Then the story continues with, “Jesus…said unto him, One
thing thou lackest.” What he lacked was a working revelation of
the covenant. The young man only did as he was supposed to.
He presented himself as knowing the Word, and Jesus tested
his knowledge by saying, “Go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast,
and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and
come, take up the cross, and follow me.” What did the young man
do? He walked off sadly because he had great possessions. Jesus
could have stopped him right then and explained what He
meant, but if He had, the man would have obeyed in the natural
and not by faith. If he had asked Jesus to explain Himself,
He would have. Each time His disciples asked Him to explain a
parable, He did, but He never explained it in order to get them
to act on it. If the man had really known the covenant, he
would have thought, “What does the covenant say about giving to
the poor?” He would have remembered Proverbs 19:17 that
says, “He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and
that which he hath given will he pay him again.” This was the
biggest financial deal that young man had ever been offered,
but he walked away from it because he didn’t know God’s system
of finance. He didn’t take the time to inquire; he just
assumed that God wanted to break him. Instead of being Word minded
that young man was money-minded.

When the rich young ruler walked away, Jesus said, “How
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!”
Then an interesting thing happened. The next verse says, “And
the disciples were astonished at his words.” We have just taken
it for granted that Jesus and His disciples didn’t have anything.
But the Bible describes Peter, James and John as professional
fishermen. They owned more than one boat, and they had
household servants! When Jesus spoke those words, it shook
them. It was adverse to what they had seen. They were astonished
at His words! Jesus was not poor in His ministry. He had a
treasurer! Turn off your religious head and read the Word of
God as if it were your newspaper.

Another point I want you to grasp is the reality of Jesus’ words,
“Come, take up the cross, and follow me.” What does “the cross”
refer to? The “cross we are to bear” is selfish, unlovely people. The
greatest commandment is that we love one another. Unfortunately,
some people are not easy to love, but we are to love them anyway.
We are to bear one another’s burdens and uphold one another. We
must stop strife with the love of God. This is our cross. Do you
realize the significance of His words, “Come…follow me”? These
are the words Jesus spoke to every man He commissioned as an
apostle. When I saw this, the Lord said, “Wouldn’t this man have
been the logical replacement for Judas?” Judas failed because of
the love of money. He even stole from the bag! This young ruler
was an excellent businessman; he was honest and had operated
the covenant from his youth. He was perfect for the job, but he
turned his back on this tremendous opportunity to follow Jesus.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

Before you begin meditation in the Word, you must commit
yourself to the absolute truth of John 10:10. “The thief cometh
not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they
might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”
Whenever I read something that seems contradictory to this, I
immediately stop and straighten out my thinking. The truth is
hidden in some way, and I rely on the Holy Spirit to reveal it to
me. God is not our problem. He does not steal from us. He is
the giver of all good things! When you commit yourself to this
basic truth, you block Satan and deal a deadly blow to deception.
As long as you are open to it, Satan will prove that God
wants you to live in poverty and in sickness to teach you
humility. He will try to convince you that the rich young ruler
couldn’t receive eternal life because he had money, but Satan is
a liar and the father of lies!

Here is how the Lord revealed the truth to me: As I read
Mark 10:20, “And he answered and said unto him, Master, all
these have I observed FROM MY YOUTH,” the Lord spoke to me
and said, “See, this is why he was rich.” Then He pointed me to
Deuteronomy 8:18 about the Lord giving power to get wealth
in order to establish His covenant. This young man was evidently
walking in this part of the covenant. The Lord said, “Do
you think I would ask something from him that I hadn’t given
him in the first place?” You must realize these two facts: (1)
God is the only reason you have anything, and (2) He will
never ask you to give up something without giving you something
better in return.

Verse 21 says, “Then Jesus beholding him loved him.” Now
some people think that God doesn’t like people with money,
but this says that when Jesus looked at the young man, He
loved him…before He said anything about giving away his possessions.
You see, He loved him and what He said was to the
man’s advantage.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

One time I was meditating about Peter catching the fish
with the money in its mouth. I realized this was a financial
operation, so I decided to find out what God had to say. I must
have read that story 50 times and ran into a blank wall each
time! I could see that Peter needed tax money and Jesus told
him to go fishing. He caught the fish and got the money out
of its mouth. I would run that through my thinking, sometimes
for hours, then get up and say, “Well, Lord, I know it’s here
somewhere, and by faith, I claim the revelation on it!” Finally,
in prayer one day I picked up my Bible, flipped it open to that
passage, and read it once more. Then I saw something I had
read over and over again. Jesus said, “Get the money out of the
mouth of the first fish.” Peter was going to catch a mess of fish!
Then the Lord spoke to my heart and said, “Daughter, don’t bind Me
to finances. I can handle the fish just as I can the money.” I saw
what I had been missing! I had been centering on the one fish.
Now if I had been in Peter’s place, I would have jerked the
money out of the fish’s mouth, run down to pay the taxes, and
then realized that I didn’t have anything to eat. I would have
been so shortsighted that I would have thrown the fish back
and missed out on the rest of the catch. If there was a first fish,
there had to be a second and so on. Peter was a commercial
fisherman and knew how to market those fish. Jesus obviously
loaded his boat again. I would have spent part of the money on
something to eat and still couldn’t have paid my taxes. I thought,
“I have been believing for the money to buy an automobile when
I should have been believing God for the automobile itself!” The
Lord said, “That’s right. You have had Me bound to that little
channel of money.” Then He said something I’ll never forget,
“Son, if I send you a cow with a bag of money around her neck,
for goodness’ sake, milk her before you send her home!” The
Lord has a tremendous sense of humor, but I didn’t know it until
I began to fellowship with Him and meditate in His Word.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

It is the responsibility of every member of the Body of
Christ to believe God for the abundance He provides. When
one of us falls short in this responsibility, the whole Body of
Christ suffers because of that one cell. (You may not use your
little finger very much, but if it is sore, your whole hand suffers.)
As believers, we have a responsibility to provide for the
needs of our brothers and sisters around the world. If we lack,
they will suffer for it.

Now you can see that the basic reason for the operation of
faith is to meet the needs of mankind. You may not need much
money to be happy and successful in your own life, but people
are starving and dying throughout the world. Someone must
provide for them. They don’t know how to get it for themselves.
There are even preachers going hungry! The biggest complaint
from people is that all the preachers are wanting money. Do you
know the best way to stop that complaint? Give to them! Don’t
get into strife with them; bless them with your giving and pray
for them.

The covenant is yours. The wisdom of God is yours. It
resides within you. Bring it to the surface by meditating in the
Word of God and giving God the opportunity to share His system
with you. When you let Him be your source of supply, you
can live independently from the world’s system. The Word
states so plainly in 2 Corinthians that without aid or support
you can continue to be generous in every good work. This is
the attitude God is looking for. This man is unlimited in the
things of the Lord. Praise God!

When we began plans for our first television series, people
said that we couldn’t do it because of the tremendous cost of
such an operation. One man offered us, at half price, an estimate
of $750 per finished minute. For a 60-minute program,
the total production cost would have been $45,000. The
thought of financing a weekly series for one year at that price
was overwhelming! For a series of five programs, they quoted
us $350,000. Then the Lord said, “Why don’t you give Me a
chance? You’ve asked the experts about it; now let Me in on it!”
So I did. God moved—and we filmed the five-part series for
$3,750! The Apostle Paul said, “…the world is crucified unto me,
and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14).

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland

All the words God spoke to Joshua would have been useless
if he had disobeyed and not meditated in the Word day and night.
Only by meditation in the Word will you be able to see how to do
what is written there. Proverbs 23:7 tells us that as a man thinks
in his heart, so is he. Learn to take the Word of God and meditate
in it. Then when the world says, “There’s no way out,” you can
just smile and say, “Oh yes, there is a way. His Name is Jesus.”

God said, “If you will meditate in My Word, you will prosper
and have good success.” In other words, you will deal wisely in
all the affairs of life. If you do this, prosperity will be no problem.
It doesn’t matter who you are or what situation you are in,
if you can deal wisely in all the affairs of life, you will triumph.
Paul and Silas proved this when they were in jail. They praised
God at midnight, and evidently they dealt wisely in that affair
because the prison doors popped open!

A good businessman knows that making money is not his
biggest problem. Anyone can make money if he knows how to
deal wisely. He can take 50 cents and turn it into a fortune if he
knows exactly what to do with it. If you knew exactly how to
deal wisely with the money in your purse or billfold—if you
knew what to do, where to go, whom to talk with, and what to
say—success would be inevitable.

The truly successful man is one who knows the Lord, has
learned to believe God, and can share it with others. This man
is valuable to God, to himself, to the people around him, and
he is dangerous to Satan.

Remember, it is God who gives the power to get wealth in
order that His covenant may be established. God and His Word
are one. When you are in the presence of the Word of God, you are
in the presence of God Himself. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
There is no way that you can have God manifest in your life
without His Word. Now there are special manifestations of God’s
grace, but the Christian is not supposed to live on these. We are
to live a constant manifestation of God’s presence from His
Word. You keep His Word, and He will manifest Himself to you.
Nothing thrills me more than to know that if I wake up in the
middle of the night with some problem, all I have to do is reach
for my Bible. This is the manifestation of the power of God. It
will work every time for anybody who will use it! When you
realize that this manifestation of God is available all the time and
begin to walk in the light of it, you will become prosperous.

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland