From Faith to Faith—Daily Devotional
Victory comes one day at a time. Get a word of encouragement…a word of inspiration…a word of faith every day of the year.
 
May 17
WALK IN THE LIGHT YOU HAVE 
Gloria Copeland
But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.
 
2 Timothy 3:14
 
If you’re born again and have the Word of God in your heart, you can live in victory. You may not have all the answers. There may be a great many spiritual things you don’t understand. But it’s not those things that are most likely to destroy you. It’s the things you know to do—but don’t—that usually make you fall.
 
Just think about walking at night down a dark, unfamiliar path in the middle of a jungle. The guide up ahead has a flashlight to keep you on the right path. But then, you just decide to wander off into the darkness by yourself. What do you think will happen to you? You’ll probably stumble and fall. Very likely, you’ll get hurt.
 
That’s exactly the same thing that can happen in your walk with the Lord. He knows what’s ahead and He shines just enough light for you to take one step at a time. You have to continue walking in that light in order to get where you’re going.
 
You may not know why He’s leading you a certain way. You may not understand all the things involved. But God will make up for your ignorance by the Holy Spirit. He’ll see to it that you have victory if you continue in what you know.
 
It’s good to keep studying. It’s good to keep learning. But, remember, it’s not the great revelation you haven’t yet had that will cause you the most trouble. It’s failing to walk in the ones God has already given you. So be faithful in those things. Continue in them day after day after day. You’ll make it through just fine!
 
Scripture Reading:
2 Peter 1:2-11
​

WHAT Is The Law Of Giving And Receiving?
 
God desires to pour out His glory in greater measure than ever before, not just in our hearts, lives and church services, but in our finances as well.
The law of sowing and reaping, for example, is a powerful force. Its principle of giving governs everything in the kingdom of God and is fundamental to godly prosperity. Faith in the Word of God coupled with giving will always produce a harvest of prosperity. Always. Your prosperity depends on how much thought, study and attention you give God’s Word in that area.
 
Are you willing to give the Bible first place in your heart? When you realize what the Word of God can and will do, you will want to immerse yourself in it. Romans 10:17 says, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” So how do you put yourself in a position to receive? In order to receive you must be single-minded. And that means first and foremost, you seek God. You do what Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.”
 
First is the key word here! There is nothing before first. First makes everything else fall into place. You can’t receive what you don’t believe! That’s why it’s impossible to please God without faith. His pleasure is to prosper His servants (Psalm 35:27). And He can’t get that prosperity to you if you don’t have faith. Faith and receiving are intimately connected. So when you go after God and make Him your primary pursuit, you’ll begin to receive.
 
For us to receive His best, we have to put Him first. Once you’re walking in God’s will and living His plan for your life, you’ll find He also has a life of good things for you (1 Timothy 6:17)

WHEN IT COMES TO SOWING AND REAPING, WHAT IS A SEED
Agriculture is the first thing we think about when we hear the phrase “seedtime and harvest.” It’s what comes to mind when we first read about it in Genesis 8:22, where we are promised that while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
But you don’t have to look very long to see that the principle of seedtime and harvest, or “sowing and reaping,” applies to every area of our lives. The law of sowing and reaping is a God-instituted process that will exist as long as we are on this earth.

We see this in Galatians 6:7-9. Here the law is applied to the consequences and rewards of decisions a person makes in life: “You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”
 
Notice that these verses speak of seeds being sown in every area of life from financial to social, from sowing and reaping from the sinful nature or from the Spirit. The great news of the gospel is that through Christ the wages (or harvest) of our sin can be washed by His blood, and we can enter into an abundance of never-ending life: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
 
God’s plan is to provide good seed for you to sow. Second Corinthians 9:8-11 tells us God provides seed for the sower. His plan is to not only meet our needs but for us to have plenty left over to sow to every good work.
 
We encourage you to trust the Lord to provide you with good seed to sow, whether it’s a financial seed, a kind word, a gift of service or an act of obedience. God will multiply the seed you sow! Jesus said in Luke 6:38 that if you give “you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into ​

THE NAME ABOVE ALL NAMES
Do you receive whatever you ask of God in prayer? You can. Many believers don’t know that, but it’s true. Jesus Himself said so. He didn’t say it just once, either. He said it again and again. In John 14:13 He said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” In John 15:16 He said, “I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you.”
 
In John 16:23 He said, “Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.”
 
Those are startlingly clear statements. They leave no room for the traditional religious idea that sometimes God says yes to our prayers, and sometimes He says no. Jesus didn’t mention anything about God saying no to our prayers. He simply said, “Whatever you ask the Father in My Name He will give you.”
 
“But Brother Copeland, Jesus was talking to the 12 disciples when He said that. They were a unique group. What He said to them about prayer doesn’t apply to all of us.”
 
Yes, it does. We know it does because the Apostle John repeated that very same promise to all believers in 1 John 3:22-23. He wrote: “Whatsoever we ask, we receive of [God], because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.”
 
What Commandments?
I can almost hear you thinking. Keep the commandments? How can ever qualify for answered prayer if I have to keep all the commandments in the Bible first? I’m not even sure I know them all!
 
Don’t worry. That passage isn’t referring to all God’s scriptural Instructions. It’s not even talking about the 10 Commandments. It’s talking about the two commands listed in verse 23, the commands especially given to us as New Testament believers:
 
1) Believe on the Name of God’s Son, Jesus Christ; and 2) Love one another.
Many times we focus only on the second command. We assume because we’re born again, we’ve already done all we need to do about believing on the Name of Jesus. But actually, developing our faith in Jesus’ Name is something we must do continually. It’s our first and foremost responsibility.
 
Why? Because believing on Jesus’ Name is what unites us with His power, moment by moment and day by day. It’s what enables us to keep the command of love. It’s what empowers us to do everything God asks us to do. And it is the golden key that opens the door to answered prayer.

A LITTLE EVERY DAY
Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and cast into his garden; and it grew, and waxed a great tree; and the fowls of the air lodged in the branches of it.
Luke 13:18-19
If you're going to grow in the kingdom of God, you're going to do it just like a seed that's been planted in the ground. How does a seed grow? All at once? No, it grows constantly-- 24 hours a day--a little all the time until it accomplishes what it was created to do.

Many of us don't operate that way spiritually. We study and pray very hard for a few days and then quit. Then, when some disaster comes, we make a mad attempt to pray and stand on the Word, all the while realizing that, for some reason, we're just not as strong as we ought to be.

There's no such thing as an overnight success in the kingdom of God! Real strength, real growth comes as you consistently and constantly keep the Word before your eyes, in your ears, and in the midst of your heart. Not just when you want to or when you feel like it, but constantly, like the seed, a little all the time.

A man came up to me once and said, "Man, your ministry just took off overnight, didn't it?"

"If it did," I answered, "it was certainly the longest night I ever spent in my life!"

From his perspective my success did seem to spring up quickly. That's because he didn't see me during all those hours and weeks and months and years I spent in the Word of God. He didn't see the daily process that lay behind that success. He just saw the results.

Make up your mind to begin that daily process of constant growth today. Determine to start putting the Word in your heart consistently. Every day a line here, a line there--a tape here, a tape there.

Begin to act as though that Word is true every hour of the day regardless of what comes or how you feel. Keep adding to your faith, meditating on it, confessing it, seven days a week.

Eventually, your faith will be bigger than you ever dreamed it could be.
 
 
Scripture Reading:
Luke 13:18-21
Parable of the Mustard Seed
18 Then Jesus said, “What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it? 19 It is like a tiny mustard seed that a man planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds make nests in its branches.”
Parable of the Yeast
20 He also asked, “What else is the Kingdom of God like? 21 It is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough.”
Kenneth Copeland

​WHEN IT COMES TO SOWING AND REAPING, WHAT IS A SEED
Agriculture is the first thing we think about when we hear the phrase “seedtime and harvest.” It’s what comes to mind when we first read about it in Genesis 8:22, where we are promised that while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.
But you don’t have to look very long to see that the principle of seedtime and harvest, or “sowing and reaping,” applies to every area of our lives. The law of sowing and reaping is a God-instituted process that will exist as long as we are on this earth.

We see this in Galatians 6:7-9. Here the law is applied to the consequences and rewards of decisions a person makes in life: “You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.”
 
Notice that these verses speak of seeds being sown in every area of life from financial to social, from sowing and reaping from the sinful nature or from the Spirit. The great news of the gospel is that through Christ the wages (or harvest) of our sin can be washed by His blood, and we can enter into an abundance of never-ending life: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
 
God’s plan is to provide good seed for you to sow. Second Corinthians 9:8-11 tells us God provides seed for the sower. His plan is to not only meet our needs but for us to have plenty left over to sow to every good work.
 
