Kenneth Copeland — Satan’s TacticsPosted by admin on October 28th, 2009

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Jesus Himself warned us of Satan’s tactics
in the parable of the sower, Mark 4:14-20:

The sower soweth the word. And these
are they by the way side, where the word
is sown; but when they have heard, Satan
cometh immediately, and taketh away the
word that was sown in their hearts. And
these are they likewise which are sown on
stony ground; who, when they have heard
the word, immediately receive it with
gladness; and have no root in themselves,
and so endure but for a time: afterward,
when affliction or persecution ariseth
for the word’s sake, immediately they
are offended. And these are they which
are sown among thorns; such as hear the
word, and the cares of this world, and the
deceitfulness of riches, and the lusts of
other things entering in, choke the word,
and it becometh unfruitful. And these
are they which are sown on good ground;
such as hear the word, and receive it, and
bring forth fruit, some thirtyfold, some
sixty, and some an hundred.

Notice that the Word is the subject of this
parable, not the ground in which it is sown.
Notice also that persecution and affliction
arise for the Word’s sake. Satan has to stop the
Word from taking root in your heart. He has
to stop you from cultivating an inner image of
the Word. Once you have that inner image,
nothing can stop you from receiving from
God. You are then fully persuaded that what
God has promised, He is able also to perform.
So Satan must try to stop you before you
become fully persuaded.

Remember, the Word has the power in
itself to bring itself to pass. Once you get in
agreement with the Word, Satan can’t stop it
from coming to pass in your life. It’s the Word
he’s after, not just you! And he only has five
things to use to steal the Word from you—
persecution, affliction, the cares of this world,
the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of
other things.

Satan uses these five things to try and get
your mind off the Word and onto natural
things. And there’s only one way to overcome
his methods—follow the advice the Apostle
Paul gives in 2 Corinthians 5:7 and “walk by
faith, not by sight.” Even when your body
says you are sick, you can believe that you
are healed. How? By focusing your spiritual
eyes on the Word of God that says, “By His
stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24).

Just like Joshua, keep meditating on the
Word of God day and night until it wells up
as truth inside you and comes spilling out of
your mouth in the form of faith-filled words!

Once you have the same inner image God
has, you can be confident that your body is
going to change. It has no choice! It has to
line up with God’s Word.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries | Comments Off

Kenneth Copeland — The Image of God in You, Part 2Posted by admin on October 21st, 2009

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

John 1:1-4 tells us that “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made
by him; and without him was not any thing
made that was made. In him was life; and the
life was the light of men.”

If all things were made by Him—and the
Word is God—then I believe we have license
to say that all things were made by the
Word. Hebrews 11:3 says, “Through faith
we understand that the worlds were framed
by the word of God, so that things which
are seen were not made of things which do
appear.” Everything that is, everything that
has been and everything that will be was
brought about either directly or indirectly by
the Word of God.

If, as the writer of Hebrews says, the things
we see were not made of things which do
appear, what were they made of? Faith! Verse 1
says that “Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

God’s words are not empty like men’s
words. They are packed with faith. In fact,
God’s faith is the energy in the Word that
gives it the power to bring itself to pass.

In Isaiah 55:11, the Lord says, “So shall my
word be that goeth forth out of my mouth:
it shall not return unto me void, but it shall
accomplish that which I please, and it shall
prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” God’s
Word is a living thing. It is alive with God’s
own faith.

Just as God’s faith energizes His Words and
causes what He speaks to come into being
for Him, the faith He has given you, mixed
with His Word, can create new realities in
your life.

Some believers have tried to tell me that
they just don’t have any faith. But that’s
not true—not if they’ve been born again.
According to Romans 12:3, God has dealt
to every man (and that includes you) the
measure of faith.

Now, by the power of the Holy Spirit, you
have faith inside you as a born-again believer.
So when your inner image matches God’s
Word, your faith can produce the end result
that God desires. In this way, you become a
co-laborer with Him, bringing His will to
pass on this earth.

Stop and think about that for a minute.
Co-laborers with Almighty God! You need
to realize that once you begin to put these
principles and this power to work in your
life, you’re going to run into some heavy
resistance from Satan. He’s going to do
everything he can to stop you because, as a
co-laborer with God, you become his greatest
enemy. Because he understands the power of
the inner image, Satan is going to work hard
to distort that image and uproot the Word of
God that’s been planted inside you.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries | Comments Off

Kenneth Copeland — Words are Powerful!Posted by admin on October 14th, 2009

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Words are powerful. They are containers
that can carry faith and love—or fear and
hate. Words are so important, they can determine
our eternal destiny. Romans 10:9-10
says that if you confess the Lord Jesus and
believe that God raised Him from the dead,
you shall be saved. Proverbs 18:21 says that
death and life are in the power of the tongue.
And you are the one who chooses which of
them you speak.

