We believers need to start watching our language! We need to quit throwing words around like they weren't important and start using them like our lives depended on it--because, according to the Word of God, they do! (Proverbs 18:21).
Too many of us have what Proverbs 19:1 calls a perverted mouth. Having a perverted mouth means more than lying and using profanity. It means having a disobedient mouth. It means saying things that are out of line with the Word of God.
There's a dimension of living you can only experience when you make a decision to please the Father in every activity of your life. In that dimension, Jesus becomes real to you and manifests Himself to you.
Just after the turn of the 20th century, God poured out His Spirit and started a revival on Azusa Street. It was an awesome time, a time when people's entire lives were turned inside out. Everything else in their world seemed to lose importance. Supernatural things were happening. God was manifesting Himself in their presence.
The living Word of Almighty God is the only power strong enough to discipline your flesh. It's the only power that can cause you to think, look, talk and act like a born-again man.
When I became a Christian, I was dominated by a horrible smoking habit. I tried to quit every way I could think of but nothing worked. After months of struggling and failing, I decided to attend some meetings in Hilton Sutton's church in Houston, Texas. Before I went into those meetings, I tucked my cigarettes above the sun visor in my car and left them there.
People go to great lengths trying to wring knowledge from God when all they need to do is go to the Bible. God's not holding Himself back from anyone. It's His will for every man and woman to walk in revelation of Him.
"Well now, Brother Copeland," you might say, "God's not going to give all these sinners out here a revelation." Really? Why do you think He sends evangelists to preach to them? Why do you think He sent His Word? To reveal the truth!
As a believer, you're destined to be molded into the image of Jesus, to grow in spirit until you look just like Him. God's supernatural power began that process the moment you were born again. You were changed on the inside instantly. How successful you are in allowing this change to progress to the outer man is mostly up to you. We grow up spiritually just like we grow up physically.
What can you do to speed this growing process along?
Have you ever noticed that the easiest place to remain self-centered is at home? There's an incentive to be lovely with others, but with your family you are tempted to allow yourself more selfish privileges, as if it didn't count there.
Before I was a Christian, I was more courteous and nicer to friends than to my own family. I was more demanding and less forgiving with those dearest to me than with anyone else.
But after I made Jesus Lord of my life, I realized all that had to change.
Inside, you're perfect—born again in the image of Jesus Himself. But outwardly do you find yourself falling frustratingly short of that perfection? Is there a solution? Yes! The secret lies in "the renewing of your mind."
Romans 12:2 tells us that, if you'll renew your mind, you can actually be "transformed." That word transformed is translated from the Greek word from which we get the term metamorphosis. It's used in Scripture in two other places.
Recently, God has been raising up ever-growing numbers of people who are hungry. Hungry to know their Lord in a deeper way. Hungry to serve Him—in pulpits, on mission fields, in homes, in office buildings and anywhere else He might choose to send them.
They are people who simply aren't content to find the path of least resistance and coast their way into heaven. No, they're determined to run the race...to run, as the apostle Paul said, to obtain the prize. Spiritually speaking, they are on the road to excellence.
Are you among them?
Love. It is the first and foremost command Jesus gave us, yet all too many believers neglect to follow it.
I'm talking about believers who can quote tremendous amounts of scripture and who may speak the Name of Jesus 35 or 40 times a day, yet they're rough and insensitive to the needs of their friends and family. They're so busy "serving God," they don't have time to serve people. Strife is their hallmark.
Few things in the Bible have created more fuss than the issue of speaking in tongues. Churches have split over it. People have been persecuted for doing it. People have even been killed for it.
Who's behind all the trouble? Satan himself. He's so frightened of our ability to pray in tongues that he's continually trying to steal it from us through persecution and strife.
You see, the devil knows (even if we don't) that praying in tongues is the only way you and I can pray beyond what we know. It's the tool God has given us to use to tap into the mind of the Spirit.
Do you know what Jesus was really talking about when He said those words? He was talking about the mourning of the intercessor. He was teaching about the comfort that comes to the intercessor when he is assured by the Holy Spirit that he has prayed through.
To pray through means "to break through the barriers that have stopped the work of God in the lives of others." It means using your spiritual armor to push back the forces of darkness that surround them.
Tithing. Most Christians aren't very excited about it. But they should be—and they would be if they understood how to do it properly.
Scriptural tithing stirs up faith. It activates the power of God in our lives when we do it in gratitude and joy, expecting our needs to be met abundantly.
In Deuteronomy 26:8-9, God told the Israelites exactly what to say when they brought their tithes. He instructed them to acknowledge the fact that He had brought them out of the bondage of Egypt and to say:
Considering how much the devil hates people and how dead set he is on destroying them, it's no wonder we see so much tragedy and disaster in the world. In fact, it's amazing that we don't see more!
I asked the Lord about that one time and He told me it takes the realm of darkness a long time to set up major disasters. Take the aviation industry, for example. It's highly regulated and works hard at policing itself because safety is its product. You take a highly regulated system like that and the devil has to work terribly hard to cause disasters.
Have you been praying that God will let you know whether a certain action you want to take is agreeable to His will or not? Let this peace of Christ be your guide. Let it help you settle the issue. If you start to take that action and you realize you don't have peace about it, don't do it.
There seems to be an abundance of "stony ground" Christians these days. Initially, they get excited about the Word of God. They'll hear a message on prosperity, for instance, and they'll go home saying, "Hallelujah! I'm going to prosper in the Name of Jesus!" But then, somehow, things don't work out like they thought they should.
Their bank balance doesn't double overnight. They go through some disappointments. They suffer some criticism. Then, before you know it, their faith has withered away.
Some years back, I was praying and walking the floor of our little house in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I was walking up and down confessing 1 John 4:4, "Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world." Greater is He.... Greater is He.... Suddenly, revelation knowledge welled up in me and I knew, Oh! God is in me!
Have you ever been in a room full of babies? Infants crying. Crawlers hollering for certain toys. Toddlers pushing and whining to get their way. It can be quite a handful, can't it?
We have what we say. As believers, we know that's a vital biblical truth. We can see it in Mark 11:23, Matthew 21:21, James 3:2 and many other verses. Yet we often let it slip.
We allow ourselves to begin talking like the world instead of talking the Word. And eventually we get what we've been asking for—a big mess.
When it comes to faith, a lot of believers feel like they have one foot nailed to the ground. No matter how hard they try, they just can't seem to make any progress.
If you'll watch them, you can see why. They literally haven't "gotten themselves together." One minute they'll be telling you, "Oh yes, amen, I believe the Word," and the next minute they'll be spouting unbelief like it's going out of style. "I know God says He'll prosper us, but I'll tell you what, my business is doing so badly, it's about to give me ulcers. I can't sleep at night for worrying."
Don't ever be so afraid of making a mistake you miss out on the joy of acting on the voice of the Lord. Instead, trust the leadership of the Holy Spirit and let Him show you how. He'll begin by speaking to you about the little things in your life, and as you grow accustomed to hearing and obeying, He'll speak to you about weightier things.