One effective way to begin developing faith in God’s love for you is by reading through the Bible and substituting the word Love for the word God. That’s a perfectly scriptural thing to do because the Bible doesn’t just say that God has love. It says He is Love.

So you can say when you read Psalm 23, for instance, “Love is my Shepherd. I shall not want….Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil because Love is with me. Love prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies….”
If you’ll meditate the Word that way for a while, you’ll come to the point where you can’t think of God without thinking of love. The two will absolutely become so united in your mind that the very thought that God might not love you will seem preposterous. How could God not love you? He is Love!
With that fact settled, you can develop your faith further by acknowledging just how great God’s love for you truly is. You can spend time meditating on the fact that God loves you just as much as He loves Jesus.
“Whoa…I’m not sure I can believe that,” you might say.
You can if you believe the words of Jesus because He’s the One who said it. When He was praying for us as His disciples in John 17:23, He said to the Father, “…thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”
What’s more, three verses later Jesus told us that same love has been put in our hearts. That’s right! He said, “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (verse 26). That’s powerful!

You let not sin reign in your body. Your body is to be ruled by you—the new creation spirit that comes from God. If your spirit were not able to handle this job, God wouldn’t have given you this assignment. When God gives an assignment He always gives the ability! Your spirit, empowered by the Holy Spirit, has the power to control your body. Sin shall not have dominion! Yield not to unrighteousness but yield yourselves to God. You are alive to Him!

But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God (Romans 8:11-14).

The only way Satan has any inroad into your life is by ignorance or disobedience. If you are born again, he has no right to any power or authority over you. You have authority and power over him. But unless you choose to live according to the Word of God and the leading of God, you will be defeated. The degree of your victory depends on the degree of your obedience.

According to Romans 8:13, the Spirit of God will teach and train us to mortify (put to death or crucify) the deeds of the body. In other words, the Holy Spirit will lead us to control our bodies to please the Lord. The Holy Spirit reveals the Word to us.

You see, God does not expect us to walk pleasing unto Him and to be a glorious Church in this present world without the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. The Holy Spirit is the Great Enabler. His living within us is God’s great hope for the glorious Church. His living in us is what enables us to not live like the world lives but to live with hearts open to Him. With His power enabling us we are to walk in newness of life. We are to walk in the glory—in His presence. Through Him we can…

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Sin has lost its dominion because it’s no longer inside you. You had the nature of sin but Jesus your Savior came into your life and gave you His righteousness and you, the spirit, were raised from the dead to new life. Resurrection life! The same life that raised Jesus from the dead. Sin is on the outside. It’s still available to you if you choose it, but it no longer has dominion. It’s not your nature. For it to have place in your life after you’ve been born again, you have to give it permission—you have to allow it.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity [weakness] of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Romans 6:12-19).

Even though we are born again, when we yield ourselves to the devil and follow after sin, we are serving him, not God. Whether a servant of sin unto death or a servant of obedience unto righteousness, we yield ourselves to the one we are serving. We reap the harvest of the one we serve—a harvest of life or of death.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Alive unto God. What does this phrase mean? To be alive unto God means to be responsive to His Spirit. If you are alive unto God, you will spend time in the Word of God and in prayer. You will maintain continual fellowship and communion with Him. When He speaks, you will hear and obey.

Proverbs 4:20-22 tells us that the Word of God is life and health to our flesh. So the Spirit of God will make alive our bodies. It says that the issues or forces of life come out of our hearts: “Keep [and guard] your heart [spirit] with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23, The Amplified Bible). The King James Version says it this way: “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.”

God says, “Consider yourself dead to sin.” If you obey the Word and consider yourself dead to sin, when sin calls your name, you won’t answer. You’ll say, “No, I reckon myself dead to that.” (In Arkansas where I was raised, you would say, “No! I reckon I’m dead to that.”)

The word temptation means “solicitation to evil.” There will be temptations, but those temptations will not get your attention when you are dead to sin. But you cannot walk that walk without being alive to God. It is not a matter of law, but of the life of God working in you.

It is your life with God, your fellowship and responsiveness to Him, that causes sin and the things of this world to fall away from you. As you walk after the hidden man of the heart, you walk free from the sin and bondage of the world, the flesh and the devil.

The old man of sin (the real man, the spirit) has already been crucified with the result that sin in the body can be overthrown. We need not sin or serve sin.

For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:7-11).

We are to consider ourselves dead to sin and our relation to it broken. We are to consider ourselves alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. If you will live unto God and set your attention on Him, there is a fountain of life inside you that will flow out to permeate your mind, your body and your surroundings with God!

But if instead you live unto the world and unto sin, you will be dominated by death and defeat. It is not enough just to see ourselves dead to sin. We must see ourselves alive unto God.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.” — Proverbs 18:21

God, Creator of the universe, created people to reflect His image. As the reflection of the Creator, all people have His creative power. When we put God’s Word in our mouths and speak His words, those words release creative power into our circumstances that enables us to maintain a high level of Christian living.

It is important that we understand the significance of being made in God’s image. One of the differences between us and animals is that though animals can procreate, they have no creative power. Man has a certain measure of God’s creative power. Science cannot create, it can only discover what was already created. Researchers discovered the law of gravity and that the world was round. But their discoveries only revealed what originated from God.

Man has the ability to produce beyond the physical senses because of the image in which we were created. Man’s creative power is in the image of God’s. In other words, just as God released His creative power through words, He has given us the same ability to create through the words we speak. God spoke a word, and the worlds which did not exist suddenly existed (Hebrews 11:3; Romans 4:17). Likewise, man is able to influence the outcome of his life with the words he speaks. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”

A man can see a vacant lot and think, What a great place for an apartment building. He can think about the apartments and everything it would take to build them and run them, yet still that lot will be vacant. But when he turns to a business partner and says, “We can build apartments there,” he begins creating something that did not exist. Once he speaks it, he commits himself to the idea, and
together they begin exploring its merits. All the creative force starts with his words.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

When the revelation of this statement exploded on the inside of me, it changed the way I think…about everything! I had been praying for several days about a situation that seemed at the time to be overwhelming. I had been confessing the Word of God over it, but that Word had begun to come out of my head and not my heart. I was pushing in my flesh for the circumstance to change. As I made my
confession one more time, the Spirit of God seemed to say to me, Why don’t you be quiet?!

I said, “But Lord, I’m confessing the Word!”

He answered inside me, I know it. I heard you. Now just be still and be quiet a little while, and let the Word of God settle down in your spirit. Quit trying to make this thing happen. You’re not God. You’re not going to be the one to make it happen anyway!

So I stopped. I stopped thinking about that situation and began to get quiet before the Lord. And this phrase came up in my spirit: “One word from God can change anything.”

So I started saying that. I said it off and on all day. It came easily because it came from God—not from my own thinking.

Every time I was tempted to worry or think of ideas concerning my circumstances, I’d think, Yes, but one word from God…

I noticed when I’d say that, the peace of God would come on me. It was so calming. As a result, a habit developed in me. People would bring me issues. They’d say, “Well, what about…” And I’d either say aloud or think to myself, “Yeah, that may be so, but one word from God will change anything.”

It began to be the answer for everything. If I was watching television and the newscaster was telling about a disaster, and the people being interviewed were saying things to the effect of “Oh, what are we going to do? It’s all been blown away, burned up or shook up…,” I’d say, “Yeah, but one word from God can change anything.”

You’ve been searching, seeking help…and God has the answer. He has the one word that can turn your circumstance around and put you on dry ground. He has the one word that gives you all the wisdom that’s in Him. He is your Counselor. He wants you to succeed in all that you do. He wants you to be prosperous and have good success (Joshua 1:8).

God loves you. And He has a word for you. One word that can change your life FOREVER!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

In fact, The Amplified Bible translates Proverbs 4:20 this way: “My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings.” Submitting to the Word means making adjustments in your life. Say, for example, you hear the Word in Philippians 4:4 that you are to “rejoice in the Lord always.” If you’ve been doing a lot of griping and complaining, you’ll have to change in order to submit to that Word. You’ll have to repent and alter your behavior.

In addition to inclining your ear to the Word of God, the Proverbs 4 prescription also says you must keep it before your eyes and not let it depart from your sight. In Matthew 6 6:22-23, Jesus reveals why this is so important. He says: “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

Your eyes are the gateway to your body. If your eye (or your attention) is on the darkness, or the sickness that is in your body, there will be no light to expel it. If, however, the eyes of your heart are trained strictly on the Word, your whole body will eventually be filled with light, and healing will be the result.

