says, “We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand….” Faith is the secret to walking in God’s grace! That’s why the Bible repeatedly confirms how vital faith is to the life of a believer. It says so in one verse after another: ● “For by grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8). ● “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17). ● “Cast not away therefore your confidence [or faith], which hath great recompence of reward” (Hebrews 10:35). ● “So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” (Galatians 3:9). ● “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). Look again at those last two verses. Although they don’t actually use the word grace, they give us a good description of it. Grace redeems us from the curse that’s on this world through sin and empowers us to live in THE BLESSING of Abraham. That means when we’re living by real Bible faith we can be BLESSED no matter what’s happening around us. We don’t have to change our lifestyle when the world is going through bad times, because we’re not tied to this world. We’re citizens of heaven. We’re citizens of the kingdom of God, and His written WORD is the Constitution of our government. His WORD—not the world—tells us who we are, what we have, what we can do. Walking in the Steps of Abraham What does The WORD tell us to do about living by faith? It says we’re to be those who “walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had…” (Romans 4:12, "New King James Version"). It says, if we function in faith the way he did, we’ll be BLESSED with him. "For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith…. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (as it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform" (verses 13, 16-21). 6 : BVOV

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