Jeremiah 1:12
Then said the Lord unto me, Thou hast well seen: for I will hasten my word to perform it.

Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

Jeremiah 30:17
For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord.

Joel 3:10
Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

Nahum 1:9
What do ye imagine against the Lord? he will make an utter end: affliction shall not rise up the second time.

Matthew 8:2-3
And, behold, there came a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.

Matthew 8:16-17
When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was
spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

Matthew 15:30-31
And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them: insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.

Matthew 18:18-19
Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.

Gloria Copeland

Joshua and Caleb held onto their confession of, “We can
take the land” for 40 years, until they were both 80 years
old. Then Caleb said to Joshua, who was their spiritual
leader, “Give me that mountain. I can take the land.” His
confession had remained unchanged.

Caleb knew of the faithfulness and mercy of God. It
motivated him to draw closer to God instead of running
from Him. He was convinced his God was able. When we
get a revelation of mercy and obtain it for ourselves we will
begin to speak it out in faith. That’s when mercy begins to
explode and manifest itself outwardly.

It all comes down to this: God’s original plan was for
man to live in close communion with Him. But after Adam
sinned, this was no longer possible. God could only deal
with man at arm’s length. Fellowship was impossible.

But, the Father had mercy on man and sent His only
Son to be our Savior and Redeemer. Through His death
and resurrection, Jesus restored us to our rightful place in
God’s original plan—a place of fellowship and communion
with the Father.

As joint heirs through Christ’s saving power, we have the
right to God’s mercy and all that goes with it. So, take
advantage of this gift from God. Ignite the power of mercy
in your life by spending time in prayer and fellowship with
the Father. Study His Word. Take hold of the promises found
in His Word, and by faith speak your needs into being. Confess
and believe in His power. If you do these things, God’s mercy
will continually be manifest in your life. For His mercy
endureth…forever!

Gloria Copeland

If we are having trouble keeping our confession of
faith, we need to take hold of mercy. Obtaining mercy
will enable us to be faithful to God. Paul illustrated this
in 1 Corinthians 7:25. In dealing with family affairs in
the Church, he said, “Now concerning virgins I have
no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment,
as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.”

It was the revelation of mercy that caused Paul to be
faithful to God. It was as if he said, “I’ve never received
a commandment of God in this, but I am faithful enough
to God and He is faithful enough to me that I know how
He thinks about it, and I will just go ahead and tell you.”
Paul knew that obtaining the mercy of God would keep
men from fainting and preserve their faith.

The Apostle Peter acknowledged the scriptural truth
of what Paul said and continued the same thought when
he wrote 2 Corinthians 4:1: “Therefore seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not; but have
renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking
in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully;
but by manifestation of the truth….”

Have you ever fainted in the middle of your confession
of faith and said, “Dear God, I just can’t hold on to this any
longer. I don’t think I can continue to stand up. I have been
confessing this thing for weeks and weeks. How long am
I going to have to do it?” If you have come to that place,
remember Ephesians 6:13 says, “Wherefore take unto you
the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand
in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand
therefore….” If you are ready to stand forever, you won’t be
there very long.

Gloria Copeland

The words we speak are important. Holding onto our
confession of the living Word will ignite the mercy of God!
Hebrews 4:12-14 says:

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and
sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even
to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of
the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there
any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but
all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of
him with whom we have to do. Seeing then that
we have a greater high priest, that is passed into
the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession.

We are to keep a faithful confession based on the
Word of God. We can do that because our High Priest has
already been touched with the “feelings of our infirmities”
and “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without
sin” (Hebrews 4:15). On that basis, we are to come boldly
to the throne of grace and as verse 16 says “obtain mercy”
through the mercy of our High Priest, Jesus.

If we cling to confessions of how bad we feel and do not
take hold of mercy, we are not igniting the dynamite. We
are igniting some other force that we did not want to blow.
The wrong words give the devil power he does not rightfully
possess. It is like holding an explosive and giving him the
match. When we confess sickness and disease, we let him
blow us away with our own guns.

The spiritual law of the Word of God is in Mark
11:23 where Jesus said: “That whosoever
shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be
thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart,
but shall believe that those things which he saith shall
come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.”

That law works on the negative side, as well as the
positive side. If Satan had any power, he wouldn’t have
to use deception. He would just kill us. But, since he is
powerless, the only thing he can do is deceive us by lying
to us. He tries to work and put us into an area where we
will make the wrong confession. If he can get us to say, “I’m
so bored. I’m so no-good. Oh, I’ll never make it. Oh God, I’m
so sick and tired,” he knows we can have whatever we say.

Gloria Copeland

If a boxer can work for months and months to get in
a ring for 15 rounds, what should a believer be able to do
for Jesus to gain a crown of glory? All Christians have
tremendous potential within them. The zoe life of God in
their spirits contains a unique substance the Bible calls
“the fruit of the spirit.” This fruit contains nine parts:
love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness and temperance.

The Bible considers these qualities a fruit because it
continually grows and produces. But it can also be compared
to an explosive, for it only releases its tremendous
power when ignited.

For example, the Bible says that faith will move mountains
and cast things into the sea. But we can carry faith
around with us forever and never move a mountain. To see
the power of faith, it must be ignited like a stick of dynamite.
The fuse that sets off this power is the spoken Word
of the living God.

This does not mean that we ignore the negative
circumstances when we speak His Word. It means we do
not live in them. We are deciding by what we say, the
kind of forces we release. We can either release the forces
of the kingdom of hell with all its demons or the forces
of the kingdom of God with all its angelic army. Both sides
are standing, waiting to see what we will say. In one sense,
we are like kings holding court.

Because we are made in the likeness of Jesus, our
words hold authority, as His do. Our words are the determining
factor. What we say is what we get.

Gloria Copeland

From Paul we can see that mercy is not only the
pattern we are to follow, but a spiritual force. At the new
birth, the Holy Spirit imparts to us what the English Bible
calls everlasting life. In Greek, it is called “zoe life” or the
life of God. “Zoe” is the element that makes God, God. It is
eternal because you cannot kill or stop it.

Jesus said, “I have come that they might have ‘zoe’ and
have it in abundance” (John 10:10). We are forever as God is
forever, because we have the substance of “zoe” life within us.

Receiving everlasting life is not the same thing as
living forever. You were created a spirit and a spirit can
never cease to exist. To a spirit, death is being separated
from the life of God. You will exist forever whether you
serve the devil or whether you serve God.

In the second resurrection, the graves will give up
the bodies of every person who has died without the Son
of God. Those who have died without obtaining God’s
everlasting life will manifest for eternity the presence
of sickness, disease and death just as they did in their
physical life.

When someone loses his soul, he loses control of it. A
person who goes into hell does not go blank. He has a better
memory and consciousness than he had when he was in his
body. Look at the rich man in Luke 16 who died and went
into hell. He lifted up his eyes and said, “Father Abraham.”
Not only did he recognize Abraham, but he knew his
brothers and Lazarus the beggar. He said, “Send Lazarus
down here with water to put on my tongue (v. 23-24).” He
was wiser in the spirit after he died than he was before.

One time God opened my eyes and allowed me to
see what people’s spirits looked like when they were not
attached to their physical bodies. I saw good Christian
people with undeveloped spirits that looked awful.
They had great big heads because they were mentally
developed and little, spindly, scrawny, spiritual bodies
caused by a lack of spiritual food. These people had fed
on religion, the junk food of the spiritual realm. It had
ruined their bodies.

Gloria Copeland

Having mercy available and reaching out to accept it are
two different things. Salvation is here for us to take, but
we can reject it all day long if we want to. If we do that,
the mercy of God will not make any difference in our lives.

It doesn’t matter what you have done. Jesus Christ came to
save sinners. He did not come for the righteous. There
weren’t any. The Bible says Jesus died for the ungodly.
It is up to you to receive the mercy of God.

Paul wanted to encourage us to take hold of mercy. He was
writing to tell us that the great things he experienced did
not happen to him because he was an apostle. They
occurred because he was a believer. He said, “Howbeit for
this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ
might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them
which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting”
(1 Timothy 1:16). Paul became a pattern of the mercy of
God for us to follow. Most of us came to the Lord Jesus
Christ either directly or indirectly through His ministry
because he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament.

The Apostle Peter, like Paul, wanted to direct attention
away from himself and the fact that he had walked and
talked with Jesus for three and a half years. He wanted
people to realize the true basis for his ability to receive
mercy and the power to do miracles. When he healed a
lame man, he said to the people who were around, “Why
look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power
or holiness we had made this man to walk” (Acts 3:12). In
other words, he was saying, “It was neither our holiness
nor our calling, but faith in the Name of Jesus that made
this man strong.”

I once knew a quiet, elderly man who was head usher
in a church. His name was Brother Steel. One day he was
a few minutes late coming to church. I found out he had
been fishing that afternoon and had been bitten by a
water moccasin. He pulled up his pant leg and showed me
where the snake had bitten him. I asked him what he did.
He said, “I reached down there and got him and said, ‘I’ll
tell you one thing old boy, in the Name of Jesus the Bible
said if a snake bites you, he ain’t going to hurt you. There
ain’t no way you’re going to hurt me.’ And I just throwed
him away.” He said, “I didn’t feel too good. That’s kind of
the reason I was late to church.”

This man just believed the Bible. Like Paul, he obtained
mercy because without the mercy of God there is not
anyone who can reach down and get a cottonmouth water
moccasin by the hand, curse it in the Name of Jesus and
throw it away. This man did what the Bible commands us
to do, and that is to have faith in the Name of Jesus.

We must first obtain mercy before we can pattern ourselves
after Paul. When Paul was born again, the mercy of
God got down on the inside of him and brought forth a
revelation that I could see. His testimony is a witness to
God’s mercy. In the Bible, we see him first as a killer. Then
we see him as a preacher of the gospel. As a preacher, he
was beaten with rods, lashed with 40 stripes three times,
thrown into dungeons and shipwrecked twice. He experienced
perils from countrymen and fought wild beasts—all
to get the Word of God to people and set them free.

Gloria Copeland

Once we have been made new on the inside, we have a
responsibility to learn and study and keep ourselves away
from the filth. Even when we fall down, if we repent of
our sin, God will cleanse us. When we deserve judgment,
God gives us mercy. And the Word says in 1 Corinthians
11:31 that if you will judge yourself, you will not be judged.
God will judge us in mercy and not with the world. He is
merciful to those who judge themselves.

Most of the time, I am harder on myself than He is. In
judging ourselves, we need to remember to forgive ourselves
and walk in the forgiveness God gives us. The Bible says
to love our neighbor as ourselves. If we go overboard in
judging ourselves, we are not going to be able to love our
neighbor because we will not be able to love ourselves.

God sent mercy and not judgment to us in the form of
Jesus. He was born into the world, died on the Cross and
was reborn from the dead by the mercy of God.

First Timothy 1:14-15 says: “And the grace of our Lord
was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in
Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save
sinners; of whom I am chief.”

The Apostle Paul was talking about himself as the
chief of sinners. He meant that salvation was extended
to every human being on the earth through the abundant
mercy of God. The message is true for everyone, and on
that basis it is worthy for them to accept it.

Gloria Copeland

It was out of the love and mercy of God that salvation
was born. Then, in Titus 3:3-5 it says:

For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish,
disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and
pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and
hating one another. But after that the kindness
and love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have
done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by
the washing of regeneration and renewing of the
Holy Ghost.

The word love in this passage is sometimes translated
“pity.” This is not a good substitute. It should be correctly
translated “mercy” as it is in other places. The thought here
should be that just as salvation is an act of mercy, so is the
Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to us as mercy and
comfort. He also prayed and asked the Father to send us
the Comforter, who has the same ministry of mercy to us
that Jesus had.

When a person makes Jesus the Lord of his life, the
Holy Spirit changes the nature of the person on the inside.
Then, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the outer man
begins to be changed. Romans 12:2 tells us we are not to be
conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing
of our minds. The Holy Spirit reveals the Word of God
to us, and if we are obedient to His Word, our habits and
behavior begin to change. The outer man is not changed
overnight. The Holy Spirit conforming you to the image of
Jesus is a process.

A good illustration of this is the difference between a
mule and a racehorse. You can take a mule and raise him
in the stable with thoroughbreds. You can give that mule
the same food and treatment as a thoroughbred racehorse.
You can even do plastic surgery on his ears and make him
look pretty good. But when you take him out there to the
starting gate and that bell goes off, the mule is a mule and
there is no doubt about it. He gets left behind. Why? He is
not a mule on the outside, he is a mule on the inside.

God in His mercy knew you could not do anything
about the junk on the inside of you. So instead of asking
you to clean yourself up, He asked you to receive Him
and let Him clean you up. It was His mercy that hung on
the Cross and sent you the Holy Ghost to be a Comforter
to you.

Gloria Copeland

One of the things God wants us to know is that
salvation springs forth from His mercy. Our redemption
was conceived, built, carried out and brought into
operation from a mind of mercy. A mind of wrath could
never have provided redemption. It would have destroyed
us and wiped out all mankind, but God was not willing to
destroy any of us.

If God had destroyed Satan, according to spiritual law,
He would have also destroyed all of Satan’s subjects. Death
would have flowed from the devil to all who served him.
And sadly, the devil is god over a lot of people.

Jesus came down on Satan’s level (where we were) in
order to bring us redemption from Satan’s authority. He
had to come down to us. When Adam bowed his knee to
an alien spirit, he made Satan his god and gave him his
crown. Adam subjected himself to Satan.

Ephesians 2:1-4 says:

And you hath he quickened (or made alive), who
were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time
past ye walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the
air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of
disobedience: among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh,
fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind;
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as
others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great
love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ, (by grace ye are saved).

Gloria Copeland