BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

God isn’t sitting up in heaven right now trying to decide what He’s going to do for you. He’s already made His choice—and He chose to BLESS you! He chose to send Jesus to the cross for you, and to raise Him from the dead for you. He sent Him to be your Redeemer so that all the promises in the Bible can be to you, “Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God” (2 Corinthians 1:20, "New King James Version"). That means when it comes to receiving those promises, you’re not waiting on God, He’s waiting on you. Having given you His WORD, He’s now waiting for you to believe it and speak it. He’s waiting for you to say what He said so that Jesus, the High Priest of your confession, can bring it to pass. At the same time, of course, the devil and his forces are also waiting. They want to see what you have to say, too. But unlike God, they don’t want you to declare THE BLESSING. Instead, they’re lobbying for you to talk the curse. According to Deuteronomy 19:15, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every matter shall be established. Right now you’re in the middle of two opposing witnesses. On one side, you have God and the forces of heaven. On the other, you have satan and the forces of hell. Who will decide which way things will go? You will. You’re the deciding witness. Yours is the voice that breaks the tie and releases God’s power to go to work in your life. That’s what happened when you got born again. You broke the devil’s hold on you by siding with God. You bore witness with what He did for you 2,000 years ago on Calvary, and chose to “confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9, "NKJV"). Putting your faith in the Redemption God had already provided, you received it according to the pattern revealed in 2 Corinthians 4:13: “We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak.” This is how faith is always released! It’s the way you receive not only the new birth, but every other BLESSING God has provided. You find out what The WORD says—faith comes by hearing The WORD of God—then you put your faith to work with the words of your mouth. You do what Jesus commanded in Mark 11:22-23: “Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.” The phrase have faith in God can also be translated have the God kind of faith. What exactly is the God kind of faith? It’s the kind you received when you were born again (Ephesians 2:8). It’s God’s faith and He gave it to you as a gift, and when you put it to work in your life it will work for you just like it worked for Him in Genesis 1. You remember what the Bible says there, in verses 1-3: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light” ("NKJV"). Those verses make it clear that God’s power was present at Creation even before anything happened. He was hovering over the waters even while the earth was formless and void. Yet nothing actually changed until He released His faith with His words. It was only when He spoke and said, “Light be!” that the light broke forth. The same principle holds true for us as believers. God’s power is already present in us and with us. He’s already spoken to us through His written WORD. Yet, for that WORD to come to pass in our lives we have to start doing some talking. We have to release our faith with our words. Powerful Examples You Can Follow “But Brother Copeland,” you might say, “I’m not exactly sure how to do that.” BVOV : 5

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