by Kenneth Copeland
Everywhere you turn these days, there is fear in the world. The Bible tells us that men’s hearts will fall them for fear of what’s coming on the earth—it seems we’re right in the middle of those times.
But as a believer, you don’t have to live in fear. You have the power over it through your heavenly Father. When you know and believe in your heart that God loves you—you won’t be afraid of anything.
As 1 John 4:18 tells us, “There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror!” (The Amplified Bible).
Develop faith in God’s love for you and develop a fear-free life!
One of the things He told me to do was to lay hands on every person that had not received the manifestation of healing. I had rarely ever had a healing line and I had never laid hands on that many people after I had been ministering for three hours on healing. When I had finished, I was so tired I could hardly close the meeting. I had to have someone else do it.
After the next healing service, God told me to do the same thing, but at the end He said, Now rejoice before the Lord. Prior to that, I had said, “Lord, I will do anything You want me to do.” I had not planned to rejoice before the Lord in front of all those people.
But I just turned to the musicians and said, “Let’s rejoice before the Lord.”
Then the Lord prompted me: Now worship Me—spirit, soul and body. Don’t just hold up your hands. Begin to dance before Me. I had never done that and had never intended to do it. I could have thought, I don’t believe I’m ready for that yet. But God said it, and I was so committed to obeying Him that I just began to dance before the Lord. And the people joined in with me! We were caught up in rejoicing and had a good time worshiping God.
In the previous meeting I had been absolutely exhausted after ministering. This time I had ministered about four hours when I began to dance before the Lord, and something happened in my physical body. The Holy Spirit quickened my mortal flesh and all the tiredness left me.
The Lord did not say, “If you will dance before Me, you will be rewarded for it. You will be glad you did. It will change many things in your life and your thinking.” He did not say it was that important. He just said, “Do it.” I was so ready to obey Him that I followed through with it. You know, it has been one of the greatest blessings I have ever known.
In previous meetings I would often be so tired that I could hardly make it to the night service. But when I began to rejoice that day, the Spirit of God refreshed me physically. Nehemiah 8:10 says, “…for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” That is what rejoicing is all about. All these years have come and gone and I’ve always had the physical strength to finish the healing service. Usually I’m not even tired!
It also did something else for me. It released me in some way from being inhibited to following after God. I became quicker to obey God in other areas that might seem foolish. It broke an inhibition that I did not even realize was there, and somehow I became freer to follow after God.
Do you know what the dictionary says dignity is? “Self-possession or self-respect.” I do not want to be self-possessed; I want to be Holy Spirit-controlled. But I am sure that my idea of dignity had kept me from being as free as I should be with the Lord.
Freedom happens when you follow your spirit. You do not always know what is at the other end of that act of obedience. Your primary action should be to please God. Everything the Spirit of God tells you to do will work for your good. It is always going to be to your advantage.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
Following the Spirit of God is the only way the Church will ever do the job God has called us to do. We cannot do it in our soulish realm. We cannot operate in the supernatural and have our souls (minds, wills, emotions) in command of our lives. We must walk in the Spirit. To walk in the supernatural, we must be willing to go beyond what we can see with our natural eyes and walk after God by faith. We must learn to look through the eye of faith.
I made this commitment: “God, I will do anything You want me to do. Teach me and lead me.”
At this time Ken did not have a daytime service, and by direction of the Lord, I started teaching on Friday mornings. (I was already teaching healing on Saturdays.) I prayed: “Father, we are just giving You this time. We are turning it over to the Holy Spirit. Whatever You want us to do, tell us.”
I told the people to prepare themselves to set aside these days for the Holy Spirit to do whatever He wanted. Those services lasted sometimes for three or four hours. I just endeavored to teach the Word and to follow the Holy Spirit and minister to the people.
I said, “God, I will do anything You tell me to do. I don’t care what I look like to people.” If there was anyone who had cared what they looked like to people, it had been me. (Sister Etter calls this a man-fearing spirit.) I wanted to be dignified and nice. I never wanted to look foolish to anyone. On top of that I was timid, but I reached a place where it was more important what God thought about me than what people thought.
