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

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

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

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

So where are you in your walk of obedience? Are there adjustments you need to make? Are you ready to go on with God? Are you ready to be that glorious Church? I am.

Paul said in Romans 12:1-2:

I therefore beg of you, please, brethren, through the instrumentality of the aforementioned mercies of God, by a once-for-all presentation to place your bodies at the disposal of God, a sacrifice, a living one, a holy one, well-pleasing, your rational, sacred service….And stop assuming an outward expression that does not come from within you and is not representative of what you are in your inner being but is patterned after this age; but change your outward expression to one that comes from within and is representative of your inner being, by the renewing of your mind, resulting in your putting to the test what is the will of God, the good and well-pleasing and complete will, and having found that it meets specifications, place your approval upon it (Wuest).

Paul said to put your bodies at the disposal of God and stop assuming an outward expression that does not come from within us. In other words, we’ve got to stop being hypocritical. We usually consider a hypocrite to be someone who is wrong on the inside and tries to look right on the outside. He talks a certain way but is not really that way. This scripture is speaking of a believer who is right on the inside, but acts wrong on the outside.

It is a lie for us to live like the world when we are born again. We are not like the world when we are born again. We are like God, and we are to live like Him. God says to us, “I’m holy—you be holy. Separate yourself from the world.”

We should look like God. We must change our outward expression by allowing that which is within us to come out. We have to allow the glory in us to be revealed. This happens by having our minds agree with God and allowing Him to express on the outside of us what He has already done on the inside of us.

Ephesians 4:17-23 in Wuest says:

This, therefore, I am saying and solemnly declaring in the Lord, that no longer are you to be ordering your behavior as the Gentiles order their behavior in the futility of their mind, being those who have their understanding darkened, who have been alienated from the life of God through the ignorance which is in them, through the hardening of their hearts, who, being of such a nature as to have become callous, abandoned themselves to wantonness, resulting in a performing of every uncleanness in the sphere of greediness. But as for you, not in this manner did you learn the Christ, since, indeed, as is the case, you heard and in Him were taught just as truth is in Jesus, that you have put off once for all with reference to your former manner of life the old self who is being corrupted according to the passionate desires of deceit; moreover, that you are being constantly renewed with reference to the spirit of your mind.

We are not walking in the futility of our souls, but in the newness of spirit. We are no longer alienated from the life of God. It is within us so we can walk after that newness of life instead of the darkness of the world.

Gloria Copeland

Through the years, as Ken and I have traveled across the country, we’ve often heard, “Churches are failing. Believers are failing. People who know God’s Word are failing. What’s wrong?”

The answer is simple: God’s people are not walking in obedience. They’re not obeying His Word. They’re not walking in faith and many are ignorant of what His Word says about them. Others are trying to hang on to the world’s way with one hand and the things of God with the other. It’s easy to “talk the talk,” but it takes dedication to “walk the walk.”

God’s deepest desire has always been to fellowship with His children, but He is hindered so often because of our disobedience, just as He was in the Garden of Eden because of Adam’s disobedience.

As the Body of Christ, we have come to a place where we must determine to fellowship with God and obey Him all the time. The laws of the Spirit apply to every aspect of our existence—and when we refuse to be obedient, we shut the door to His blessings in that area. For example, although Jesus already paid the price for our salvation, we couldn’t be born again until we made ourselves obedient to the gospel. We must get serious about our walk with Him and allow God to occupy the number one place in our lives.

You may say, “How can I live for God? There is so much pressure on me. Everyone around me is living the other way. What can I do that’s important to God? I’m just one person.”

Satan knows his days are numbered, so he is doing everything he can to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ. You may only be one person, but every member of the Church of Jesus Christ has a part to play. There are no insignificant members in His Body. The Lord has a work for you to do, a special part for you to play, a place that only you can fill.

If you desire to be part of that glorious Church when Jesus returns, put yourself in agreement with God and obey His Word. Commit to walking with Him.
“How can I do that?” you ask. Well, you can’t, outside the realm of obedience. Amos 3:3 says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” You have to be in agreement with God if you want to walk with Him. Learn to agree with His Word. Learn to make His thoughts your thoughts, His ways your ways.

The first step is to find out what God has to say about obedience. The importance of walking in obedience to God is emphasized throughout Scripture. So come before the Word of God as a little child, as though you have never read or heard it before.

Gloria Copeland

Here’s the question: Do you and I want to be a part of that Church badly enough to run the race? Do we want it enough to pray and spend time in the Word instead of doing other things we could be doing—even good things?

I am one of those who love His appearing. I am believing for the Church to rise up and press in the spirit to get the things done that we need to do.

God is on a timetable. He’s never late. And the Church is going to be ready. We’re going to do what we’re called to do.

Individuals may fall out of the race. You and I could fall out if we don’t do the right things, if we don’t do the things we know to do. But the Church is going to finish the race, and it’s going to be on time. I want to be in that group and bring God glory.

