23th August 2006- Patience to "Want nothing".

No Consolation Prize
By Kenneth Copeland

Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:4

I talk a lot about faith. But there's another force that goes along with it that's just as important. It's patience, the ability to stand fast on the Word of God even when your victory seems slow in coming.

Patience is not automatic. It won't go to work unless you let it go to work. So many people don't understand that. They somehow think faith and patience will go to work for them without their help. They just let the devil tear their lives apart and then they say silly things like, "Well, I guess God sent that trial to strengthen my faith."

Don't you ever get caught saying that!

In the first place, James says, "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God" (James 1:13). And in the second place, that trial isn't going to make your faith stronger. In fact, it'll destroy it if you'll let it.

If I were to give you a set of weights, would that set of weights make you any stronger? No. As a matter of fact, if you dropped one of them on your foot, you could end up painfully weaker. It's what you do with them that counts, right?

Well, the same thing is true when you run into some kind of trying circumstance the devil's brought your way. If you just lay down and let it run over you, it will damage you. But if you'll let patience have her perfect work, if you'll remain consistently constant, trusting in and relying confidently on the Word of God, you'll end up perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

"Wanting nothing." That phrase alone should convince you that patience is no consolation prize. It's a first-rate power that will put the promises of God within your reach. It's a force that will make a winner out of you.

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Scripture Reading (Genesis 26:15-22):

26:15
So all the wells that his father's servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth.
26:16
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, "Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us."
26:17
So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there.
26:18
Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.
26:19
Isaac's servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there.
26:20
But the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac's herdsmen and said, "The water is ours!" So he named the well Esek, because they disputed with him.
26:21
Then they dug another well, but they quarreled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah.
26:22
He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarreled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, "Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land."
New International Version

13th August 2006- One Heart, one spirit, one mind!

Heart to Heart
By Gloria Copeland

Isn't it exciting to realize that you can hold the thoughts and feelings and purposes of God's very own heart in your heart? Isn't it thrilling to know the Creator of heaven and earth wants to be one spirit with you and transmit His thoughts to your mind?

First Corinthians 6:17 says that when you were joined to the Lord you became one spirit with Him. He came into union with you so that He can talk to you heart to heart. God wants you in this harmony with Him so that His thoughts can become your actions. He wants you to walk so closely with Him that you never lack power to overcome the evil of this world. He wants you to be so in tune with His Spirit that you are able to feel His heart of compassion toward those around you who are hurting or bowed down with sickness and pain. He wants to be one with you, so He can reach out through your hands and fulfill His purposes in the earth.

Make a fresh commitment today to walk in union with your God. Give your attention to His Spirit in your inner man. Determine to yield to His voice and not to the voices of the world or the flesh!

Allow the mind of Christ to flow through you!
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Scripture Reading (1 Corinthians 2):

1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.
6 We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him"-- 10 but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 16 "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" 16 But we have the mind of Christ.
New International Version
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3th August 2006- Let the Spring of living water spring from your heart

Let It Flow
By Gloria Copeland

John 4:14
but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Gentleness. Goodness. Faith. Meekness. Temperance. Powerful forces the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit. They're the character traits of God Himself and when the Holy Spirit came to dwell in you, He brought them with Him, so they could become your character traits too.

They're designed to bubble up inside you, to gush forth like a powerful stream constantly protecting and cleansing you from the inside out.

Have you ever noticed that you can't put any trash in the mouth of a flowing fountain? When it's shooting that water up, the force of its own outflow protects it and keeps it clear of any impurities from the outside. Well, the spiritual fountain within you works the same way. When you're allowing the forces of love and joy and peace and gentleness and all the others to flow out, the devil can't get any of his junk in.

How do you keep the Spirit flowing? You pump your heart so full of the Word of God that the forces of eternal life start bubbling out. Just a little at first...and then stronger and higher.

Choose to keep those forces streaming out of the fountain of your heart. Refuse to let selfishness and sin stop the flow. You have a fountain filled with unbeatable LIFE forces inside you and it's ready to come forth. Let it flow!

Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 17:7-13
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17:7
"But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him.
17:8
He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit."
17:9
The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
17:10
"I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve."
17:11
Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay is the man who gains riches by unjust means. When his life is half gone, they will desert him, and in the end he will prove to be a fool.
17:12
A glorious throne, exalted from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary.
17:13
O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake you will be put to shame. Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.
New International Version
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