To prosper spiritually, you must be born again. When you
accept Jesus as your Savior and make Him the Lord of your
life, your spirit is reborn and brought into fellowship with the
Father, the Almighty God. This then puts you in a position to
receive from Him all the things promised in His Word.

To prosper in your soul, you must be able to control your
mind, your will and your emotions. Just because you have
accumulated large amounts of knowledge does not mean that
your mind is prosperous. Prosperity of the mind comes when
you use the knowledge that has been accumulated—when you
are controlling your mind instead of your mind controlling
you. Second Corinthians 10:5 says we are to cast down imaginations
and every high thing that exalts itself against the
knowledge of God (or against the Word of God), bringing into
captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. The person
who does this has control of his mind and is in position to
prosper mentally. You cannot control your mind completely without
the Word of God being alive and operating inside you.

You must control your will in the same way. Some people
say, “Lord, help my will to crumble.” God doesn’t want a broken
will that He can dominate. He wants your will whole and in
submission to His will so that the two of you can work together
in unity. When God made man, He gave him a will that has
power. It is actually a godlike will because man has the right to
choose his own eternal destiny. Only a god has that kind of
choice! Man was made in God’s image and given the will to
make up his own mind. You can go to hell if you want to and
God will protect your right…you don’t have to, but you can. On
the other hand, you can choose Jesus Christ and the Word of
God. In Deuteronomy 30:19, God said, “I call heaven and earth
to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and
death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and
thy seed may live.” What a privilege! The choice is yours!

When a man’s soul is prosperous, his will is in line with
God’s will. How can you get in line with God’s will? You can’t
until you know what His Word says. His Word and His will are
the same! An honest man can’t will one thing and say another.
If you are in line with the Word of God, you are in line with the
will of God.

Let’s discuss our emotions as part of the soul. The person
who is emotionally prosperous can control his emotions. I used
to think this meant never showing emotions, but that’s not so.
Jesus had complete control over His emotions, yet He wept at
the tomb of Lazarus! The important thing is that His weeping
didn’t cause Him to join the grief-stricken throng of people. He
continued to move in the Spirit. He put His priorities where
they belonged and raised Lazarus from the dead. He showed
emotions, but He was not moved by them.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries