BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

********** ADVERTISEMENT ********** RESERVE YOUR SPOT Deposit due FEB 1 grades 6-12 March 11-14 GROW 14forty spring retreat 2018 Lakeview Camp, Waxahachie, Texas 14forty.com ********************************************* * * * * article continues below * * * * * I remember, in the early days of this ministry, when Gloria and I reached the point where we needed a station wagon to get us and our children from one place to the next so I could preach. Like anything else we needed, we went to God’s promises concerning our need, then we prayed, sowed seed, believed God and started speaking The WORD. That’s what we did for that car. After we had taken The WORD and agreed as a family in faith, we went around saying, “Glory to God for our new car!” “That new car is ours!” “Thank God for our new car!” We continued to meditate The WORD. At the time, our children were young, but still old enough to grab hold of our station wagon with their faith, too. One day our son, John, asked, “Daddy, is that new car ours?” “You bet it is,” I replied. “Well, let’s go get it,” he said. This new car idea had become so real and so big inside him that he didn’t see why we shouldn’t just go get it. I didn’t tell him that the reason we didn’t go get the car was because we were $3,000 short of what we needed to buy it. In fact, I started to say, “Now, you know, John, we do have to....” But then I stopped, because I realized I was about to head down the road of doubt and unbelief. Instead, I said, “Yeah, praise God! Let’s do, John. Let’s just go get it!” Immediately we all started saying it to each other: “Let’s go get it!” In less than a week, a man called me, crying. “Oh, Brother Copeland, I’m so ashamed of myself. God told me to send you $3,000 a few days ago and I didn’t do it. I’ve hung on to it until I cannot stand it anymore.” The first time that man heard God tell him to send us the money was the same time John came to me and said, “Let’s go get it!” So we went and got it. Wishing Wells Run Dry The bottom line to all of this is that real Bible hope is not wishing for something to come to pass. God is not sitting at the bottom of a wishing well, waiting for us to toss in a few pennies so He can work up a miracle on our behalf. No, hope is a divine inner image. It’s a dream birthed by The WORD of God in the soul of man. It’s the blueprint of our faith. Hebrews 11:1 tells us that hope is what faith must have in order to bring our dreams to pass. We’re told that it’s also “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast” (Hebrews 6:19). So not only do we have a more sure word of prophecy, but we also have a sure hope. It’s like Peter said: The WORD of God—God’s promises—enters our lives bringing light to the circumstances we face (2 Peter 1:19). As we meditate on The WORD, the light of it becomes brighter and brighter. It grows and develops on the inside of us, eventually giving birth to an inner image of what we’re believing to receive from God. In the past we may have seen ourselves as Abram saw himself—childless. We may have seen ourselves as moneyless, sick, desperate or whatever. But once we lay hold of The WORD, realizing that it is God Himself speaking directly to us, we give place to hope—and that hope gives life to the dreams God has placed within us. Abraham hoped against hope (Romans 4:18). He went against all the odds. We can too. Receive God’s WORD for your situation, right now. Receive the seed God has for your life. Then begin speaking it, hearing it, muttering it. Meditate The WORD until you begin seeing it...and dreaming it. Go ahead—dream BIG. Talk BIG. And turn your faith loose! V 22 : BVOV

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