The choice is yours. No one else can make it for you. Only you can determine in your heart, “My purpose is that I may know Him and I’m going to press and stretch and run the race He’s called me to run.”

You may think, Well, what can I do? What God’s called me to do couldn’t be that important. It won’t matter to people whether I do it or not. Nobody’s life depends on it.

That’s not true. You can reach people no one else can reach. Noah was just one man. While his neighbors laughed, Noah kept building the ark. Despite the fact that no one had ever seen rain, Noah just kept obeying God.

His name is listed with the great men of faith in Hebrews 11. In fact, every person in Hebrews 11 who obtained a good report did it by faith.

The same chapter says God framed the worlds by faith. You’ll have to walk by faith if you’re going to finish. You’ll have to get your heart and your mouth in line with God’s Word if you’re going to finish what
you’re called to do.

Gloria Copeland

No wonder the Apostle John warns us so strongly against it, saying:

This is the message…which you have heard from the first, that we should love one another, [And] not be like Cain who [took his nature and got his motivation] from the evil one and slew his brother…He who does not love abides—remains, is held and kept continually—in [spiritual] death. Any one who…hates his brother [in Christ] is [at heart] a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding (persevering) within him (1 John 3:11-12, 14-15, AMP).

Clearly, envy is serious business. We need to rid ourselves of it completely and start loving each other. We need to stop striving with each other and “lay [our] lives down for [those who are our] brothers [in Him]” (verse 16).

That’s what real love is, you know—laying down your life for someone else. And in a very real sense, you are laying down your life when you refuse to envy, because envy tries to get you to fight for your own rights. It pushes you to look out for your own welfare and to be hostile because someone else is more successful in life than you are.

Ironically, however, what envy actually does is stop your success. It keeps you from rising to the level of those you are envying. Why? Because, as I said before, it stops your faith. It takes you outside the realm of love, and 1 Corinthians 13:8 says love never fails. Therefore, envy becomes a trap that secures your failure!

The truth is, all strife works that way—whether it’s caused by envy or by something else. All strife is sin!

That means even when you are on the “right” side of an argument, if you’re in strife, you’re wrong. When you’re offended and angry with your husband or wife, your children or anyone else, you’re wrong. You’ve opened the door to the devil and you’d better do something quickly.

What should you do?

Shut the door! Stubbornly resist those fleshly pressures and temptations of the devil. Treat strife just as you’d treat a rattlesnake or any other deadly invader. Refuse to let it in!

If you’re a preacher of the gospel, for instance, and there’s a new pastor in town who is getting more results than you are, don’t be naive enough to fall into the trap that envy is setting. Trick the devil! Turn the tables on him! Start praising God for the success of the new pastor. Do what you can to help him.

In other words, start walking in love and laying down selfishness. If you’ll do that, you’ll keep the door open for the blessings of God.

Gloria Copeland

Another biblical term for it is “the flesh.” Envy is listed as “works of the flesh” in Galatians 5, and it’s put alongside some other very serious sins including: “Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such” (verses 19-21).

That’s not exactly a pretty list, is it?

Most believers would never purposely engage in any of those fleshly activities. How then does envy get into our lives?

It sneaks in without announcing itself. It slips in unnoticed.

Suppose you go to church, for instance, and you see Brother Smith with a new car. Suddenly a thought comes to your mind: Why does he have a new car? He didn’t even need it. I’m the one who needs a new car.

Or suppose you see Sister Jones in a beautiful new dress. As you sit down next to her, you notice how dowdy your dress is compared to hers. Suddenly you feel like someone’s ugly stepsister.

You may not think much more about it—consciously. But later, you notice you’re a little irritated or depressed. You can’t quite put your finger on why you feel that way. After all, you were having a good day until a little while ago. What happened?

I’ll tell you what happened. Envy crept in and poisoned you with a feeling of ill will and discontent because of another’s success or advantages. Envy made a move on you.

Gloria Copeland

“The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.” — Romans 13:12-14

Envy: A feeling of discontent and ill will because of another’s advantages, possessions or success.

It’s an experience we’ve all had at one time or another. It is so common, in fact, most people think it is no big deal. They see it as just a harmless, human emotion. But they are gravely mistaken.

As innocent as it may sometimes seem, envy is actually the devil’s own poison, designed to turn love into hate and immobilize the force of faith in your life. If you want to see how deadly envy can be, just take a look through the Scriptures. Find out where it comes from and—more alarming than that—where it is headed. Once you do, you’ll want to rid yourself of it once and for all.

“Well, Gloria, that shouldn’t be too difficult for me,” you may say. “I don’t really think I’m envious of anyone.”

That may be true. But let me encourage you to search your heart carefully just to be sure, because many times we aren’t even conscious of envy. We may feel it stirring within us, but we fail to identify it because we assume such feelings are “only natural.”

Gloria Copeland