Kenneth Copeland
And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. Galatians 3:29 One of the problems that hung around me for years was poverty. But I remember the day I decided I wasn’t going to be poor anymore. I was reading in the Word where it says that the blessing of Abraham has come upon the gentiles by Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:14). Then I got down to the 29th verse where it says, “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Suddenly the truth hit me. I got so excited I could hardly stand myself. I turned back over to Deuteronomy 28 and—line by line—I read those promised blessings. “Blessed in the city, blessed in the country. Blessed going out, blessed coming in. Blessed in your barns, blessed in your fields, blessed in all the works of your hands.” Man, I had struck it rich! I’d been going to school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I was living in a dumpy little house no one would want to live in. But when I read those promises in the Word, I saw the light. I realized God had already redeemed me from the curse of poverty. Well, that afternoon in my back bedroom, I took my Bible in my hand and I said: “I want to announce to Almighty God in heaven and to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, to all the angels of heaven, to all the demons of hell, and to anyone else who cares anything about hearing it, that from this day forward my needs are met according to God’s riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” I told God, “I’m standing on Your Word, and I’m looking to You to take care of me. I’ll never ask a man for a dollar.” That was many years ago and I never have. You know why? Because that decision connected me to the power of God. It’ll do the same for you. Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 28:1-1
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And he said, Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth: But when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it. Mark 4:30-32
Jesus compares the workings of the kingdom of God to planting seeds in the earth. “When the seed is sown,” He said, “it grows up....” Notice He didn’t say that it would occasionally grow up. Or it grows up if it’s God’s will. He said, “It grows up and becomes greater.” Period. God’s economy isn’t like ours. It isn’t up one day and down the other. It’s always the same and it always works perfectly. If you have good earth, good seed and good water, you’re going to have growth. It’s inevitable. So, if you’re facing a need, don’t panic...plant a seed! That seed may take the form of money or time or some other resources you have to give. But no matter what form it takes, make sure you put life in it by giving it in faith and surrounding it with praise and worship. Say, “Lord, as I bring You my goods, I bring myself. I give myself to You—spirit, soul and body.” Pray over that seed. Fill it with faith, worship and the Word. Then plant it. You can rest assured—it will grow up and become greater! Scripture Reading: Genesis 1:11-31 From Faith to Faith—Daily Devotional The Greatest spiritual Law to learn is the Law of SEEDTIME AND HARVEST. It’s the law that God intended for man to operate in Genesis 1:1. God intended for man to be sustained by the seeds he sows. We are talking about Seedtime and Harvest, Sowing and Reaping and also, How to Call In Your Harvest.
Many of us are sowing, but what about reaping? God expects us to receive on every seed that we have sown. But, we are not receiving primarily because we are not aggressive enough. How do you effectively call in your harvest? Genesis 1:29 is foundational. Immediately after God finished creating man, He said to him, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. In other words, seed is for provision. Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. The Phillips Translation says, A man’s harvest in life will depend entirely on what he sows. Your life now is the sum total of the seeds you have sown. If you don’t like what you see, then start sowing different seed. Seeds are designed by God to produce harvests. If you sow negative seeds, then they produce negative harvests. Remember, your thoughts, words, and actions are all seeds. Paul says, when we give our finances, that is like sowing seeds and we can expect harvests. Look at Galatians 6:7 again. Be not deceived! Let that sink in. Don’t let anybody tell you that you are not to expect a harvest, from every seed that you sow. God’s Word says you are! POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE SEEDS When we were growing up, no one ever told us about expecting anything but a negatve harvest. People would say, “one of these days you will reap what you sow.” And you will. The truth of the matter is, you can also reap in a positive way. Find out what the Word of God says, and believe it. When you begin to change the way you think, speak, and act.. You will begin to experience far better harvests than you ever have before. Train yourself to say what the Word of God says. Believe that Word. Act on that Word. Whatever it says to do, do it. Then expect a harvest. Galatians 6:8 says, he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. Two kinds of sowing: to the flesh or to the spirit (i.e. what you see in the Word of God). When you’re speaking, talking the Word of God, the Holy Spirit will watch over those words and see to it that they produce a harvest. What’s important is that you get the Word of God down in your heart in abundance. Because when the Word is in your hearts in abundance, that’s what is going to come out of your mouth. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matthew 12:34). This is especially critical when you’re facing a crisis. You want the Word of God coming out of your mouth. “Now the parable is this: The seed is the WORD of God. Luke 8:11
The Eternal Word In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. John 1:1-3 Matthew 13:1-9 The Message Translation MSG A Harvest Story Matthew 13 1-3 At about that same time Jesus left the house and sat on the beach. In no time at all a crowd gathered along the shoreline, forcing him to get into a boat. Using the boat as a pulpit, he addressed his congregation, telling stories. 3-8 “What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams. 9 “Are you listening to this? Really listening?” Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.
