Gloria Copeland — Look Up!
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Right now you may be thinking, My, this soldier business sounds rough. I’m not sure I can do it.
Yes, you can!
How? By following two more golden words of advice the Apostle Paul gave Timothy:
1. “Constantly keep in mind Jesus Christ (the Messiah) [as] risen from the dead…” (2 Timothy 2:8, The Amplified Bible).
2. “Continue to hold to the things that you have learned…” (2 Timothy 3:14, The Amplified Bible).
When you face the pressure of battle, when stress and trouble come and you feel you’re about to faint, look up! Focus your attention on the heavenly truth that Jesus Christ has risen from the dead and you are in Him! That means when He arose, you arose. When He defeated the devil, you defeated the devil. His victory is your victory!
Think about that when the devil is telling you that you’re not going to make it. Then turn the tables on him and tell him a few things for a change! Say:
Satan, I remind you that Jesus triumphed over you. I remind you that He spoiled you and made a show of you; that He took away all the authority you had. The Bible says you’ve been brought to naught! You’re nothing, but I am Jesus’ own representative here on the earth. I have His power and act in His Name. I’m seated with Him in heavenly places. All I have to do is stand in the victory Jesus has already won. The only way you can defeat me is by convincing me to quit and that’s the one thing I won’t do! I won’t accept defeat. I won’t let you talk me out of my victory. I will stand and endure until I win—so you might as well surrender right now.
Or, just say:
“In the Name of Jesus, get out of my presence!”
That’s the way a good soldier talks. And that’s the way you’ll talk too when you constantly keep in mind Christ Jesus has risen from the dead! That’s the way you’ll think when you turn your attention away from the impossible problems before you and focus instead on God, with whom all things are possible. As Colossians 3:1-4 says:
If then you have been raised to life with Christ, your heart must be set on the great realities of that heavenly sphere, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Your constant concern must be with the heavenly realities, not with worldly trivialities. For you died to this world, and now you have entered with Christ into the secret life of God. When Christ, who is your life, comes again for all the world to see, then all the world will see that you too share his glory (The New Testament, A Translation by William Barclay).
Gloria Copeland
Tags: advice, battle, defeat, devil, glory, life, power, pressure, soldier, Victory
Gloria Copeland — Beware of Trivial Pursuits Part 2
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As the Lord told a friend of mine in prayer one day, this nation has become a nation of maintenance men. We maintain our homes. We maintain our yards. We maintain our cars and our hair, our nails and our clothes. The problem is, by the time we’ve maintained all the natural things in our lives, we often have no time left to maintain the spirit man who lives on the inside of us.
Has that happened to you? If so, as a good soldier, there’s only one thing for you to do: simplify your life.
“But Gloria,” you say, “the things I do are important. I can’t just cut them out of my life!”
Listen, there’s nothing more important than spending time with God in prayer and in the Word. The time you spend with Him will not only enable you to succeed in this life, but it will help you build for eternity. It will bear fruit that lasts forever.
So make whatever adjustments are necessary to spend time with God. Refuse to let anything rob you of it. Whenever you take on anything new, count the cost—not just in money, but in time. Ask yourself, Can I afford this spiritually? Can I spare the precious hours and minutes this project (possession, hobby, etc.) will require and still have plenty of time to fellowship with the Lord?
If the answer is no, then set that project aside.
I realize that may mean passing up some things you enjoy. But remember, as a good soldier, your aim is not to please yourself. It’s to please the One who enlisted you. And believe me, when you make sacrifices for Him, He always makes sure you’re well rewarded—not only in this age, but in the age to come.
Gloria Copeland
Tags: maintenance, prayer, project, sacrifice, soldier, time, Word of God
Gloria Copeland — Beware of Trivial Pursuits Part 1
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As soldiers, we must also realize it’s not just the hard times that are dangerous. It’s the good times, too. Sometimes the pleasures and seemingly harmless dis-tractions of this world can draw us away from the plans and purposes of God just as surely as persecutions and afflictions. They can hinder us in the day of battle. That’s why Paul said, “No soldier when in service gets entangled in the enterprises of [civilian] life; his aim is to satisfy and please the one who enlisted him” (2 Timothy 2:4, The Amplified Bible).
