When Faith Comes
Faith — 10 Minutes
Article by Kenneth Copeland
Kenneth Copeland teaches us that, as a child of God, the BLESSING of God in the Bible is available for us today and we have been given the ability to believe and receive any scriptural promise or provision.
Have you ever seen some marvelous BLESSING of God in the Bible and wondered if you could ever have faith to receive it? Have you wondered at times, Could I ever really believe for that to come to pass in my life?
If so, I want you to know today that the answer is yes! As a born-again child of God you have the ability to believe and receive any scriptural promise or provision. You can have faith for anything God said in His WORD. Absolutely anything!
No matter how impossible your financial situation may look, or how deep in debt you might be—you can have faith for prosperity.
No matter how long you’ve been struggling with sickness and pain, or how daunting the doctor’s diagnosis may be—you can have faith to be healed.
No matter how many defeats you’ve experienced in some area of your life—you can believe God in that area. You can take Him at His WORD, conquer every challenge, and become a living testimony to 1 John 5:4: “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”
“But Brother Copeland,” you might say, “I’ve tried to believe God in the past for some things and just couldn’t seem to do it. Maybe I just don’t have what it takes.”
Certainly you do!
First, you have God’s very own faith that He gave you as a gift the instant you received Jesus as your LORD (Ephesians 2:8). Second, you have abundant access to His WORD. Anytime you choose, you can open your Bible and read the Covenant of BLESSING that’s yours in Christ Jesus. Anytime, day or night, you can turn on your CD or DVD player, or tune in to the BVOV Network, and hear the Anointed WORD of God being preached.
Talk about having what it takes to believe God! You’ve got it made. God’s WORD is more available right now than it’s ever been before in all of human history—and, as Romans 10:17 says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Notice that verse doesn’t say faith might come. It doesn’t say that faith sometimes comes. No, it says if you keep hearing and hearing The WORD of God, faith cometh! Period. It cometh every time, all the time, because it’s a spiritual law; and spiritual laws are even more powerful and exact than natural laws. They never fail to work.
Not long ago, I was fellowshiping with The LORD and He said to me, Kenneth, think about it this way. When you put water in a teakettle, if you put the fire under it and keep the heat on, the result is certain. You don’t have to keep feeling the water to see if it’s getting warmer. You don’t have to confirm with sensory evidence that the law of thermodynamics is still in force. You know what’s coming. If you’re at sea level, when the water gets to be 212 degrees Fahrenheit (or 100 degrees Celsius) it’s going to start bubbling because there’s no such thing as water that won’t boil.
The same principle applies in the realm of the spirit: There’s no such thing as faith that won’t come! If you keep the fire of The WORD burning in you, faith is eventually going to bubble up in your spirit. You won’t necessarily feel it because faith isn’t detectable to the natural body. But nevertheless, if you keep the scriptural heat on, one day your faith is going to boil.
When it does, it will go off inside you like the whistle on a teakettle. Even though nothing on the outside may appear to have changed, in your heart you’ll know that you know that you have believed God. You’ll be able
to shout with joyful assurance, “The victory is mine! I have it now!”
How to Get to the Shouting Place
“But Brother Copeland,” you might say, “can I really be assured I have the victory even before my circumstances have changed?”
You can when you have faith because, as Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the substance [or the assurance] of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Faith causes you to respond to God’s WORD in much the same way I responded some years ago to some natural news I received about a property that Gloria and I wanted to buy. We’d made an offer on it and, after waiting several days to hear a response, the realtor called us and said, “They’ve accepted your offer!”
At that point, not one piece of paper had been signed. I didn’t have a shred of physical evidence that the deal had been made. But I believed it anyway. I didn’t wring my hands and say to Gloria, “Let’s hope, hope, hope this is actually true.” I didn’t say, “Well, he said they accepted our offer, but let’s hope they don’t change their minds.”
On the contrary, I immediately started rejoicing. I turned to Gloria and shouted with confidence, “It’s ours, girl! We got it!”
In that situation, the only assurance I had was what some fellow said to me on the phone. But I believed him so that was enough. How much more should it be enough when we have God’s WORD about something? How much more should we shout over what He said?
God’s Covenant of BLESSING is infinitely more thrilling than the best piece of property anyone could ever buy! So if you aren’t shouting yet, just start spending more time in that Covenant. Instead of getting discouraged, put The WORD first place in your life and your schedule. Keep going over it and over it until faith comes.
If you’ve been struggling with sickness or lack, find healing or prosperity scriptures and write them all down in a little notebook. Then carry that notebook with you and read from it throughout the day as you have opportunity. Read it at night before you go to sleep and again in the morning when you wake up.
In other words, do what God said in Proverbs 4: “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” (verses 20-22).
The word health in the last phrase of that passage can also be translated medicine. I like that particular translation because it reflects a vital spiritual truth. God’s WORD really is
supernatural, spiritual medicine, and when taken according to prescription, it releases His healing, miracle-working power not only in your body, but in any area of your life.