3 John 2 Once you begin to believe it is God's will to prosper you, you can't help but wonder how He is going to do it. Is He going to put a check in the mail? Or start floating $20 bills down from the trees? No. He's going to do it by prospering your soul. He's going to plant the seeds of prosperity in your mind, will and emotions, and as they grow, they'll produce a great financial harvest. Go to the book of Genesis and read the story of Joseph. It's a perfect demonstration of what I'm talking about. When Joseph was sold as a slave to the Egyptians, he didn't have a dime to his name. He didn't even have his freedom. He'd been sold as a slave. But, right in the middle of his slavery, God gave Joseph such wisdom and ability that he made his owner prosper. As a result, the man put Joseph in charge of all his possessions. Later, Joseph was put in prison. There's really not much opportunity for advancement in prison, is there? But God gave him insight that no other man in Egypt had. That insight landed him a position on Pharaoh's staff. Not as a slave but as the most honored man in the entire country next to Pharaoh himself. He rode along in a chariot and people literally bowed down before him. During a worldwide famine, Joseph was in charge of all the food. Now that's prosperity! How did God accomplish all that? By prospering Joseph's soul. No matter how dismal his situation became, no matter how impossible his problems, God was able to reveal the spiritual secrets that would open the door of success for him. That's what makes God's method of prospering so exciting. It works anywhere and everywhere. It will work in the poorest countries on the face of this earth just like it works here in the United States. And you can be sure that it will work for you! Scripture Reading: Genesis 39 Kenneth Copeland How you hear God’s WORD, receive and act on it will determine the level of your harvest. Your results will be measured by the attention you give to what you hear The measure of honor and attention you give it is the measure of power and virtue that will come into your heart to bring that WORD to pass in your life. Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
It’s not the amount of God’s WORD you hear that determines your results. It depends on the revelation or understanding you receive. You can receive more reading one chapter with revelation, than by reading the entire Bible with no revelation, only half paying attention and allowing it to go in one ear and out the other. Always read the Bible with the understanding that it is God speaking to you and with the intent to do what it says. It’s not only important how you hear but what you hear. You can’t expect to grow strong in faith if you’re listening to doubt, unbelief, and fear most of the time. If you are sick or experiencing financial pressure or lack, be careful what you let into your heart through your ears and your eyes. Take heed what you hear because he who has ears to hear, “to him…will more be given. And from him who has not will be taken, even what he has.” (Mark 4:25). The AMPC. Sheds the greatest light on Mark 24-25: “And He said to them. Be careful what you are hearing. The measure [of thought and study] you give [to the truth you hear] will be the measure [of virtue and knowledge] that comes back to you-and more besides] will be given to you who hear. For to him who has [revelation knowledge} will more be given; and from him who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away [by force].” Who will take it away by force? Look at the parable of the sower, just a few verses before. Mark 4:15 says, “These are those beside the path, where the word is sown. But when they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word which is sown in their hearts.” In John 10:10 Jesus said, “The thief does not come, except to steal and kill and destroy.” The thief is Satan. Yielding to his fear, doubt, and unbelief and stepping out of the love walk will keep you from receiving revelation and understanding of The WORD. That’s why it’s so important to keep God’s WORD before your eyes, in your ears, and in your mouth. The measure of honor and attention you give The WORD will determine your harvest. If the devil can steal The WORD out of you, he can steal everything else you have because faith comes by hearing The WORD of God (Romans 10:17). If the devil can steal your faith, then you’ve lost your connection with God. Faith is the currency of heaven, and without it, it’s impossible to please God or receive from Him (Hebrews 11:6, James 1:6-7). Since faith comes from The WORD, God’s WORD is your life source. Give it honor and attention. Make it first place in your life. Allow it to transform you (Romans 12:2). Everything you receive from God works by faith through The WORD, which works by love (Galatians 5:6). That’s why the devil tries so hard to fill you with doubt and unbelief concerning God and His WORD and does everything he can to keep you in strife, division, and fear. Fear tolerated is faith contaminated because fear is the connector to the devil and his kingdom. (Genesis 3:10). What we want to know is how do I get my life back to the place of where it can operate as if I’m in the Garden of Eden again. And learn how to operate in the Kingdom of God, (God’s way of doing things.) But not only God’s way of doing things, but WHAT IS HIS WAY of doing things.in that Garden, health, joy, successful relationships.
If this is the Garden of Eden over here and I’m somewhere over here, everything in my life should be looking toward this. Not necessarily toward heaven but here on earth. God designed it to be here on the earth. That’s been His Will all the time (Revelation 27). Somehow, in Jesus this is still available. He is the last Adam. Since it’s still available, how then do I take the next step toward that, knowing that it is available to me now in Christ Jesus. The key to that is in the first step, understanding God’s way to doing what He does. I’ve got to get hold of how does God think? How does He govern things? How does God bring about healing and deliverance? His ways of operating can be located. We can locate all those keys right there in the Garden. What we want to do is to break this down and to walk people from where they are in life right now back into the Garden of Eden. Eden means “voluptuous” supply, unending supply. What did Jesus say? “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” Let’s interpose those two. He could very easily have said, I have come that you might get the Garden of Eden back in your life like God planned it in the first place. That’s why I’m here. In Genesis it very plainly states that thorns and thistles were not there until that curse struck the land and the land began to produce thorns and thistles which were in direct opposition to Adam and THE BLESSING that was originally there (Genesis 3:17-18). We will begin with defining terms: THE BLESSING and the curse. So let’s redefine how you look at prosperity. Prosperity does not just deal with money. Money is a part of the pie. We are talking about an ‘ABUNDANT LIFE’, in every area. Excelling to the point desired. God is interested in our living this prosperous abundant life.
We must learn how to operate in the Kingdom of God. For example, how do we get from point A to point B? First you have to know about it. But just knowing about it is not going to feed your family, or heal your body, or fix your financial situation. There is something that has to happen while you are at A to get over to where the goal is, B. God started it with the Garden of Eden and Eden was God’s own handiwork. He planted that Garden. He grew it before He ever created the man (Adam) and put him in there. So here he is in this place that we are talking about. He started out a success. Then he lost it and he went about as far down as any man can go. In the Garden he experienced THE BLESSING that is so powerful. He had the power in him and on him to take the Garden to the whole earth, to bless the whole earth. Everything in it: Everything that walked. Everything that breathed. He had the power to bless it. When he fell he was removed from that Garden out into a place that was violently against him instead of for him. Once he got out from under THE BLESSING, he never was able to prosper enough to get out of sight of the Garden. So we can use the Garden now as the place we are trying to get to. Notice in the Garden there was seed. He planted seed in the ground. There was prosperity in that Garden, healing What we want to know is how do I get my life back to the place of where it can operate as if I’m in the Garden of Eden again. And learn how to operate in the Kingdom of God, (God’s way of doing things.) But not only God’s way of doing things, but WHAT IS HIS WAY of doing things.in that Garden, health, joy, successful relationships. True prosperity versus false prosperity and understanding what it really is.
When you’re talking about prosperity, or when most people hear the word prosperity they immediately think money. They are not incorrect but they are incomplete because money by itself can not define prosperity. When you talk about TRUE PROSPERITY you must first of all understand that True Prosperity can only come from God and His Word. Then you understand that True Prosperity deals with every arena of life, your spirit, your soul and your body. To prosper in your spirit means you’re Born Again. To prosper in your soul means having a sound mind. To prosper in your body means you’re healthy and prosper in your relationships. What we really want to do is to get people to change their thinking and come into a Bible definition concerning prosperity. Being successful in every arena of life, Consider a PIE divided into slices. You have a family relationship slice, a Healing slice, a Faith slice, Salvation, Financial prosperity and more. If you take two slices out of the pie you don’t have a whole pie. Something is missing. To prosper means that every slice is a part of that pie. It is wholeness, complete, total, wellbeing in every area. As fathers we are not satisfied if our children are just financially prosperous, but they are sick or they are healed but have terrible relationships. As fathers we want our kids to have a complete, well-being in every arena of their lives. God is our Father and He is concerned about us having total success in every area. To truly be rich cannot be defined by how much money you have in the bank. To truly be rich is defined by the wholeness of your life. If a man has a million dollars in the bank but dying of cancer, he’s just a poor man with a million dollars in the bank, healed but no money in the bank. He’s still a poor man with a healed body…. So let’s redefine how you look at prosperity. Prosperity does not just deal with money. Money is a part of the pie. We are talking about an ABUNDANT LIFE! in every area. Excelling to the point desired. God is interested in our living this prosperous abundant life. 1. Demonstrate your confidence in the seeds’ ability to produce a harvest
-Be enthusiastic and excited. 2. Clearly define what your harvest is and talk about it often. -What did you sow that seed for? Clearly define it. 3. Water your seed by speaking the Word of God over it. 4. Keep the weeds off your seeds. -What are weeds: Unforgiveness, strife, bitterness, jealousy. -All those things the Bible says we don’t need in our life. 5. Continually praise God for your harvest. -Even before it manifests. 6. Never give up on it. 7. Keep sowing toward your next harvest. -Your harvest is determined by what you do while you’re waiting for it |
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