We encourage you to trust the Lord to provide you with good seed to sow, whether it’s a financial seed, a kind word, a gift of service or an act of obedience. God will multiply the seed you sow! Jesus said in Luke 6:38 that if you give “you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full—pressed down, shaken together to make room for more, running over, and poured into your lap. The amount you give will determine the amount you get back”!

​GRACE IS ENOUGH
Gloria Copeland
2 Corinthians 12:7
The devil has used the traditional teaching of Paul’s thorn in the flesh to talk believers out of the blessings of God for years, to try to convince us to settle for everything from sickness to sin—and to do it of our own free will.
It is perhaps the most destructive and the most widely accepted misinterpretation of Scripture that exists in the Body of Christ today. I’ve gone into countries to preach to people who hardly had any knowledge of the Word at all and still I have found that somehow they’d been taught about Paul’s thorn.
And most of them have been taught wrongly.
Tradition says that God gave Paul the thorn in the flesh. What’s more, tradition makes the “thorn” into some great mystery. But the Scripture doesn’t say that at all!
It says that the thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan. Not God—Satan! The thorn was quite literally just what Paul says it was—a “messenger sent from Satan.”
You see, everywhere Paul went, he preached the gospel and every time he preached, he destroyed a little more of Satan’s kingdom. So, Satan sent a messenger, an evil spirit, to stop him.
When Paul sought the Lord concerning this thorn (look at 2 Corinthians 12:8-10), God didn’t answer Paul in the negative. God said, “My grace (or, My favor) is enough. It is sufficient for you. For My strength is made perfect in your weakness (inability to produce results)” (W.E. Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words).
In other words, when Paul didn’t have enough human strength to overcome, God’s miracle-working power was sufficient for him. It enabled him to be an overcomer in spite of his weakness.
Don’t allow the devil to talk you out of your victory. Throw tradition aside and dare to believe the Word of God. Fight the fight of faith, and just like the Apostle Paul, you will see the salvation of the Lord!
Scripture Reading:
2 Corinthians 12:1-10

THE BLESSING
Blessings for Obedience
28 “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God:
3 Your towns and your fields
    will be blessed.
4 Your children and your crops
    will be blessed.
The offspring of your herds and flocks
    will be blessed.
5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards
    will be blessed.
6 Wherever you go and whatever you do,
    you will be blessed.
 
7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!  8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you.  9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you.  11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.  Colossians 3:17
Did you know your name has been changed? It's no longer the same as it was before you were born again. You gave your old name away when you made covenant with Jesus.
To fully appreciate what that means, you have to think about it in the light of what we know about blood covenant. When someone enters a covenant of blood, he is giving himself completely away. He is no longer his own. His assets and his debts, his strengths and his weaknesses belong forever to his covenant brother.
When you're in blood covenant with someone, that person's name becomes your name forever. You cannot escape it—good or bad—it's yours.
When you received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, He took your name! Your name was sin. Your name was weakness. Your name was fear and poverty and every other evil thing you inherited from Adam.
Jesus took those names from you and gave you His own in exchange. That's right! Ephesians 3:15 says that the whole Body of Christ has been named after Him both in heaven and earth. That means you have been given Jesus' Name. Its authority is now yours!
Just think about who you're named after:
"Jesus, Mighty God, Wisdom, Deliverer, Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Word of Life, Advocate, Provider, The Great I Am, Helper, Savior, Prince of Peace, Wonderful Counselor, Lamb of God, Lord of Hosts, Root of David, Author and Finisher of Our Faith, The Way, Healer, Son of God, The Truth, Chief Cornerstone, King of Kings, Light of the World, Chief Shepherd, My Strength and Song, Righteous Judge, Son of Righteousness, Resurrection and Life, The Alpha and Omega."
Praise God, those names cover any need you'll ever have. What's more, the power of God is in His Name to bring that Name to pass in your life (Acts 3:16).
You can't call yourself discouraged anymore. That's not your name. You can't answer when the devil yells, "Hey, poor boy." That's not your name. Jesus has taken those old names of yours. They're gone. So meditate on the names of the Lord. They're all wrapped up in the Name of Jesus, the Name above all names, and that Name with all its power and authority has been given to you!
Scripture Reading:
Ephesians 3:16-21 New Living Translation
16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit. 17 Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.  20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. 21 Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.
KENNETH COPELAND