In fact, this is the part of you and me that
is so like God. We have the unique privilege
to choose and speak words.
Just think about the power you have to
speak words! No other creature has that
power. You may say, “Well, angels can speak.”
Yes, but they don’t have the power to choose
what they say. They say what they are told
to say.

Lucifer once chose his own words, but it
doomed him forever. He said, “I’ll be like
God and exalt my throne above the most
high God.” (See Isaiah 14:12-14.) But he
didn’t have the right to choose those words.

Words can destroy—or they can create. They
can project an inner image to the outside world.
Once you understand this, you’re well on your
way to putting the principle of the inner image
to work in your life. But there’s one important
question we still haven’t answered.

What do you do if your inner image is all wrong?

That’s a problem all of us face. You may be
struggling to be thin while your inner image
of yourself remains fat. You may be working
to be a winner while seeing yourself as a loser.
How do you change that?

With the Word of God—and only with the Word of God!

You see, words not only release the creative
force of faith, they also produce images. When
you hear the word dog, the letters D-O-G don’t
run across your consciousness, do they? No,
you immediately form a picture in your mind
of a dog. You may even think of your dog.
But if you heard “big, black, mean dog,” you
would get a totally different picture in your
mind. Words paint pictures in our minds.

That’s why, in Joshua 1, God told Joshua
not to let the book of the law (God’s Word)
depart out of his mouth. God told him to
meditate in it day and night. Why? “…That
you may observe and do according to all
that is written in it. For then you shall make
your way prosperous, and then you shall
deal wisely and have good success” (Joshua
1:8, The Amplified Bible). To observe means
“to see.” God was telling Joshua that if he
would meditate on the Word day and night,
he would build an image of that Word inside
him. And Joshua needed that image. He
would be leading an entire nation and step
into the shoes of a man who’d literally been
with God Almighty.

Joshua couldn’t afford to see himself as a
loser or even as simply an ordinary man. He
had to become what God intended for him to
be by meditating the Word of God. And God
promised him that the result would be wisdom,
prosperity and good success. The Word of
God would change what was happening on
the inside and the outside of him.

It’s important to understand that we’re not
just talking about improving your self-image.
We’re talking about getting your inner image
to line up with the Word of God.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries | Comments Off

Kenneth Copeland — The Image of God in You, Part 1Posted by admin on October 7th, 2009

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

So you want to make some changes in
your life. Maybe lose some weight. Or get
your finances in shape. You’re geared up,
excited, ready to shake those habits that have
been haunting you and step into God’s best.
You make some resolutions. Turn over a
new leaf….

Then, all too often, something strange
begins to happen. Your determination wanes.
And, as your new leaf grows, it begins to look
alarmingly similar to your old leaf!
Suddenly, you’re back where you started.
Nothing has changed and you begin to doubt
that it ever will.

That’s happened to all of us more times than
we’d like to admit. But, if you’re a born-again
child of Almighty God, it doesn’t have to happen
to you again. God has given you the principle
and the power to make permanent changes in
your life and circumstances.

Once you learn how, not only can you
turn over a new leaf—you can grow a whole
new tree!

But first you have to understand an
important principle—a principle that’s been
in action since the beginning. It’s the principle
of the “inner image.”

God Himself gives us the first lesson
about it in Genesis 1. There we can see Him
using the principle of the inner image to
create the earth.

God didn’t just come upon Creation by
accident and say, “Well, what do you know!
There’s light!” No, He first had a desired end
result (an inner idea, or image, of what He
wanted to create) and then said, “Light be!”
and light was.

God didn’t have any problems making
the changes He wanted to make, did He?
He took the principle of the inner image,
added faith and the power of His words, and
instantly, darkness was changed to light.
“But Brother Copeland,” you say, “that was
God. Surely you don’t expect me to try to act like
God!” I most certainly do. Ephesians 5:1 says,
“Therefore be imitators of God [copy Him and
follow His example], as well-beloved children
[imitate their father]” (The Amplified Bible).
If we’re going to imitate our Father, we’re
going to have to put the principle of the
inner image to work, too.

Let me warn you about something though.
Don’t waste your time sitting around trying
to dream up a positive inner image on your
own. That’s nothing more than positive
thinking—and while it’s better than negative
thinking (or not thinking at all), it will
eventually fall flat.

You need to use the Word of God as the basis
for your inner image and the words you speak
because it is filled with God’s power. And if
you mix that Word with faith and speak it out,
it will change your life and circumstances.
Think again about Creation. God wanted
light. So He said, “Let there be light” (Genesis
1:3). The words He spoke were directly related
to His inner image. He used His words to get
that image from the inside to the outside.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

  • Share/Bookmark
Filed under: Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries | Comments Off