In the years I’ve lived by faith, I’ve noticed how easy it is to get entangled in the affairs of this life. In fact, it sometimes seems as if this world is like an octopus, always trying to grab you with its tentacles. If you’re not watchful, it will wrap itself around you until you’re completely caught up in the mundane, trivial things of this world.
If you let them, those trivial pursuits will hold you down and keep you from soaring on into the eternal things of God. They will choke out the Word that has been planted in your heart and leave you without faith and without power.
Jesus said it like this:
The ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word: then the cares and anxieties of the world and distractions of the age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things creep in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless (Mark 4:18-19, The Amplified Bible).
Here in the United States, we must be especially vigilant against such entanglements because we have such an abundance of material possessions! We can easily end up spending all our time just taking care of them.
Gloria Copeland
Tags: entangle, faith, hinderance, soldier, trivial, vigilant, Word of God
Gloria Copeland — Endure Hardness Part 2
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Soldiers will put up with far more discomfort than civilians. Have you ever noticed that? A soldier in boot camp will jump out of bed before dawn every morning to run and do push-ups. He may not like it, but he’ll do it because his commanding officer has ordered him to do it. He endures the discomfort because he knows it’s an inescapable part of military life.
A civilian, on the other hand, might start an exercise program but when the going gets tough, his muscles feel sore and his schedule gets busy, he’ll just quit. If someone asks him about it, he might just shrug and say, “I tried exercise, but it didn’t work for me.”
Some Christians are like that. They hear the Word of faith and think, Well, I’ll try that. Then when the hard times come, they give up.
But that’s not how it should be. After all, we’re not civilians. We’re soldiers! We don’t try faith, we make it our lifestyle. We walk by faith, whether it’s hard or easy, not just so we’ll be blessed but because we’re determined to be pleasing to Jesus. He is our commander in chief, and the Bible says “without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6)!
Of course, we will end up being blessed if we’ll walk by faith. We’ll end up healed, delivered and prosperous in every area of life because God promised we would. That, however, is not our motivation. We’re motivated by our desire to serve the Lord. That’s what makes us believe His Word, stand fast and endure when the hard times come.
Gloria Copeland
Tags: discomfort, endurance, faith, healing, motivation, prosperity, soldier
Gloria Copeland — Endure Hardness Part 1
Posted by admin | Filed under Gloria Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Ministries
What were those instructions? You can find one of them in 2 Timothy 2:3. There Paul says, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”
Notice Paul didn’t say, “If hard times come, endure them.” He simply said, “Endure hardness.”
There are no “ifs” about it. Hard times are going to come in the life of every believer. There will be times when circumstances will seem dark, when you face seemingly impossible obstacles—when defeat seems inevitable.
Some Christians get confused when those times come. “What’s happening here?” they cry. “I thought Jesus redeemed me from the curse!”
He did, but you can rest assured, Satan will challenge that redemption. He will try his best to steal it from you by pulling you off your walk of faith. Jesus warned us about that in the parable of the sower. He said:
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 (Mark 4:14-17).
Satan will not sit idly by while you sail through life, effortlessly believing the Word of God. He’ll pressure you with hard times. He’ll attack you with sickness or lack, and then lie to you, telling you God doesn’t care. He’ll try to convince you that God is not going to answer your prayer this time. He’ll attempt to talk you into believing there’s no way out and you’ll end up a miserable failure.
When those hard times come, don’t cave in to the pressure. Don’t give up. Stand on the Word of God and endure hardness like a good soldier.
Gloria Copeland
Tags: endurance, endure, faith, hard times, redemption, soldier, sowing, Word of God
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