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 by Kenneth Copeland
Wouldn’t it be marvelous to live a completely fear-free life?
God desires for us to do it! And we can do it by purposely developing and exercising our faith in His love.
Notice I said developing faith—not feelings. Far too many Christians have been dominated by their feelings in this area. They’ll say, “You know, I just don’t feel like God loves me right now.” Some people will even tell their children, “Now, baby, Jesus won’t love you anymore if you keep doing bad things.”
That’s the biggest lie that ever came out of hell! God can’t keep from loving you. He is love. He has commanded us to love and He doesn’t violate His own commands. There isn’t anything you or anybody else can do to cause God to stop loving you. You can get into sin and get out of fellowship with Him, but He still loves you. God loves you when you feel it…and when you don’t.
He loves you all the time.
The glory of God was placed in you when you were born again. Second Corinthians 4:7 says, “We have this treasure [glory] in earthen vessels….” God wants to bring it to the surface, so it can be revealed to the world. As we pursue God’s Word and yield to His Spirit, walking in the Spirit will become a way of life to us. We will get to the place where His glory will continually be revealed in us. Walking with Him will become as natural for us as breathing. And that is the very thing the heart of God has desired for so long.
You have the Spirit of God within you. Jesus is your Lord. Walk with the Lord. Obey His voice. Prepare your heart. Feed upon His Word. Listen to the Spirit of God as He speaks to your spirit. As you do, your mind will be changed to think in line with what God thinks. You will accept the great and mighty move of the Spirit of God as it comes in our day.
You will allow God to flow out of you in a supernatural way. The changing of your mind will allow the Spirit of God to take dominion in your life. You will flow in the supernatural as easily as a bird flies in the air, as naturally as a fish swims in water, as simply as you breathe air. Do you think about breathing? No, you just breathe naturally. In the same way, you will not be conscious of your faith or the power of God at work within you. The supernatural will become the natural way of life for you. It will not seem far out to you as you walk in the Spirit. It will not be unnatural when signs and wonders start happening in your midst. You will be more conscious of what is going on inside you. You will be more conscious of the flow of the Spirit of God as He manifests Himself. You cannot push a button and cause Him to be manifested, but you can walk with Him on a day-to-day basis. That is your part.
God does the changing. He changes your mind so that the supernatural is a natural way of life to you. He gives you a part to play and that part is your responsibility. The rest is up to Him. You pray and study the Word and obey. He will change you from one degree of glory to another by His Spirit.
God has made us a special people, formed for Himself. We take His Word and put it into our lives. We obey regardless of tradition or what man thinks. We are a people who care more for what God thinks, than for what man thinks. We deeply desire to please God and to come into His complete will for our lives. We dare to believe God. When we hear His voice, we harden not our hearts. We are quick to obey. We walk after His Spirit.
WHAT A GLORIOUS CHURCH!
How are we going to be transformed? We will be transformed by the Spirit of God when we renew our minds. And our minds are renewed by the Word of God.
We can’t transform ourselves. God is the only One Who can transform us. In fact, we can’t even really change ourselves in a lasting way that will cause us to be transformed into His likeness. If that is true, then how can we change? What can we do to be transformed into His likeness?
This is an area where so many believers have felt frustration and failure. How many times have I heard Christians say, with sincere tears, “I’ve tried so hard to change but I just can’t seem to do it. I go along pretty good for a while, doing what I should, but something inside isn’t any different. And eventually I end up no better off than I was before. Where am I missing it?”
You don’t change yourself by human power. You just commit to the Word, come into agreement with that Word, act on the Word and the Spirit of God will change you. When you commit yourself to hear and to obey the Word of God, the power of God through His Word will change you. Your desires will change; you will begin to desire what God wills. The glory of God revealed in you through His Word will absolutely transform you.
Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 3:18 again. I particularly like the wording in The Amplified Bible:
And all of us, as with unveiled face, [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendor and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit.
When you stop struggling to transform yourself by your own fleshly efforts and just commit yourself to God’s Word, through the process of time you’ll look up one day down the road and discover that you’re different. You’ll discover that your way of thinking has changed and worldly habits of the flesh have fallen away. Mortifying the flesh won’t be the struggle it once seemed when you yield to the transforming power of His Word. The Apostle Paul said:
For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us (Romans 8:18).
Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 3:18 in Wuest:
Now, as for us, we all, with uncovered face, reflecting as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are having our outward expressions changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another according as this change of expression proceeds from the Lord, the Spirit, this outward expression coming from and being truly representative of our Lord.
As we look into the glory of God, live unto Him and have our souls renewed to allow that glory to change us on the outside, our outward expression will be changed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. It is a process that we are going through.
We must allow God to be God over our entire being—spirit, soul and body. Yield yourselves fully to the Holy Spirit. Live your life for God. Do what He tells you to do, whether you feel like it or not. Cause your will to be conformed to His Word. When you come to that place, the glory of God will be manifested in you. You will be yielded to the Holy Spirit. The things of God are not hard. You just have to know how He thinks and then flow with Him. You cannot do it on your own.
In Matthew 17 Jesus took Peter, James and John to the Mount of Transfiguration. Verse 2 in Wuest says:
And the manner of His outward expression was changed before them, that expression coming from and being representative of His inner being. And His face took on a different appearance so that it shone like the sun, and His outer garments became white like its light.
What happened to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration? The glory of God was revealed in Him. That which was inside Him began to show on the outside. It was not dropped upon Him from heaven. It came from inside Him. His outward expression changed to display His innermost being. The glory of God radiated through His body and through His clothing until He shone like the light of the sun.
We are being changed from glory to glory, from one degree of glory to another. As we allow the inner man to come into dominion over the outer man, the new creature in Christ Jesus will take over the life of the outer man. The outward expression will be changed. As Romans 12:2 tells us, “Don’t be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Did you ever notice how easy it is to control your thoughts when you are in a Believers’ Convention or in church? That’s because in a spiritual atmosphere of the Word and praise and worship, your spirit becomes the dominating force. If you will gauge your whole life around spiritual activities, your inner man can be in control all the time. Galatians 5:16 says that if you walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. You see, you can’t do two things at once. If you’re walking in the spirit, your flesh has to come in line.
You will change what you think as you look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. Keep your mind and heart fixed on the Word—on Jesus. He is the only One who can help you overcome. The Word is spirit and it is life. When your mind is totally saturated with the Word of God, your spirit will exercise its authority to overcome every ungodly thought and evil habit.
A few years ago someone said to me, “Boy, Brother Copeland, you sure have lost a lot of weight!” I said, “No, I didn’t. I stopped lasciviousness from operating in my life, and the weight took care of itself.” I took my attention off myself and got it on Jesus.
Your victory will come in the same way. As you live in harmony with Jesus, you’ll turn your back on the lusts of the flesh. So, if sin has got you in a stronghold, break loose by getting your mind off yourself and looking to Jesus! You can’t do two things at the same time. If you turn toward Him, you’ll leave that sin behind you!
But you must be determined to fulfill God’s Word at any price. Don’t compromise. Boldly believe and act on the Word, and your flesh will submit to the control of the Holy Spirit.
Don’t let Satan deceive you into sacrificing the glory of God in your life for a few moments of self-indulgence and sin. Restrain your thought life! Meditate the Word instead of selfish, carnal thoughts! Keep your eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith. He’s given you the power to be forever free!
The process is the same with every type of sin. Satan doesn’t just blare out something like, Why don’t you kill someone today? No! The devil is more subtle than that. He plants a tiny seed which grows into bigger and bigger things. Before he can drive someone to commit murder, he’s got to get them to enter tain thoughts of unforgiveness, resentment and revenge. They start out so small that you don’t pay attention to them, but they grow.
Lasciviousness finally erodes the life of the born-again believer until he appears to be no different from an unregenerate man. The devil uses it to get him to think like the world thinks so that eventually he will act like the world acts. Carnal thoughts produce carnal actions. Jesus said:
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words
thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned (Matthew 12:34-37).
You will speak and produce exactly what you have in your heart—either for good or evil. If your mind is filled with carnality, the only way you will become free is to change what you think.
Control your thoughts by bringing them into obedience to the Scriptures. Program your mind to the Word of God. If you don’t, you will be leaving yourself open to lasciviousness. Once the seed of it is planted, it will mature. Before long, you will be saying and doing things you know you shouldn’t. Unrestrained thoughts result in unrestrained actions. So put a stop to them quickly by looking to Jesus.
Gentile in this context is a spiritual term meaning “without God.” As Christians, born of His Spirit, we have His divine nature. Paul admonishes us to no longer live as though we were without God. We are to be controlled by our spirits, which are re-created in His image, and not dominated by our carnal minds. You see, your natural mind is in enmity against God. But your spirit, if you are born again, is in harmony with Jesus. Satan uses lasciviousness to apply pressure to your flesh so it will dominate your spirit and separate you from God.
Notice that Paul said, “Who being past feeling….” This means “to be dead to shame” or “to have the conscience seared until it is no longer effective.” Satan’s ultimate goal through lasciviousness is to cause you to live exactly like the rest of the world lives. Even though you may be born again and filled with the Spirit, he wants you to be guided by the vanity of your mind, separated from the nature of God which is in you.
The mind is the ground for Satan’s seed. Second Corinthians 10:4-5 tells us how to keep his seed from taking root.
