Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked The Amplified Bible are from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament © 1958, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked New International Version are from The Holy Bible, New International Version® © 1973, 1978, 1984 by the International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Scripture quotations marked The Living Bible are from The Living Bible © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Looking for a Receiver

ePub ISBN 978-1-57562-909-4

31-0557

© 2002 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Publications

All rights reserved under International Copyright Law. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, excepting brief quotations used in reviews.

This e-book is licensed for your personal, noncommercial use only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, or sow a copy into another’s life, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, and/or it was not purchased for your use only, please visit kcm.org and purchase your own copy.

Kenneth Copeland Publications

Fort Worth, TX 76192-0001

For more information about Kenneth Copeland Ministries, visit kcm.org or call 1-800-600-7395 (U.S. only) or +1-817-852-6000.

Looking for a Receiver

Glory to God, it’s almost football season again and I’m excited.

Not about football really, because I’m not much of a football fan. But these days football reminds me of the goodness of God.

That may sound strange but it’s true. Several years ago when I was watching the Super Bowl in January 2000, the Lord used one particular play in that game to illustrate His goodness to me. It excited me and strengthened my faith— and I’ve been telling about it ever since!

The only reason I was even interested in the game that day was because St. Louis was playing. Two of their players, quarterback Kurt Warner and receiver Isaac Bruce, are Spirit-filled believers. So I wanted to see them play.

At a critical point in the game, I was watching Kurt Warner as he drew his arm back to throw a pass. Looking down the field for someone to catch that pass, he found Isaac Bruce in position, ready and able to receive. He threw the ball. The pass was completed and they won the Super Bowl!

Since then, I’ve thought about that moment again and again. God has used it to illustrate that He is always looking for a receiver, just like Kurt Warner was that day. And 1 Corinthians 2:9 tells us of the blessings God has in His hand that He is longing to pass to us—blessings beyond our comprehension:

What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has not entered into the heart of man, [all that] God has prepared (made and keeps ready) for those who love Him [who hold Him in affectionate reverence, promptly obeying Him and gratefully recognizing the benefits He has bestowed] (The Amplified Bible).

God has spiritual victories He wants us to win. He has rewards and trophies He wants us to enjoy. These wonderful things are ready when we are ready.

So what is He waiting for?

He’s waiting for someone to receive!

Obviously, if we want to enjoy the fruit of God’s Word in our lives and have the fullness of His goodness manifest to us, we need to learn to be good receivers.

We can learn something about how to receive by looking at Webster’s dictionary definitions of receive. Receive means to

Come into possession of or acquire

Assimilate through the mind or senses

Permit to enter in, to welcome or to greet

Accept as authoritative, true and accurate

Take from the weight of something as an impression or mark

Think about each one of those definitions in light of God’s Word.

First we come into possession of—we find the promise in God’s Word that applies to our situation. Then we assimilate it through the mind or senses—in other words, we renew our minds to God’s Word. We permit that promise to enter into our hearts and permeate our thoughts. We get in faith about the situation and make the Word final authority. And finally, God’s Word makes a lasting impression on us, marking us, changing the way we think and live.

We have received the promise—it is done!

No Limits to His Giving

Of course I didn’t just learn about receiving from a football game or a dictionary definition. I learned it from the Bible. Second Chronicles 16:9 says, “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.”

The word translated perfect there actually means “devoted, faithful, dedicated and consecrated.” So this verse tells us that God is constantly searching for people whose hearts are devoted to Him so that He might demonstrate His kindness and power in their lives. He is continually looking for a receiver.

The more I’ve studied the Scriptures, the more I’ve come to see that God is so good! He is filled with desire to give good things to people. Psalm 145:8 says, “The Lord is gracious….” That means He is disposed to show favors. In other words, God is always in a favorable mood. You never catch God on a bad day. If He had just one bad day, we’d all be gone. But thank God, He is gracious.

“The Lord is…full of compassion.” If you study compassion, you’ll find it means “an eager yearning to do you good.” Isn’t that wonderful? God is eagerly yearning to do you good.

