You Are A Winner (Kenneth Copeland Ministries - Faith to Faith)

I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one."(1 John 2:14)

Man was created to be a winner. The Bible tells us so. We read in Genesis, for example, that man was originally put on this earth as a dominating lord. God gave him dominion over the earth and everything that crept, flew, crawled, and breathed there.

Man didn't even know what losing was until he separated himself from God through disobedience in the Garden of Eden. When that happened, he ran headlong into defeat. He was forced to accept failure as his lot in life, lowering himself to a subordinate position--a position he was never meant to occupy.

It's a sad story. But if you're a born again child of God, your story has a happy ending. Through faith in Christ Jesus, you've been made a winner once again! In fact, God has guaranteed your success. Let me show you what I mean. Imagine you're about to tackle a really tough job, and before you even get started on it, God speaks to you right out loud and says, "I just want you to know, I'm going to personally see to it that this project you're working on succeeds.

" Well, let me tell you something. You do have God's promise that you'll succeed. He said in His Word that you're an overcomer! In Him you can overcome any problem the world throws your way (1 John 5:1-5).

It doesn't matter how much you feel like a loser. It doesn't matter how many times you've failed in the past. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, then you've become more than a conqueror in Him (Rom. 8:37).

Does that mean you won't have any more trouble? No. It simply means you can go through that trouble and emerge triumphant.

If you've been feeling like a failure lately, renew your mind to the Word of God that says you're a success. Every time a challenge comes up, respond by saying, "Well, praise God, I can beat this thing because I'm an overcomer in Jesus!" Let that Word from God abide in your heart. It will make a winner out of you.

Scripture Study: 1 John 5:1-5

Your first and highest calling

"God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord."(1 Corinthians 1:9)

Do you know what God wants you to do more than anything else today? He wants you to fellowship with Him. He wants you to walk with Him and talk with Him. To discuss the things of life with Him. He wants you to draw near to Him and partake of His very nature.

So many of us get so caught up in striving to please God in the things we do that we forget our first and highest calling is just to be in fellowship with Him.

That's right. God longs for us just to want to be with Him.

Have you ever considered how much it would mean for you to just come to God and say, "Father, I didn't really come today to get anything. I've prayed about my needs already and Your Word says they're met according to Your riches in glory by Christ Jesus. So I just came to be with You. If You have anything You'd like to tell me, I'm ready to listen...and I want you to know that whatever I see in Your Word, I'll do it. I'll put it into effect in my life."

Love Never Fails

"Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person, its hopes are fadeless under all circumstances and it endures everything [without weakening]. Love never fails--never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end."(1 Corinthians 13:7-8)

Love never fails. Nothing works without it, and there can be no failure with it. When you live by love, you cannot fail.

It takes faith to believe that love's way will not fail. The natural mind cannot understand that because the natural man and his world are ruled by selfishness.

But when you practice love by faith and refuse to seek your own, you put the Father into action on your behalf. As long as you stay in love, God the Father seeks your own. He sees to it that you succeed. Walking in love is to your great advantage!

Agape love is a new kind of power. It makes you master of every situation. No weapon that is formed against you will prosper. No one even has the power to hurt your feelings because you are not ruled by feelings but by God's love. You are loving as He loves.

This love is revolutionary. If we fully understood the great return from living God's love, we'd probably be competing with each other, each of us trying to love the other more. And without a doubt, everyone would emerge from that competition a winner! For love is truly the only sure secret to our success.

Birthright

"Was not Esau Jacob's brother?" the LORD says. "Yet I have loved Jacob, but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals." (Malachi 1:2-3)
Jacob and Esau (as you undoubtedly know) were Isaac's sons, grandchildren of the great patriarch Abraham. Despite being twins, they were totally unlike each other, both in appearance and in temperament. Esau, the older of the two, loved the outdoors and became a skilled hunter, endearing himself to his father who liked the wild game the boy brought home to cook. Introverted Jacob preferred to stay indoors and help his mother Rebekah in the house, making himself beloved of her.
Esau cut a pretty sorry figure as a little story about him showed. He went out hunting on one occasion. He must have been gone for a few days and not had much luck in snaring anything, because when he returned he was empty handed and starving. As chance would have it, Jacob had just cooked a pot of stew. Eagerly Esau asked for a serving, but Jacob, a schemer if there ever was one, told him that he could have it only in exchange for his birthright. In a remarkable act of idiocy, Esau agreed to the trade, instantly damning himself in the eyes of God.
To understand why this act provoked God's intense displeasure, you have to understand how important the birthright was. The birthright—the inheritance of the firstborn—consisted of leadership in the family, a double portion of inheritance, and the title to the covenant blessing promised to Abraham. It was given by God himself. By "despising his birthright" as the Book of Genesis states he did, Esau effectively thumbed his nose at God. (Many Christians today are guilty of the same thing, selling their birthright thoughtlessly by trading eternal blessings for momentary pleasures.)
"I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." (Exodus 33:19)
1. it's not your fault: homosexuality is just an alternative lifestyle, drunkenness is a disease
2. evil is really good: white lies keep you from hurting other people's feelings, I'll be like God if I eat the forbidden fruit
3. justification: if everyone else is cheating, I won't be graded fairly; that company cheats it's customers, so I can steal from it.
4. denial: a loving God won't punish anyone, nothing bad will happen if I do it just this once

Overcome The Habit Of Quitting

"Withstand (the devil); be firm in faith [against his onset] rooted, established, strong, immovable, and determined knowing that the same (identical) sufferings are appointed to your brotherhood (the whole body of Christians) throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace...will Himself complete and make you what you ought to be, establish and ground you securely, and strengthen (and settle) you." (1 Peter 5:9-10, Amp)

No matter how long you've been living by faith, no matter how much you've learned about it, every once in a while you may suffer a setback. You may run into some circumstances that just don't turn out the way you expected.

If that happens, remember this: Those setbacks are just temporary. You may have lost a battle, but you're not going to lose the war. Just get up and go at it again.

"But I don't understand it," you say. "I did the best I could. I walked in all the truth I knew to walk in. Why didn't I get the victory?"

Because there was something you didn't know! It shouldn't shock you too much that there are things you don't know about the realm of the spirit. Ken and I have been in the ministry for over 20 years. We've spent untold hours in the Word. Yet it seems like the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know.

So, when we get to a situation where we can't seem to get victory, we have to ask God for more wisdom. If you'll look in 2 Samuel 21, you can see a time when King David had to do that. His country had been suffering from a famine for three years and David just didn't understand it, so he inquired of the Lord. The Lord told him the famine had come because of something Saul had done! Isn't that amazing? Saul had been dead for years, yet what he'd put in motion in the realm of the spirit was still affecting his country.

David could have just given up when his usual confessions of faith and ways of praying didn't drive out that famine, but he didn't. He inquired of God for more wisdom. He used his temporary setback to cause him to seek more knowledge from God.

Follow his example! Overcome the habit of quitting because of temporary setbacks. Refuse to let them knock you out of the game. After all, this thing's not over till it's over. And the Bible says when it's all over, you'll have won. So just be steadfast in your faith. In the end your victory is guaranteed.

Scripture Study: 2 Samuel 21:1-6


Kenneth Copeland Ministries, Locked Bag 2600, Mansfield DC QLD 4122, Australia

Do you view your life as worthless? Do you think you are insignificant? If so, then you have been betrayed. If you deliberately plan to be less than what you are capable of, you will bring unhappiness to the rest of your life.

Many people have no idea what they were created for. They are aimless in their lives. They are oblivion to the talents they possess.

You were created with a purpose. You were created for achievements. You are meant for greatness. You are “wonderfully made.” Do what you are supposed to do and do it well.

Think about what you want to do. What is your passion? What is your calling? Seize every opportunity and do it well. Do the following:

Get rid of the clutter in your life.
Don’t compare yourself with others.
Be optimistic.
Start something small.
Pursue your goals with passion.
Motivate yourself.

I POSSESS WHAT I CONFESS

I know what I confess and I know what I possess.

I confess Jesus as my Lord (Romans 10:9-10); I possess salvation.

I confess that “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5); I possess healing.

I confess that the Son has made me free (John 8:36); I possess absolute freedom.

I confess that “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost” (Romans 5:5); I possess the ability to love everyone.

I confess that the “righteous are bold as a lion” (Proverbs 28:1); I possess lion-hearted boldness in spiritual warfare against the devil.

I confess that “he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5); I possess the presence of God each step of my way.

I confess that I am “the redeemed of the Lord” (Psalm 107:2); I possess redemption benefits every day.

I confess that the anointing of the Holy One abideth in me (1 John 2:27); I possess yoke-destroying results by His anointing.

I confess that in the name of Jesus I can cast out devils (Mark 16:17); I possess the authority for dynamic deliverances.

I confess that I can lay my hands on the sick and they will recover (Mark 16:18); I possess the healing power for those oppressed by sickness.

I confess that my God shall supply all my needs (Philippians 4:19); I will lack nothing since I possess God’s abundant supply.