(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Obedience to Christ and obedience to the Word are synonymous because Jesus is the Word.
If your mind is not renewed to God’s Word, you will never be totally free of lasciviousness. It starts with having no restraint, first to thoughts which come innocently enough but result in throwing you totally out of control. For example, “Well, I know I shouldn’t eat that, but just a little won’t hurt.” Oh really? You just swallowed the seed of your own destruction. You rationalized and thought, Oh well, it’s just a little. But it never stops there. It grows until you find yourself exercising no restraint whatsoever.
It has not always been this way, though. I remember when the devil first entered my life. It seemed like such a small temptation to begin with, but it grew into a stronghold of the devil that nearly destroyed me. One afternoon as a 9-year-old boy, I just yielded to the temptation to “cuss.” I knew better, but I did it anyway. I had a relative who was so good at West Texas “cussin’,” that I thought he invented it! I was intrigued, and I wanted to try it.
When I let go of all restraint and began to say those cuss words, something evil moved in on my thinking that seriously affected me for nearly 20 years. Satan captured my mind that day and set a law in motion. My flesh gradually became boss over my entire being. By the age of 20, I was almost 100 pounds overweight and headed for destruction. A spiritual, scriptural illiterate, I was totally out of control and couldn’t stop it.
I didn’t know it at the time, but now I realize that Satan used a very subtle strategy—lasciviousness—to take control of my life. The word means “having no restraint.” Lasciviousness has been preached
as being extreme immorality, but it doesn’t start out that way. It begins with just a few seemingly innocent thoughts. Then those thoughts grow and grow until they begin to produce serious sin.
Lasciviousness comes wrapped in many different packages, but they all have the same result—destruction. The wages of sin is death. All sin is selfishness tied with a different bow. Sex sins, gluttony, etc., all stem from the “big me” and the result is the same. Satan only comes to steal, kill and destroy.
Ephesians 4:17-19 gives us some insight into the nature of lasciviousness:
This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
I did my best to look to the Lord the first five years I was born again, but I wanted to see Him with my natural eyes. I thought that if I could just see Jesus in person, I could surely get rid of all the junk in my life. That would have been glorious, but it didn’t happen that way.
Then one day I saw Him in the Word. Oh, praise God! Now I know how to look to Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith, to help me to discipline myself. Actually, I discovered it quite by accident when Jesus delivered me from smoking.
When I was first born again, I was dominated by a horrible smoking habit. I tried to quit every way I could think of. I threw away so many full and nearly full packs of cigarettes while I was driving down the road, it seemed I threw away more than I smoked! But that didn’t work. I’d just turn my car around and go back and get them
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My deliverance came as I was attending some meetings in Hilton Sutton’s church in Houston, Texas. I had more respect for the preachers than to smoke in their presence, so I tucked my cigarettes in the sun visor of the car and left them there.
At that time I had been a Christian for quite awhile, but I didn’t know anything about the Word and had never been exposed to the power of God. When they started preaching under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, it held my attention. I was caught up in the living Word. My desires changed. All I wanted was more of God. For the first time in my life, the Scriptures came alive.
Brother Sutton preached on the second coming of Jesus, and I got really “high” on it. Suddenly I could hardly stand all the things that were wrong in my life. What happened? The Word replaced the desire to smoke. When those meetings ended and I started driving back home, I found those old, stale cigarettes tucked up in my sun visor and realized I hadn’t even missed them!
I learned that the living Word of Almighty God is the only power that can cause me to think, look, talk and act like a born-again man. It’s the only thing that can empower me to discipline this flesh of mine. When I saw Jesus in the Word, I was totally set free, not only of the habit, but of the desire!
“Disciplining the flesh.” For many believers that phrase stirs memories of frustration and failure. They know it’s important—the Word of God clearly teaches that. But they’re not sure exactly how to go about it.
Some have given up, shrugging off such discipline as impossible. Others are still fighting stubbornly to get their flesh under control and losing one battle after another.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, we can’t afford to let it be that way. It will cost us too much! You and I are blessed to be part of the generation that will see the signs and wonders that the prophets of old wished they could have lived long enough to see. We will witness the Spirit of God poured out upon all flesh. But sin obstructs the Spirit’s flow. And only as we rid ourselves of it will the power and glory of God be manifest through us. Only then will we experience the wonderful things that are prophesied to take place in our generation.
But is it really possible to step out of the sin you’ve struggled with so long—and live under the Spirit’s control? Yes, it is! And the Word of God will show you how.
Hebrews 12:1-3 provides the key:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Notice that this scripture doesn’t just say to lay aside the weight and sin which so easily besets us. It says to look to Jesus. But how can you look to someone you can’t see?
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by Kenneth Copeland