Dressed and Equipped for Supernatural Living: Adopted Into the Royal Family
by Leroy Thompson

There are many promises in the Word of God that deal with wealth and prosperity. And God doesn’t intend for you, as a believer, to wait until you reach the “sweet by-and-by” before you can enjoy them. He wants you to live in wealth and prosperity while you’re here on this earth.
But if you’re going to walk in the fullness of what God has promised where natural wealth is concerned, there are some things you first need to know concerning your spiritual wealth. You’re going to have to understand what your position is as a member of the Body of Christ and the authority that position carries. And you are going to have to understand the kinship relationship you have with God.
Not only is God your Lord, but He is your Father. And as your Father, the Scripture says, He has blessed you with all spiritual blessings. We find that in Ephesians 1:3, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”
Paul wrote these words to the church he had established at Ephesus. The people there were strong in the Word, but it was the unbelievers who had all the natural wealth. Paul saw that the church needed a better understanding of their position in Christ, and their rights and privileges, so they could obtain natural wealth. When you understand your inheritance as a child of God, you won’t have any problems believing God for the natural.
You’ll see that you’ve had a total change of status. You don’t have to wear your beggar’s clothes anymore. You’ve been prepared for something special. You’ve been dressed and equipped for supernatural living.
Establish an Intimate Relationship
Look at that verse again. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.” Notice it refers to God as Father. That means God is your Father. And how does a father treat his children? Jesus said, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Matthew 7:11).
That’s a father’s heart. He wants nothing more than to give good things to his children. He wants that because of the intimate relationship the two of you share.
Seeing God as your Father brings you into the place of spiritual wealth, where there is an inheritance waiting for you. Once you reach that place, it’s no sweat getting those things you desire in the natural. Healing, long life, peace, houses, cars, land—they’re all yours to have because they have already been given to you in heavenly places.
Philippians 2:5-6 says, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” Well, the Bible says we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). That means we are equal with Jesus in all that He has inherited from God the Father. If you are in the form of God, you should be thinking like God.
You can speak things out from a godly or spiritual standpoint and see them happen because your words carry power. If you are operating in faith and the knowledge and understanding of your inheritance in Christ Jesus, this earthly system has to obey you.
“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises, of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Peter 2:9).
As believers, we have kinship with the Father. But the Body of Christ hasn’t much acted like it. We are supposed to be reigning now—on this earth! But that can only happen when we have spiritual knowledge of our position and the authority we possess—and act on it!
God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, or privileges. Everything has been freely given to us, including wealth, health, peace and joy. Some people just don’t want to walk in the blessings. They would rather use their own limited resources and go their own way rather than depend on the God Who declares Himself their Father.
Don’t be like that, because you can easily find yourself in the position of a beggar—going to God and pleading your case rather than asking, as His child, and receiving.
I get a picture of that whenever I think about that story of the blind man who stopped Jesus on the way to Jericho. He wasn’t a believer, but the situation was the same. “And it came to pass, that as he was come nigh unto Jericho, a certain blind man sat by the way side begging” (Luke 18:35).
That’s how I see Christians who don’t know their rights and privileges. They’re just like beggars. “Oh, God, please heal me.” “Oh, God, please pay my bills.” “Oh, God, my sister is going to hell if she doesn’t straighten up. Please save her.”
Don’t Beg for What’s Already Yours
You don’t have to beg God for what He has already provided for you. He’s your Father! You have a covenant with Him that is sealed by the blood of Jesus. Healing is your right under that covenant. You shouldn’t be poor and struggling to pay your bills. Not when prosperity is promised to you in the covenant.
But let me add that living under the covenant is part of that intimate relationship you share with God. If you have faith in your relationship with Him, then you will have faith in the covenant. The Bible says, “the just shall live by faith.” Another way of saying that is: “He who hath entered into the covenant shall live by faith.”
I want to repeat something I said earlier: God is not going to let you have natural wealth until you understand your spiritual wealth. You are not someone trying to be blessed, or trying to get healed. You are already blessed. Healing already belongs to you! Prosperity belongs to you! You don’t have to pay for anything. You already have cash for it—it’s called faith.
Your problem is that you don’t know how to take hold of it.
Faith in your covenant with God the Father will make a demand on what rightfully belongs to you. You are already dressed for spiritual wealth and supernatural living, because you are a child of God. Can you see that?
Don’t go to the Father like you’re trying to make Him do something. Just give Him enough passwords—through the Word—so He can legally enter into your life and bring the blessings. That’s why He gave us His Word. It’s a map around Satan’s power to control us.
You need to stop right here and say this: “I am blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, now. I have a right to be blessed in every area of my life. And from this day forward, I will not accept anything less. I have it now! I claim it now! It’s paid for. My name is on it. Now! In Jesus’ Name.”
Supernatural and Natural Wealth—It’s Yours!
In Ephesians 1:4, we read, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” That verse says God chooses us. In another scripture, Jesus says: “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you” (John 15:16).
Do you see that? That’s talking about your natural wealth. Whatever you ask the Father in the Name of Jesus, He will give it to you. You probably thought that promise was there just for preachers. No, it’s part of the spiritual blessings that come with your covenant with the Father.
Jesus said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you” (John 15:7). Now, listen, just because they’re called “spiritual blessings in heavenly places” does not mean they are in the heavenlies. No, they’re not out there in the sweet by-and-by. That’s where the transformer is located. The blessings are manifested right here in the earth!
Look at that verse in 1 Peter again. “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood…” (I Peter 2:9). Did you get that? He said you are a “royal priesthood.” You are royalty. That’s kingship! That’s why Paul said in Romans 12:2, “Be not conformed to this world.” Don’t take the shape of this world. Have a transformation “by the renewing of your mind” with the Word of God. You have to get this settled in your mind that you are a child of God, and you have rights and privileges.
You cannot go by your feelings—you have to go by your faith and the revelation you have from the Word. Say what God says about your situation. Even if the physical evidence changes for the worse, keep saying what God says. Confessing what God says about a situation will cause it to manifest. I’m not talking about parroting words that have no substance behind them. I’m talking about speaking words that are backed by God’s Word.
If you’ve ever been fishing, you can understand what I’m talking about. You’ve got your line out in the water, and that little stopper, that float, is just sitting there waiting to go under. That’s a sign that you’ve got a fish on the line, you know?
Well, that’s not always the case. Some of those fish are pretty sharp. And just because that little float goes under doesn’t mean the fish has taken the bait. No, that fish is just checking you out. You think he’s hooked, and he’s just checking you out.
That’s the way the devil operates. You’ve got your faith out on the line and all of a sudden the physical evidence changes for the worse and you take your eyes off God and start looking at the circumstances. Wham! The devil’s got you hooked.
Well, don’t take the bait! Don’t fall for that trick! Flip the devil out of the water and tell him, “No, I’m not falling for that. I’m not taking that bait. I’m standing on God’s Word because I know who I am. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am royalty. I am blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and those blessing are for me now!”
Listen, you have a Father who rules, reigns, regulates and calls all the shots. Don’t let anybody talk you out of your rights and privileges as His son or daughter. If He is your Lord, and He is Lord over everything, then that means you reign with Him.
You are dressed and equipped for supernatural living, because you have been adopted into the royal family. Realize who you are, and take what rightfully belongs to you. God shouldn’t have to come and hit you over the head and say, “I have blessed you.” He has told you over and over in His Word that you are blessed with all spiritual blessings.
Take what is rightfully yours.