I can tell you from experience how important it is to keep the Word constantly before your eyes and in your ears. Several times since I have been walking by faith, I’ve let myself get too busy to do it. And, almost before I realized it, I became too sick to stay on my feet.

On those occasions, I would immediately get my Bible and begin meditating on the healing scriptures. I would even go to sleep listening to tapes of the Word. Usually, within a few hours, I was completely healed.

There were a few times when I had to stand in faith longer. But whether my healing came instantly or over time, the wonderful truth is—it always came. God’s medicine has never failed to bring a healing and a cure in my body.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

“But, Kenneth,” you may say, “I’ve met people who know the Bible from cover to cover and still can’t get healed!”

No doubt you do. But if you’ll look back at God’s prescription, you’ll find it doesn’t say anything about “knowing” the Bible. It says attend to the Word.

When you attend to something, you give your attention to it. You make it top priority, setting aside other things so you can focus on it. When a nurse is attending to a patient, she looks after him constantly. She doesn’t just leave him lying alone in his hospital room while she goes shopping. If someone asks her about her patient, she doesn’t feel it’s sufficient to say, “Oh, yes. I know him.”

In the same way, if you’re attending to the Word, you won’t leave it lying unopened on the coffee table all day. You won’t spend your day focusing your attention on other things.

On the contrary, you’ll do what Proverbs 4 says to do. You’ll continually incline your ear to God’s Word.

Inclining your ear includes more than just putting your physical ears in a position to hear the Word being preached (although that, in itself, is very important). It also means opening the ears of your understanding by meditating on and pondering that Word. To truly hear, you must listen with the ears of your spirit to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you through the written Word. Mark 4:23-24 puts it this way: “If any man has ears to hear, let him be listening, and let him perceive and comprehend…. Be careful what you are hearing. The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure of [virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you—and more [besides] will be given to you who hear” (The Amplified Bible).

The hearing referred to in these verses is not a passive activity. It requires actively engaging with God’s Word, believing and obeying it.

Kenneth Copeland Ministries

In the spiritual realm as a born-again believer, you have life
and the ability to share it with others. You need to learn how to
give this life to meet their needs. The Word of God says, “How
beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and
bring glad tidings of good things!” (Romans 10:15). I wondered
what this really meant until I heard the story of a missionary
and his family who were captured by the Japanese during World
War II. After they were taken captive, they were told that
Washington, D.C. had fallen, that the United States had surrendered,
and that Japan was in control. Well, you can imagine
what this did to those people. They felt absolutely hopeless! The
Japanese dragged them around the country and finally began
killing them because there wasn’t enough food. They took this
missionary’s little girl and shot her. The next day they heard a
deafening roar and saw the sky covered with B-29s! Those people
just went crazy! They had been completely without hope,
laboring under the lie that their country was defeated. Later a
G.I. kicked in the door on their compound and said, “You’re
free,” and when he did, the missionary fell down before him and
kissed his boots! You have the life-giving force of God Himself
residing inside you, and the world is desperate for that life!
Don’t be stingy with it. Freely you have received…freely give.

When you make it your need to get salvation into the hands
of the people, when you make it your purpose to feed the gospel
to the unsaved, God will support what you do. This is true
prosperity! God has obligated Himself to communicate the
message of Jesus Christ to the world. He will move heaven and
earth to do it because, to the man who has never heard it, Jesus
has never died or been resurrected from the dead. To that man,
the sacrifice of Jesus means nothing. The Word says in
1 John 4:17, “…as he is, so are we in this world.” God is feeding
us through Jesus. When you go to the Lord, He has more than
enough to meet the need. Have you ever turned to the Lord
with a problem and had Him say, “Well, that’s new! You’ve
come up with something heaven can’t cover”? Of course not!
God has more than enough to solve the worst problem you
could have. Jesus is the channel to us, and we are the channel
to the world.

True prosperity is the ability to look a man in the eye in his
moment of impossibility and take his needs as your own. Those
who are spiritual are to help those who are not. We are to bear
one another’s burdens. When a brother comes to you with a
problem, join with him in prayer, join your faith with his. Put
pressure on Satan with the Name of Jesus and get him off the
man. Put pressure on the laws of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus. Lean on your righteousness in Jesus Christ. Lean hard on
it! Lean hard on your sonship. Lean hard on the blood of Jesus.
Praise God, they work!

Kenneth Copeland Ministries