Grow Up in Love
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by Gloria Copeland
The key to developing your love walk is wonderfully simple. You do it by maintaining living contact with God—fellowshipping with Him in the Word and in prayer, staying in union and communion with Him, and letting His life flow through you.
Jesus Himself taught us the principle of sustained communion. He said:
Just as no branch can bear fruit of itself without abiding in (being vitally united to) the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you abide in Me. I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in Me and I in him bears much (abundant) fruit. However, apart from Me [cut off from vital union with Me] you can do nothing (John 15:4-5, The Amplified Bible).
First John 4:16-17 says it this way: “God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him. In this [union and communion with Him] love is brought to completion and attains perfection with us…because as He is, so are we in this world” (The Amplified Bible).
The Apostle Paul prayed “that [we might arrive] at really mature manhood (the completeness of personality which is nothing less than the standard height of Christ’s own perfection)” and that “Enfolded in love, let us grow up in every way and in all things into Him Who is the Head, [even] Christ…” (Ephesians 4:13, 15, The Amplified Bible). I’ve come to realize that love is the single most important key to growing up in God. In fact, if we don’t grow up in love…we won’t grow up at all.
Tags: Holy Spirit, Love, mercy, obedience, Prayer
Gloria Copeland — Leading the Children of Israel Part 2
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God said if they would obey His voice, they would be His peculiar treasure in the earth—a nation set apart from all others, set on high above all the earth. God wanted Israel to be a nation of priests unto Him. He wanted to set them apart, so He could come into their midst and live among them. They were to be His special treasure.
You can see throughout the history of the nation of Israel that when Israel served Him with their whole heart—in obedience—He was wholly and totally God to them. He performed in their lives, whether it was with signs and wonders, with miracles, or whether it was with His angels going before them in battle. Whatever it took, when they served Him with their whole heart, He was there with His whole heart.
But when they were disobedient and didn’t serve Him at all, He did not work in their lives.
Moses later said to the nation of Israel:
Behold, I have taught you statutes and ordinances as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land which you are entering to possess. So keep them and do them; for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people (Deuteronomy 4:5-6, The Amplified Bible).
What was to make them a great nation, a wise and understanding people? Keeping God’s Word—His ordinances and statutes.
It was keeping God’s Word, His wisdom and understanding, that set Israel apart from other nations, showing them how to be the special people of God—a peculiar treasure. In Exodus 19:5 He said to Moses about Israel, “Now therefore, if you will obey My voice in truth and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own peculiar possession and treasure from among and above all peoples; for all the earth is Mine” (The Amplified Bible).
Later, in Deuteronomy 4:10, Moses said, “…the Lord said unto me, Gather me the people together, and I will make them hear my words, that they may learn to fear me all the days that they shall live upon the earth, and that they may teach their children.”
When God said He wanted His people to fear Him, He did not mean for them to be afraid. He wanted them to have reverence and respect for Him, so they would be obedient to His Word. He did not want them to keep His Word just so He could have slaves. He knew that the only way they could be kept free from the curse on the earth was by obeying His Word.
Gloria Copeland
Tags: covenant, fear, heart, Israel, nation, obedience, treasure, wisdom, Word Of God
Gloria Copeland — Leading the Children of Israel Part 1
Posted by admin | Filed under Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries
The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said:
I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey; unto the place of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites (Exodus 3:6-8).
In the next verses, God told Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the children of Israel out of bondage. God gave him detailed instructions about what to do and what to say to Pharaoh and the Israelites. After some protest concerning his suitability for the job, Moses obeyed God and was faithful. His obedience brought results (Hebrews 3:5). (One exception to this is found in Numbers 20. It kept Moses from entering into the Promised Land.)
When the Israelites were delivered safely out of Egypt and were camped in the wilderness, God called Moses to Mount Sinai and said:
Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel; ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel (Exodus 19:3-6).
Gloria Copeland
Tags: children, covenant, Egypt, Israel, Israelites, Moses, obedience, wilderness
Gloria Copeland — Being God’s Special People Part 2
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We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. He lives in us! You are to glorify God in your body and in your spirit which belong to God. We are a redeemed people. We are a purchased people. We are a peculiar (special) people, a royal priesthood. We have been bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20)—the blood of Jesus. He paid for us with the sacrifice of Calvary. We don’t belong to ourselves.We belong to God. What a wonderful privilege to belong to God—to be His sons, His daughters.
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people [a treasure unto God]; that ye should show forth the praises [virtue] of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light (1 Peter 2:9).
Acts 2:17-18 says God will pour out of His Spirit in the last days upon the servants and the handmaidens. The word translated servants and handmaidens means the same thing. One is the female gender and one is the masculine gender, but the word means bondslave. He will pour out His Spirit upon the bondslaves—upon those who have given up their will to His will.
Jesus though a son was a servant of the Father. He only did what the Father told Him to do. He did not even speak His own words.
You and I are born-again children of God. We choose to serve. God will not force us. We serve Him of our own free wills.
Jesus laid down His life to serve the Father. He is telling us to lay down our lives to serve Him, to become one who gives up his will for the will of another—like a handmaiden or a servant. Those are the ones upon whom God is going to pour out His Spirit. They will prophesy, and there will be signs and wonders.
We have a great future, both individually and as a Church, if we will follow after God and do in our lives what He says to do—instead of following our natural desires. We will find that the more we do what He says, the better our lives will be.
You will never be free unless you follow God. It is not what you and I want to do that counts. It is what God wants us to do. We can think of many good things to do with our lives, but these count for nothing in the sight of God. Unless we begin to walk in the spirit and follow after the Spirit of God, we will never come to that place where we know His perfect will for our lives.
Gloria Copeland
Tags: children, free will, Holy Spirit, prophesy, servant, serve
Gloria Copeland — Being God’s Special People Part 1
Posted by admin | Filed under Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries
For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking
for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people,
zealous of good works (Titus 2:11-14).
God is not a quitter. What He starts out to do, He will accomplish. He is so patient that He continues to work age after age to get His will accomplished. He will not stop until He gets this earth restored to the way it was when He originally made it, until He brings the restitution of all things in the earth.
The perfect will of God is the glorious Church. We are indeed becoming that Church without spot or wrinkle, having been washed by the water of the Word and cleansed before God. When we know the perfect will of God and begin to walk there, all nations will recognize it. When the glory of God is manifested in our midst, the whole world will know it.
God is working toward that end, and you and I are His special people. He is counting on us to keep His Word and obey His voice so He can bring that plan to pass in the earth. We are vital to God’s work. The Church of Jesus Christ holds the future of the world.
The Spirit of God—even though He is here on the earth—is hidden inside you and me. He lives in us, and until we begin to obey God and cooperate with His plan, the Spirit is for the most part hidden to the world. The world sees the Holy Spirit, Jesus the Savior and God the Father through the Church.
“But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:17). We are one spirit with Him—one spirit with the Lord. Verses 19-20 read: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Gloria Copeland
Tags: glory, Holy Spirit, obedience, one spirit, perfect will, restoration, righteousness, Word Of God