In those services God began to show me things to do and I would do them. Sometimes they would be little things, but I did my best to not hold back. It does not always have to be some big thing. God just needs to know that we will obey Him in little things before He can take us on to bigger things. “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much…” (Luke 16:10).
I so wanted to be led by the Holy Spirit. Here is an example of how a simple act of obedience brought me strength to be able to fulfill an assignment.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
If Jesus and His Word abide in us and we maintain a living communion with Him by the Spirit of God, we’ll be able to walk in continual obedience. When we do that, we put ourselves in position to ask whatever we will and it will be done (John 15:7).
Remember this: Abiding is obeying.
For yourselves, let the teaching which you have heard from the beginning abide within you. If that teaching does abide within you, you also will abide in the Son. And in the Father (1 John 2:24, Weymouth).
The man who obeys His commands abides in God and God in him; and through His spirit which He has given us we can know that He abides in us (1 John 3:24, Weymouth).
God gives us His Word. He gives us His direction. When He tells you to do something, it may seem unimportant to you. You might think it is insignificant, but your future may depend on it. God does not explain Himself. He expects you to walk by faith. He expects you to be mature. He expects you to grow up into Him so you will simply do what you are told, knowing that He is smarter than you. Then He sees whether or not we will do it. If we will not, He knows we are not ready to move on with Him.
If you have had problems in your life and you feel that God is not paying attention to you, think back to the moment you disobeyed Him last, then obey His instructions. “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). He may be waiting for you to set things straight and begin again with Him.
Unless we rise up and begin to obey the anointing—the unction—in our spirits by the Holy Spirit, God will be unable to take us any further along than we are right now. Like Israel, we will stay in the wilderness until God finds another generation that’s obedient. And if they accept Him at His Word and follow His Spirit, then He will take them further than He was able to take us.
We should not want to stay where we are, though it may be such a wonderful place. We must continue on so we can grow in God.
You have to start where you are right now. Obey everything that God tells you today, and then again tomorrow, and the next day. Learn to walk with God one day at a time. He will give you the grace daily for what you’re to do that day. Then you will be able to look back and see a life that has pleased God. In our everyday walk we must be obedient—in the seemingly little things, as well as in the big things.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland
God expects you to be sensitive and to listen to the promptings—that unction, that inward witness. According to Hebrews 4:12, the Word of God divides between the soul and the spirit. It will distinguish
within you between your natural mind and your spirit—between what is coming from your mind and what is coming from your spirit. If you want to walk in the spirit, you will have to spend time studying in and meditating on the Word and praying in the spirit.
The more you grow in the Lord, the more your soul will come into agreement with God. The more your soul is renewed to think like God thinks, the easier it will be for you to be led by the Holy Spirit.
We were born again in God’s image on the inside, but the Holy Spirit will begin to change us on the outside as we obey Him. As we walk with Him and obey Him, the Spirit of God within us will manifest the presence of Jesus until Romans 8:29 is fulfilled: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”
As we begin to think like He thinks, the things of God will become so great that the things of the world will seem ridiculously insignificant.
Let loose the Spirit of God in your life. Walk in that anointing. Abide in that anointing. The Spirit of God is leading you, counseling you, teaching you, ministering grace to you every day of your life.
When we receive that unction from God, giving us direction, we are to obey. We are not to mentally question it. We are not to talk ourselves out of it. We are not to reason it away. (But, of course, we judge all direction by what God has already said in the written Word concerning His will and the laws of the Spirit. He will never tell us to do something that is crosswise to His Word.) When the Spirit of God rises up within us, we must act. That is what makes God able to manifest Himself in our lives, from one degree of glory to another.
Obedience opens the door that nothing else will open. Being obedient to the Spirit of God opens the door for God to honor us in full measure. God is able to work His perfect will in our lives when we honor Him, reverence Him and abide in Him. Whatever we do toward Him, we open the door for Him to do toward us.
Kenneth and Gloria Copeland