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

Someone might say, “Well, that sounds
good! I wonder if it would work like that
for me?”

It will if you’ll put it to work. Look back
at that passage in Luke 6:27 where Jesus
explains this principle and says, “I say unto
you which hear….” In other words, this will
work for anyone who will listen. All you
have to do is hear it and do it.

Love your enemies, do good to them
which hate you, bless them that curse
you, and pray for them which despitefully
use you. And unto him that
smiteth thee on the one cheek offer
also the other; and him that taketh
away thy cloak forbid not to take thy
coat also. Give to every man that
asketh of thee; and of him that taketh
away thy goods ask them not again….

But love ye your enemies, and do good,
and lend, hoping for nothing again;
and your reward shall be great, and ye
shall be the children of the Highest: for
he is kind unto the unthankful and to
the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as
your Father also is merciful.

Judge not, and ye shall not be judged:
condemn not, and ye shall not be
condemned: forgive, and ye shall be
forgiven: Give, and it shall be given
unto you; good measure, pressed down,
and shaken together, and running over,
shall men give into your bosom. For
with the same measure that ye mete
withal it shall be measured to you
again (verses 27-30, 35-38).

For the most part, we’ve misunderstood
what Jesus was saying about turning the
other cheek and giving to the guy who tries
to steal from us. We thought He was saying
we should just lie down and let people run
over us. But that wasn’t His point at all!

He was trying to teach us about this
seedtime, harvest principle. He was trying
to show us how to get blessed. He was
saying, “Don’t sue the person who stole your
shirt and try to get your shirt back. Give it
to him. Then give him your coat too. Those
things will be worth more to you as seeds
than they would be if you kept them. If
you’ll sow them instead of fighting to keep
them, the power of God will go to work on
your behalf. He’ll multiply that seed and
bless you with a hundred times as much!”

If you fight, you do it on your own. If you
give, all of heaven will get in the situation
with you.

I’ll never forget the first time God was able
to get the truth of that principle through to
me. It was years ago when Gloria and I were
on our way to preach a meeting in San Francisco.

I was walking through the airport with a little
Minolta camera hanging over my shoulder.
Back then, that was the ministry camera and
Gloria was the ministry photographer. So that
camera was important to us.

I had walked around that airport for a
while when suddenly I realized my camera
was gone. Someone had stolen it right off
my shoulder! To put it very mildly, I was
irritated.

I started looking around the airport for
the thief. I thought, If I find you, you turkey,
I am going to whip you good!
But right in the middle of my upset, the
Spirit of God interrupted my thinking. If you
take that attitude, He said, you’ll lose that
camera!

“What are you talking about, Lord?” I
answered. “I’ve already lost it!”
No, it isn’t gone yet. I’d learned from Oral Roberts
about the seed, plant, harvest principle,
so I caught on to what the Lord
was telling me in a flash. I said,
“Lord, I see it!” Then I turned to
Gloria and said, “Listen, let’s agree on this.

I’m giving that camera to whoever took it
off my shoulder. I’m sowing it as a seed into
that person’s life and I’m praying that God
will use it to get him saved. I’m believing
that every time he touches that camera, the
Anointing of God will come on him and draw
him to Jesus. Even if the police catch the
thief with the camera in his hand, I will say,
‘Don’t charge that man with any crime. I
have given him that camera.’”

Of course, Gloria agreed and we boarded
the plane to San Francisco. After we got
settled in our seats, I started talking to the
Lord about the seed I’d planted. I said, “Lord,
I know that camera had value and we need
a camera in this ministry. But I don’t want
another Minolta. It’s a good camera, but it
doesn’t have enough range to do what I need.
What I want is a Nikon F.”

This was back in the early ’70s when just
the body of a Nikon F was worth anywhere
from $700-$900. The two lenses I needed
were worth about the same amount, so to
buy the whole outfit, I might have to pay up
to $1800. But I wasn’t worried. I had my
seed in the ground and I started getting
excited. I started expecting the harvest.

Gloria Copeland