Real Help

by Kenneth Copeland

Life as a born-again child of God is the most marvellous adventure you could ever imagine. You wouldn’t know it by looking at most Christians, but it is. If we truly knew all that Jesus has done for us and all He has provided through His death and resurrection, we would wake up every morning full of joy and raring to go!

We’d bound out of bed saying, “There’s somebody out there who needs healing today and I can bring it to them. There’s somebody whose life will be changed by my testimony. There’s somebody who needs the joy and the love of The LORD and they’re going to receive it through me!”

If we had a revelation of our inheritance in Jesus, we’d greet every day with a gleam in our eye and charge out the front door with confidence, knowing there is treasure out there waiting for us. There’s a wealth of souls waiting to be won. There are endless opportunities to bless people and minister to them by the power of God that resides within us. There are God-ordained financial fortunes ready and waiting for us so we’ll have all the money we need to do what God puts in our hearts to do.

The scriptural truth is, as blood-washed, Holy Ghost-filled saints of the living God, you and I are a victory going someplace to happen. We are divinely designed to demonstrate the triumphant life of Jesus everywhere we go. We don’t even have to worry about overcoming the devil and all his junk. Jesus already did it. He already defeated him. As long as we walk in faith our victory is inevitable.

Second Corinthians 2:14 says it this way, “Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.”

Why, then, don’t more believers live that way?

I can answer that question with one word.

Fear.

Fear has contaminated the faith of far too many of God’s people. Fear has robbed them of their victory and deceived them into accepting defeat at the hands of a conquered foe.

Fear has deprived countless believers of the great adventure of the Christian life.

It has reduced them to living from paycheck to paycheck because they’re afraid if they tried something new they’d fail and lose what little they have. They’re afraid to go out and lay hands on the sick. (After all, what if nothing happens? says the voice of fear. What if the person doesn’t get healed?)

They’re afraid of launching out into the deep waters of life and becoming fishers of men, so they settle for going to work, coming home, watching television and going to bed. It’s the same thing every day…nobody ever gets saved, nobody ever gets filled with the Holy Ghost. They just barely get their bills paid. They fix one thing and something else breaks.

As born-again children of God, we don’t have any business living like that! We should be the most outrageously daring people the earth has ever seen. We ought to be doing the impossible by faith every day. We should be turning the world upside down for Jesus and having the time of our lives!

An Age-Old Promise Fulfiled

“Oh, Brother Copeland,” you might say, “I’d love to do that. I long to live that way more than anything in the world!”

Then I have good news for you. You can!

Jesus has already done all that is necessary to enable you to do it. He has already conquered fear. He has stripped it of its power over you. He has set you free.

That’s the thing the devil hasn’t wanted us to know. He has wanted us to think we have to struggle along trying to manage our fears. He’s wanted us to believe that we have to “put up with them” and cope with them…and try to overcome them.

But they have already been overcome by Jesus Himself. He has redeemed us from fear. In fact, according to The WORD, that was a primary part of His mission as our Saviour. He came not only to save us from sin, sickness, death and hell—He came to save us from fear itself.

We can see that in Luke 1 where Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, prophesied about the coming of the Messiah. Notice carefully what he said about Jesus:

Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant, the oath which He swore to our father Abraham: To grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life (verses 68-75).

Freedom from fear isn’t a new idea. It’s not something we thought up recently because we need an answer for modern-day terrorism. The Bible says the prophets have been talking about it since the world began. Thousands of years ago, God swore to Abraham that through his Seed the power of fear would one day be broken.

When Jesus went to the cross, He fulfiled that promise. He paid the price so we could serve God without fear all the days of our lives. He destroyed fear’s hold on us so we can stand up by faith in Him and be forever free.

Disconnected From Death. Connected to Life

Until Jesus came, the only man who had ever walked the face of the earth totally free from fear was Adam. He was originally created in the very likeness of God and had within him the very attributes of God Himself. The divine nature that is full of love, joy, peace, goodness, meekness, kindness and patience flowed freely in Adam.

But when he sinned all that changed. Spiritual death came and perverted those divine forces. Every one of them turned into the exact opposite of what they had been. Love became hate. Faith became fear. Peace became torment.

Why?

Because by submitting himself to Satan, Adam disconnected himself from the life of God and connected himself instead to the nature of the devil. Satan himself literally became Adam’s god.

Adam didn’t intend for that to happen. He and Eve thought they could just be gods unto themselves. (That’s what the devil told them they could do.) But that was impossible. Although man is created in God’s image, he was not created to be spiritually sovereign. He must have a spiritual overlord. That’s an inescapable fact.

Many people today still don’t realise that. They think, There’s God…and Satan…and then there’s me. But there are just two spiritual families in the earth—God’s and Satan’s. Everyone in the world is under the lordship of one or the other.

But thank God, by saying “Yes” to Jesus and receiving Him as our LORD and Saviour, we can change families. We can be delivered from the power of darkness and transferred into the family of God (Colossians 1:13-14).

When we do that, something wonderful happens. We are born again or, as Ephesians 2:10 says, we are “created in Christ Jesus.” We are actually made “a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ…” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).

Think of it this way. Just as Adam was born again from life to death when he made Satan his lord, we were born again from death to life when we made Jesus our LORD. Just as Adam was separated from God and connected to Satan in his rebirth, we were separated from Satan and reconnected to God in our new birth.

The moment we were separated from Satan, all those things in our spirit that sprang from him died. Hate died. Lust died. Fear died. At that same moment, we were reconnected to God and the divine nature sprang to life within us. The attributes of God—love, joy, peace and all the other fruit of the spirit—began to flow in our spirits like a fountain.

For you to walk in the victory and freedom from fear that belong to you as a believer, it is absolutely essential that you understand this. You are not just an old sinner saved by grace. Your old man died the death of the Cross. The sin nature you inherited from Adam was crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20). It is dead and gone! Now you are a child of the living God. You have Jesus’ own nature and life within you.

You don’t have any business wearing those old, religious sin-tags anymore. You don’t have any business talking about what a sorry, no-good sinner you are. If you’ve been born again, you are no such thing. You are a new creation made alive with the life of God Himself!

Check Engine Now!

Where there was once a fountain of fear on the inside of you, there is now a fountain of faith. The devil can’t pump fear into your spirit anymore. He doesn’t have access to it. It’s sealed by the Holy Spirit unto God (Ephesians 1:13).

The only way the devil can get fear into you is by feeding it to your intellect. He must try to get it into your soul (your mind, will and emotions) by talking you into receiving it and acting on it. Even if he is successful in doing that, he’s still at a disadvantage because that fear will never take root in your born-again spirit. It has nothing to hold it in place. So the minute you rise up and start walking in the love of God, that love will wash the fear away.

That’s an amazing thought but it’s absolutely the truth. The WORD of God tells us that love will actually flush fear out of our souls!

I John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear….” The words translated cast out there literally mean “to flush out.” When you begin to exercise the love of God and the tide of love begins to rise, it just doesn’t leave any place for fear to reside. And since faith works by love, the higher the tide of love flows, the stronger your faith becomes. Eventually, you get to the place where all the fear is flushed away!

The problem most believers have had, however, is this. They’ve let fear creep into their lives a little at a time and over the years, they’ve gotten used to it. Fear has become such a normal part of life that they’re blind to it. As a result, they don’t do what’s necessary to flush it out.

What can we do about that? The last part of I John 4:18 gives us the answer. It says, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”

Whenever we sense any kind of torment in our lives, it’s a signal to us that we have some fear there. If there’s torment…there’s fear. And according to this verse, if there’s fear, it’s a sign we haven’t developed the love of God in that area.

“Yeah, but Brother Copeland.”

Don’t start with the “Yeah buts….” It’s the truth. So instead of arguing about it, put it to work for you. Think about it this way and you’ll see how.

Whenever you sense torment about a situation, it’s like the red “Check Engine” light blinking on the panel of your car.

If you pay attention to that light and do something about it, it will help you.

But if you just keep driving along thinking, I wonder what’s wrong with my engine? you’ll end up in big trouble. After that light has been blinking for about three months, you’ll find yourself stranded on the freeway blaming the automobile manufacturer for a defective car!

Get the Gleam Back in Your Eye

Obviously, it’s not the manufacturer’s fault. They installed that red light to get your attention. You should have done something about it the first time it blinked at you.

The same thing is true about torment. Every time you notice a flutter of anxiety in your mind or a knot of worry in your stomach, it ought to be like a flashing red light to you. The moment you catch yourself thinking a fearful or worried thought, you should stop right then and deal with it.

Don’t just go on and on thinking, Oh, I don’t know where my kids are. I hope they’re not doing drugs. I hope they don’t get out there on the freeway and get themselves killed.

Stop these thoughts immediately. Start talking to yourself and say, “Wait just a minute here. The Scripture says he that fears is not developed in love. So I’m going to stop this fear right now and get over into the love of God before I get myself in trouble. I’m going to purposely disconnect from this fear and connect up with love.”

Then just start worshipping and praising The LORD over His great love for you. Remind yourself of it and receive it by faith. Say, “Jesus, I love You and I know You love me too much to just let bad things overwhelm my life and my family. Heavenly Father, John 17 says You love me just as much as You do Jesus Himself. And I receive that love right now. I know Your love has been shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost and I thank You for it.”

Don’t do it just once or twice either. Do it every time you begin to sense that torment. The moment it arises, immediately—immediately!—move over into the love of God.

Then start finding ways to manifest that love toward others. Go find somebody to love somewhere. As you do, that love will begin to grow.

Keep that up and the process of flushing fear out of your soul will continue until you reach the place where there’s no fear there at all. You’ll begin to live the fear-free lifestyle Jesus died and rose again to give you. Just as the prophets foretold, being delivered out of the hands of your enemies, you will serve God without fear all the days of your life.

You can get up every morning with a gleam in your eye, ready to bring the saving, healing, delivering power of The LORD Jesus Christ to a lost world that is waiting to receive it.

Your life will truly become the great adventure God intended it to be.