Real Help: Finance | Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Real Help: Finance Kenneth Copeland Ministries

Get Your Mind on the Harvest
by Kenneth Copeland

If you’ve been sowing seed into the kingdom of God, I have news that will put a smile on your face, a skip in your step and joy in your heart.
Harvest time is here!
That’s right. As the Body of Christ, we’ve stepped into the season we’ve all been waiting for. We’ve moved into the time when the spiritual and financial crops we’ve planted…and tended…and believed for are coming up. It’s a time to rejoice and celebrate.
There’s nothing better than the thrill of harvest time! Oral Roberts, my spiritual father, and Gloria and I were talking about that fact not long ago, because the Lord had been speaking to him about it. He’d been reminding Brother Roberts of the days back when he held tent meetings in farm communities.
Sometimes he’d come into towns where the crops had been reaped and sold at a good price, and the streets would be full of joyful people. Everyone would be smiling and shouting greetings to each other. They’d be busy buying school clothes for the kids and stocking up for the winter. It was a glorious scene.
I know from my own experience what that’s like. As a child, I used to spend time on my grandfather’s farm. When harvest time came, whole truckloads of people would show up to help bring in the crops. All the kids would play together and at dinnertime, because there were too many people to fit into one house, the whole bunch of us would eat outside.
What fun that was! Everyone was making money. Everyone was on the move. Everyone was enjoying the fruits of their labor.
Nobody was thinking anymore about how hot and tired they’d been when they were out working in the fields, or talking about how their feet got blistered and their hands got calloused when they were chopping cotton and hoeing weeds. They’d forgotten about all that.
They had their minds on the harvest!
Making the Switch
That’s the way we, as seed-sowing believers, ought to be today. We should have our “reaping” faith in gear and our minds on the harvest.
That’s a switch for a lot of us because until now, we’ve focused our faith primarily on planting. We’ve concentrated on God’s promise to provide seed to the sower and bread to the eater.
Thank God for such bread-receiving, seed-sowing faith! It’s wonderful. It’s opened the door for God to meet our needs and give us enough to invest in the work of His kingdom. But that’s not all God wants to do for us. He didn’t just promise to give us food to eat and seed to sow, He promised to multiply that seed and give us a harvest. He said:

He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. (As it is written, He hath dispersed abroad; he hath given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness;) being enriched in every thing to all bountifulness, which causeth through us thanksgiving to God (II Corinthians 9:6-11).
God has had harvest time in His sights all along. That’s why He taught us about sowing and reaping. That’s why He sustained us and met our needs while we were waiting for our crops to come up. He intended to multiply our seed and give us such abundant harvests that we’d always have all sufficiency in all things and wouldn’t need any outside aid or support.
From the very beginning, God’s aim was to bless us so extravagantly that we could demonstrate to the world that we don’t need anyone but Jesus to support us. He is our Source. He is the One who enriches us in all things. He is the Lord of the Harvest!
More Than We Expected
Jesus is the Lord of the Harvest. He called Himself that in Luke 10:2. When He sent His disciples out two-by-two into the cities of Israel, He said, “The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.”
The problem is, many believers haven’t exercised their faith in the harvest aspect of Jesus’ ministry. They’ve gotten stuck instead on the seed-sowing part. “Brother Copeland,” they say, “I just keep sowing…and sowing…and sowing but nothing is happening.”
Sometimes they even complain about what happened to their seed after they planted it. “I gave $50 to a minister, and then I saw his son riding around on a new bike. I don’t think he should have spent my money that way!”
People with that attitude are digging up their seed. They’re interrupting the growth process and killing their crop. When Brother Roberts told us what God was showing him about harvest time, he said that’s a mistake believers must stop making. He said we must all learn to sow our seed, release our faith, then forget about the seed.
Forget about it?
