A Marvelous Cycle
“Oh, Brother Copeland,” you might say, “I don’t think I could ever be that loving.”
Sure, you can. You can walk in love as naturally as a fish swims or a bird flies. The reason is simple. As a born-again child of God, you’ve been re-created in the very image of Love Himself. You’re made just like Him and He is full of compassion 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He is, always and forever, love.
“Yeah, but sometimes I’m just mean. I can’t help myself! I guess God just made me that way.”
Don’t go around blaming God for your carnal self-indulgences. He’s not responsible for them. As my spiritual father, Oral Roberts, used to say, “God never created anyone to be something He has forbidden.” So if we act hatefully or unkindly it’s not because God made us that way; it’s because we’ve yielded to the pressure the devil is putting on our flesh. We may have even yielded to it for so long that we think that ugly stuff is a part of our identity.
But it’s not. It’s just flesh and everything in the flesh can be changed and replaced by the power of God’s Word and by the power of His love. It can be overcome when we stop defining ourselves by our carnal habits and renew our minds to our true identity in Christ.
One man who understood that fact very well was the Apostle Paul. He knew more about who we are in Christ than any man who ever walked this earth with the exception of Jesus Himself. He prayed continually for believers to have the spirit of wisdom and revelation because he knew what would happen when we began to see our real identity: We’d start acting like who we truly are. We’d start acting like Jesus.
No wonder Paul prayed for the believers to be rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:14-19). That’s our native soil. We were born in and of Love! The more we operate in that love, the better we comprehend God because love is what makes God tick, so to speak. It’s the driving force of His being. It’s who He is.
To our natural minds, such a thing may seem impossible. But the Bible says it’s not. I don’t care how far-out it may sound, God is able to finish the plan He started in the Garden of Eden. He is able to reproduce Himself so fully in you, me and every other believer that we fill the whole earth with His goodness and love. He is able to make us a blessing to all the families of the earth.
So release your faith for it. Stir up your pure mind by way of remembrance. Keep love in the forefront of your mind by confessing daily, “I keep the commandment of love. I love the Lord my God with all my heart, all my soul and all my strength. I love my neighbor as myself. God’s love has been shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost and I release it everywhere I go. I will be a blessing to everyone I meet today.”
Remind yourself every day that Compassion has a plan—and He is fulfilling that plan through you!