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