Yes, forget about it! Let it go! It’s covered up in the soil of God’s kingdom. We’ll never see it again. So we should stop fussing over it…and worrying about it…and wondering what’s become of it.
“Ken, get your mind off the sowing part now,” he said, “and get it on the harvest instead!”
Ever since that discussion, I’ve been doing that more and more. In the process, the Lord has revealed some things to me. He’s let me know, for instance, that the harvest this generation of believers is reaping is far greater than we ever expected. We are bringing in crops we didn’t even plant.
How is that possible?
It’s simple. Many believers in generations gone by who were faithful to sow seed into the kingdom of God didn’t know anything about harvest. As a result, they didn’t reap what belonged to them. They left their spiritual crops in the field.
For a long time, my mom and dad were like that. They had such a strong revelation of the importance of giving into God’s kingdom that they actually added tithing to their wedding vows. Back in 1927 when they were married, they declared they would tithe every dollar that came into their hands all their married life.
They did it, too. All his adult life, my dad had two bank accounts: One was God’s and the other was his. He never mixed them up. As a young boy, I’d go with him to the bank and watch him make out two different deposit slips, one for each account. My dad was diligent to do that for many years. He didn’t know how to reach out and receive his harvest by faith, however, until much later in life. So he never received the fullness of what he’d planted.
Over the centuries, there have been many faithful tithers and givers like my dad—believers who sowed a lifetime of seeds and, because they knew nothing about reaping, never reaped the return. The devil thinks their seeds are buried and forgotten. But God never forgets a seed. He never counts it out. He always multiplies the seed sown, then He goes looking for someone with faith enough to harvest it.
And you know what? We’re the generation of believers He’s been looking for!
We’re the ones who’ve been blessed with the last days outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the revelation of harvest. We’re the ones who will reap the spiritual and financial crops sown by our grandfathers and grandmothers. We’ll bring in harvests sown by spiritual ancestors we don’t even know.
Different Crops: the Same Anointing
I start jumping every time I think about that because harvest time is a happy time. Harvest time is what makes all the work worthwhile. That’s true in the natural scheme of things and it’s even more true spiritually.
Think about it. What could possibly be more thrilling than reaping the biggest harvest of souls in the 2,000-year history of the Body of Christ?
I’m telling you by the Spirit of God, that’s what we are doing. It’s already started. More people are coming into the family of God than ever before in all of Christian history. The Lord of the Harvest is sending us out as laborers to gather up the most staggering spiritual crop this world has ever seen. This is the beginning of massive harvest!
“But Brother Copeland,” someone might say, “I thought you were talking about a financial harvest. I thought you were saying the financial seeds we’ve sown are ready to be reaped.”
I am.
You see, you can’t have a spiritual harvest by itself. You have to have a financial harvest at the same time because harvest time is the most-expensive season of the year.
I learned that in my boyhood days on my grandfather’s farm. At harvest time, you’re buying more fuel, you’re hiring more people, you’re spending everything you have to get that crop in from the field before the weather starts to ruin it.
That’s why it takes a harvest of finances to reap a harvest of souls. Bringing in those spiritual sheaves is expensive! That’s OK, though, because the same anointing that brings forth the spiritual crop brings forth the financial crop. Both kinds of seeds are multiplied by THE BLESSING that flows to us and through us from the Lord of the Harvest.
So, roll up your spiritual sleeves and go to work in both realms. Get ready to have the time of your life.
If you haven’t thought of yourself as a harvester before now, start thinking of yourself that way. Renew your mind to the truth of God’s Word. Dare to believe the Lord of the Harvest is calling you—yes, you!—to help Him bring in His end-time crops. He’s speaking to you and saying, “Until now, you’ve known Me as the Lord over your seed. You’ve known Me as your bread provider. But I want you to know Me now as Lord and Minister of the harvest.”
Mysteries Revealed