Just the healing scriptures you write down in your little notebook would be enough to heal every sickness and disease in existence. Just the little pocket-sized list of verses you put together for your own use could cure every suffering person in the world. One WORD from God can change anyone’s life forever, so just think what a whole book full of scriptures can do!
They can connect anyone anywhere to God’s healing power because that power is present all over this planet. It’s been present here 24/7 since the day of Pentecost. Right now God is present to heal in every hospital on earth. He’s present in every hotel and every business, in every home and on every street corner.
Wherever anyone may be, the living God Himself is there! He’s less than a breath away; and anyone, in any place, at anytime can receive from Him.
All it takes is faith.
Get It Into Your System
Although you can open the door for faith to come by assembling a notebook full of scriptures (or list of scriptures on your cellphone or tablet) I want to reemphasize that’s just the beginning. You’ll also want to make it a practice to go over those scriptures again and again. Even if you get to where you have them memorized, keep looking at them. Keep reading them and meditating on them.
Don’t make the mistake of just leaving them tucked in your pocket or sitting on your nightstand. That doesn’t do any good. It’s like getting a prescription filled and then neglecting to take the medicine.
You can imagine how a doctor would respond to your making such a mistake. If you filled a prescription he gave you and never bothered to open the little pill bottle, when you went back for your next appointment, he’d say, “You haven’t improved at all! Have you been taking your medicine?”
“No, but I keep it right next to my bed so I’ll always know where it is.”
“What?!” he’d exclaim. “That medicine won’t help you just because you have it in your possession! You have to take it as prescribed. You have to get it into your system so it can do its work.”
The exact same thing is true when it comes to the medicine of God’s WORD. For it to do its work in you, you have to get it into your spirit-soul- body system. You have to incline your ear to it; let it not depart from your eyes; and keep it in the midst of your heart. You have to make it your final authority so when you read that by Jesus’ stripes you were healed, you don’t argue; you agree. You say, “If The WORD says I’m healed, then I’m healed!”
“But Brother Copeland, what if I can still feel pain in my body even after I say I’m healed?”
Let me tell you something: The pain is a temporary fact; the Scripture is eternal truth. If you stick with the truth, it will change the facts. As Jesus said, “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32, New King James Version).
I’ve seen this demonstrated time and again. I know one man, for instance, who was set free by faith in the truth, literally from behind the bars of a prison! His name is Gene Neill.* Before he got saved he was a big-time criminal lawyer. He was also a crook.
While he was defending criminals in the courtroom, on the side he was orchestrating bank robberies. Eventually he got caught and sentenced to 50 years in solitary confinement. They slammed the door on him and said, “See you in a half-century, Big Shot!”
His wife was a believer, so while he was in prison, she was at home praying for him. As a result he wound up getting born again and getting into The WORD. After a while, faith came and things began to change for him.
First, he got released from solitary confinement. Then, his sentence was amended to give him a slightly better deal. After a few more years (I don’t know exactly how many but it certainly wasn’t 50) a guard came and got him one day, took him to the front office and he was processed out of prison. His release was so sudden he didn’t even have time to call anyone to come pick him up.
I heard him give his testimony years later on TV to Paul Crouch. “Gene, you’re a lawyer,” Paul said. “Did you ever look into it and see why they released you?”
“No!” he answered, laughing. “I’m not sure they know I’m gone.”
That’s the kind of thing that happens when you keep hearing the truth of God’s WORD. Suddenly one day faith comes! The revelation of the truth boils up inside you, the whistle on your spiritual teakettle goes off, and you know that you know you’ve been made free.
Once you know you’re free on the inside, it’s not going to be long before you’re free on the outside because this is the victory that overcometh the world— even your faith!
“But how will I know when faith comes?” someone might ask.
The only way I know to say it is that it’s like falling in love. When it happens you just know! If you’ve been believing for healing, although you may still feel the pain and the other symptoms of sickness, suddenly things look different to you. All at once you just know that you know (that you know, that you know) you’re healed. You get a funny- looking smile on your face and say, “I’ll tell you what, bless God, I’m going down there to the healing meeting and the minute someone lays hands on me tonight, I’ll receive my healing!”
I remember Brother Kenneth E. Hagin telling about a man who stuck with The WORD until he got to that point. For days, he attended one healing meeting after another. Each time he went forward for prayer without getting any results. Brother Hagin almost wondered why the man kept coming. “Laying hands on him was like laying hands on a doorknob,” he said. “There was no spiritual spark at all.”
Even so, however, the man didn’t give up. He kept coming to the meetings and hearing The WORD anyway. Eventually, he showed up early one evening with a great sense of excitement. “I’m going to get it tonight!” he said to the pastor. “You just wait and see. When Brother Hagin puts his hands on me I’ll receive because I know now that healing is mine!”
Sure enough, that’s exactly what happened. Why? Because faith came!
It will come to you, too, just the same way. So never give up. Never quit. Don’t be moved by what you see or what you feel. Keep reading and attending to The WORD. Take it every day according to prescription and it will come to pass in your life!
Taken from the BVOV magazine, February 2017.
