BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

I figured that would be relatively simple. (After all, how hard can it be to agree with Jesus?) Then I got to the 23rd verse. There Jesus prayed for all of us, as believers, “that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” I choked when I read that! I thought, What? You mean to tell me that God loves me just as much as He does Jesus? I’d never heard anything like that in my life. Reading it again, I said out loud, “If this was not written in red, I couldn’t believe it!” I didn’t know anything back then about being a new creature in Christ. As a kid, growing up in church, I’d always heard that I was just an old sinner saved by grace. I couldn’t think of one reason why God would love me like He loves Jesus. It didn’t make any sense. Even so, I decided that if the Son of the living God said it was true, I couldn’t stand there and say it wasn’t. I’d have to agree with what He said because He’s my LORD and Savior. I was literally shaking all over with fear over what I was about to say, but with my Bible opened right in front of me I forged ahead. “Well, here goes,” I said. “I want to thank You, Father, that You love me just as much as You love Jesus.” Instantly, I sensed my spirit rising up within me. So, I said it again. “God loves me just as much as He loves Jesus!” Although I was still trembling, those words thrilled me so on the inside, I walked around that little room repeating them over and over. “God loves Kenneth! God loves Kenneth! God loves me—stupid, ignorant, dumb-dumb me!” I found out later that, as a born-again believer, I’m not stupid. I have the mind of Christ. But even without that information, the truth about God’s love had gotten through to me. I was so excited about it I ran out of the room to tell Gloria. “Look at this!” I said, showing her my opened Bible. “God loves us as much as He loves Jesus!” Fifty years later, I’m still talking about that revelation—and if you’re a born-again child of God, you need to be talking about it too. You need to be looking in your Bible at John 17:23 and putting your eyes on what Jesus said there. You need to be saying it…and saying it…and saying it…not because you feel one way or another, but because you choose to believe it. “Well, I’d like to do that, Brother Copeland, but it wouldn’t work for me. I need to feel God’s love to receive it.” No, you don’t. Although feelings are fine, and if you’ll walk by faith they’ll eventually come, you can receive God’s love the same way you received the new birth. You can do it like Romans 10:9 says, by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart. You don’t need some special feeling to do that. You just need to know what The WORD of God says. I remember when The LORD taught me this where healing is concerned. It was back before I went to ORU. I’d been suffering with all the symptoms of the flu and I was aching all over. It felt like even my hair hurt! I’d driven Gloria to the cleaners to drop off some clothes, and while she went in, I sat in the car thinking, I’m going to have to let her drive home. I’m so sick I don’t believe I can drive. My Bible was on the seat next to me, and I had opened it to 1 Peter 2:24. Picking it up, just by the leading of the Holy Spirit, I read the verse out loud: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” I certainly didn’t feel healed at that moment. I felt as sick as could be. But as an act of my will I said, “I choose to believe this.” Then I read the verse again. “I choose to believe this,” I said. “By Jesus’ stripes I am healed.” When Gloria got back into the car, I showed the verse to her. “By Jesus’ stripes I am healed,” I said. “I choose to believe that.” She said, “OK,” and I drove us home. By the time we got there, I was feeling pretty good. I believe I can eat some supper, I thought. I still wasn’t feeling 100 percent, so after supper I went on to bed. When I woke up the next morning, every symptom was gone. What happened in that situation? I chose to believe what God said whether I felt like it or not. That’s the foundation all faith rests upon. Although I knew very little about faith at that time, without realizing what I was doing, I took my stand on that foundation. I believed God’s WORD in my heart and said it with my mouth and it manifested in my body. Have Faith in Love Himself If you want to see an example of how powerful it can be to operate this way where God’s love is concerned, study the life and writings of John. He was big on believing in his heart and confessing with his mouth that Jesus loved him. He did it so much he got to the point where he actually identified himself in Scripture as the disciple whom Jesus loved. He referred to himself that way, for example, in John 13 in his account of the last Passover meal Jesus had with His disciples. In the last part of the chapter, where Jesus said one of them would betray him, John said: "Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon" (verses 22-26). Can’t you just picture that scene? There’s John, who so firmly believed that Jesus loved him, he got right up there next to Him, just as close as he could get. Then there’s Peter, who wants to know who the betrayer is but, because he’s too afraid of Jesus to ask Him about it directly, goes to John instead. “You ask Him!” Peter said. “He’ll tell you who it is. You’re His favorite.” 6 : BVOV

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