I’m persuaded that’s what Jesus is saying to every believer who will listen these days. His fields are ripe and He is hunting high and low for those who will open their Bibles, stand on His promises of blessing, and get their harvest faith in gear. He is searching for bold receivers who won’t back away in doubt, but will jump on the truck with the rest of the harvesters and head for the fields.
The Lord spoke by prophecy during the 2006 West Coast Believers’ Convention and said those who respond in that way will be equipped with revelation that will help them get the job done. He said:

More and more, faster and faster, in more clarity and detail, the anointing will cause revelation to flow and mysteries in Christ to come clear as never before in these days in which you live. For these are the times when the mysteries shall be unveiled and you’ll say, “My, my, isn’t that simple, isn’t that wonderful.” Hallelujah. And it is and will continue to be that way because these are the times, saith the Lord, when all people will see the glory. The whole earth shall be filled with it. Amen. This is that day and this is that hour and for those that are committed, and those that are strong in the Word, and those that put My Word first place in their lives will continue to flow, and it will be a continuous flow of revelation in your life and it’ll get sweeter and sweeter as the days go by. It’s harvest time!
Things are going to increase in intensity. There are those of you that will begin to experience an outflow and overflow not only of anointing to minister to people, but in the financial realm also. And the increase will come not because of more work, or more effort on your part, but because of the intensified flow of the Holy Ghost. Not by might, not by any other way except by My Spirit, saith the Lord. My power and revelation of the love of God on a level and on a plane never before seen, never before understood by the general population of the Body of Jesus Christ.
The revealings of the secrets of faith and power. Hallelujah. Glorified knowledge in the Holy Ghost, and how to walk in anointings that will cause people to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior; Jesus as Baptizer in the Holy Ghost; Jesus as Healer and Jesus as Financier. You will be able to help them receive on a much higher plane and it will seem like, “Why this is just the most-effortless thing I have ever seen,” and that is exactly true. You are walking into an effortless, sweatless anointing. Hallelujah. A time of great outpouring. It’s here, it’s already in operation, saith the Lord. So jump in, jump in and enjoy the swim for the time has come.
Jesus is the High Priest and Chief Executive of heaven’s finances and it’s harvest time in the kingdom of God!