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

A few years ago during my prayer time, the Lord dealt with me about resurrection. It means “rising from the dead or coming back to life; coming back into notice, practice, use, a restoration or revival; the state of having risen from the dead.”

There is coming a resurrection of our physical bodies—at the time of the catching away of the Church. But the greatest resurrection we’ll ever know, we’ve already experienced. It occurred the moment we passed from spiritual death into spiritual life—when we were born again. That was the only death you—the real you, the spirit—will ever experience. Glory to God!

Our spirit man was raised up in eternal life. The primary part of us is not the physical body. We are a spirit being. It is the spirit that gives life to the body (James 2:26). The body is just the earthly house in which we live. When we (our spirits) leave our bodies, these bodies will die and decay, but we will be present with the Lord. One moment we are in our bodies, the next moment we are in the glory! “Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory” (Psalm 73:24).

Now we are to put on this new man. Read carefully how we are to live this new life.

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:1-17, New International Version).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries