Gloria Copeland » light

Gloria Copeland — Light…Not Twilight! Part 2

admin — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 06:01:24 +0000

We need to fight against compromise by arming ourselves with the commitment to suffer in the flesh rather than fail to please God. To suffer in the flesh doesn’t mean to bear sickness and poverty without complaining. Jesus already bore sickness and poverty for us along with every other curse of the law so that we can be free from those things. We are expected to resist that curse in Jesus’ Name.

Suffering in the flesh is making your flesh do something it doesn’t want to do. It’s dedicating yourself to do what’s pleasing to God even when it causes your flesh discomfort.

When you’re ready to do that, you’ll go beyond just “not sinning” and into a life that’s pleasing to God. You’ll be ready to lay down those things that you enjoy, things that aren’t necessarily bad in themselves, yet they are hindering your walk with God.

If you want to walk in the best God has for you, those are the kinds of sacrifices you must make, for Jesus said: “He who does not take up his cross and follow Me [that is, cleave steadfastly to Me, conforming wholly to My example in living and if need be in dying also] is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his [lower] life will lose [the higher life], and whosoever loses his [lower] life on My account will find [the higher life]” (Matthew 10:38-39, AMP).

If you could see what God has for you in the higher life, you would immediately let go of the mundane things of the world. You would drop that junk so fast you wouldn’t even know which way it went. But you’re not going to be able to see it and then make your decision.

You have to step into that higher life by faith. You have to lay down your life because the Word says to do it. Then and only then will you discover the wonders that are waiting on the other side of your obedience.

I’m sure Enoch didn’t know what the higher life held for him. He probably had no idea that he’d be the first man ever raptured. But he was. Hebrews 11:5 says, “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death…for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

Gloria Copeland

Gloria Copeland — Light…Not Twilight! Part 1

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 15:14:02 +0000

There’s no reason why we as believers can’t please God as much as Jesus did. We have a reborn spirit made in His image. We’ve been given His righteousness. We’ve been filled with the same Holy Spirit. We have all the capacity that Jesus had in the earth to be just like Him and to do the works that He did because He lives in us. The Scripture says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

He was dedicated. He was totally sold out to God. He was without sin. The Bible tells us many times He ministered to the multitudes all day and then prayed all night, yet Jesus had a flesh and blood body just like yours and mine. He enjoyed a good night’s sleep just as much as we do. So there was an element of crucifying the flesh involved in giving up that sleep and doing what pleased God. He had to say no to His flesh and yes to the Father.

“Well, Gloria, I know Jesus did that, but God doesn’t expect that kind of self-sacrifice from us.”

Yes, He does. First Peter 4:1-3 says:

So, since Christ suffered in the flesh [for us, for you], arm yourselves with the same thought and purpose [patiently to suffer rather than fail to please God]. For whoever has suffered in the flesh [having
the mind of Christ] has done with [intentional] sin—has stopped pleasing himself and the world, and pleases God. So that he can no longer spend the rest of his natural life living by [his] human appetites and desires, but [he lives] for what God wills. For the time that is past already suffices for doing what the Gentiles like to do (AMP).

It’s time for the Church to stop living as gentiles (or sinners) do! It’s time for the Church to live as God says, regardless of what the world around us is doing. Just because the morals of the world slip doesn’t mean the morals in the Church should slip.

It doesn’t matter how dark this world gets, we are to be the light of this world. Not the twilight of the world—the light!

Gloria Copeland

Gloria Copeland — The Nature Of God

admin — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 00:01:56 +0000

Since the Garden of Eden, God has had to deal with man at
arm’s length because of the glory surrounding His being. It would
overwhelm man if God appeared to him in the full manifestation
of His power. He once revealed to Moses that no man could look
into His face and live and then only allowed him a glimpse of
Himself from behind. He said, “I will put you in the shadow and
cleft of a rock. I will hold My hand over your face as I allow My
goodness to pass before you.” (See Exodus 33:19-23.)

Mercifully, God protected Moses from the intense
power that radiated from His face, knowing that even the
shadow of His presence would be too much for him.

However, this distance between man and Himself
was not in God’s original plan. He had created Adam and
clothed him in His own light and glory. Adam did not
know he was naked.

Before Adam sinned, all he knew was the fire of God’s
glory around his body. However, after the Fall of Man,
Adam lost that fire and could no longer fellowship with
God in His presence as he had before. If he had, the glory
of God which consumes all, sin would have consumed him
as well.

God wanted to restore our relationship with Him so
He could walk and talk with us like
He did with Adam. His desire is to
have fellowship with us. He sent Jesus
to the earth to pay the price for man’s
sin. Through Jesus, the glory of God
came wrapped in human flesh so that
once again man and his Creator could
have contact.

Jesus was born of a virgin, without sin. The Holy Spirit
hovered over Mary and there was conceived in her a holy.
thing (Luke 1:35). Jesus was born not of a natural man, but
God Himself caused life to come into Mary’s womb. God’s
life flowed into His human body.

The glory of God did not consume Jesus as it would
a sinful man. Instead, it became a flowing stream of
healing that radiated from the person of Jesus. A vivid
illustration of this is the account of Jesus on the Mount of
Transfiguration, when His clothes and face literally shone
with the glory of God.