If you were raised in traditional religion that might surprise you. Religion has taught us that God is our greatest problem. He’s the one who’s making us sick and keeping us poor. It’s taught us that He’s very touchy and if you make Him mad—which is easy to do—He’ll punish you in a hurry. But Psalm 145 says just the opposite:

The Lord is…slow to anger and abounding in mercy and loving-kindness. The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. The Lord upholds all those [of His own] who are falling and raises up all those who are bowed down. You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing with favor. The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him sincerely and in truth. He will fulfill the desires of those who reverently and worshipfully fear Him (verses 8-9, 14, 16, 18-19, The Amplified Bible).

One of the best explanations I’ve ever read about the goodness of God was written by David Baron, a Jewish rabbi who was born again later in his life. Because of his Jewish background he had a better understanding of the Scriptures than most Christians do. In one of his commentaries, he referred to Psalm 31:19 which says, “Oh, how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear, revere, and worship You, goodness which You have wrought for those who trust and take refuge in You before the sons of men!” (The Amplified Bible).

Quoting from another Old Testament scholar, Baron wrote:

Goodness is that attribute of God whereby He loveth to communicate to all who can or will receive it, all good. He, Himself, who is the fullness of good, the creator of all good, not in one kind of goodness only but absolutely without beginning, without limit, without measure save that whereby without measurement, he possesseth and embraceth all excellence, all perfection, all blessedness, all good. This good, His goodness bestoweth on all and each according to the capacity of each to receive it. Nor is there any limit to His giving, save His creatures’ capacity of receiving which also is a good gift from Him.

Look again at that last sentence. It says there is no limit to God’s giving. He has good plans, good places and good things stored up for those who love Him. The more aware we are of those things, the more we’ll be able to receive them. So let’s think about them for a few moments.

Good Plans

No matter who you are, no matter how closely you’ve walked with God or how far you’ve run from Him, God has a plan for you. It’s a good plan, too. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” (New International Version).

God’s plan for you is far above anything you could dream up on your own. I can vouch for that personally. Forty years ago, I could not have imagined the goodness of God that I’m enjoying now.

When I was a young girl, I wanted to be an airline stewardess. I heard they made $90 a week. That seemed like a lot of money to me and the idea of going somewhere beyond Arkansas was very exciting.

Thank God, He had a higher plan for me than that. He’s literally done for me what Ephesians 3:20 says, “exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.”

Yet even so, I know that if Jesus tarries, 10 years from now His plan will take me even higher and I’ll be enjoying things that right now are beyond my ability to imagine. There’s no limit to the goodness of God. There’s no limit to the greatness of His plan.

“But Gloria,” you might say, “you don’t know how bad I’ve been. I’ve missed my chance!”

No, you haven’t. No matter how badly you’ve messed up, God always has a plan. He can get you out of captivity and back into His will just like He did the nation of Israel. If you’ll just repent—make a turn and give your whole heart and soul to Him—He’ll immediately start getting you back on track. It’s amazing how He can do that. From the moment you turn to Him, He’ll begin leading you back into His good plan.

A Good Place

Once you are walking in God’s will and living in His plan for your life, you’ll find He also has a good place for you. All through the Bible we see God creating good places for His children to live. In Genesis, God created a garden for Adam and Eve. He didn’t desire for them to live in a barren wasteland. He gave them a perfect home. A beautiful place, just the right temperature, with rivers, and gold, and food that grew on trees.

God told Israel He wanted them to live in a land flowing with milk and honey. He wanted them to have “a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing forth in valleys and hills…. A land in which you shall eat food without shortage and lack nothing in it” (Deuteronomy 8:7-9, The Amplified Bible). He said they’d have goodly houses in that land.

Even when Israel went into captivity in Babylon, God wanted them to build houses and plant gardens. They were in captivity because they wouldn’t do what He said. But the mercy of God is so great, He still wanted them to have good places to live.

God desires the same for you. He wants you to have a good home—a lovely place to live.

Have you ever noticed how your heart just naturally turns toward God when you’re walking in the woods or sitting by a mountain stream? That’s because God made the beauty of the earth conducive to worshiping Him. He wants you to enjoy your part of that beauty. He has a place especially for you—a place where you can enjoy “days of heaven upon the earth” (Deuteronomy 11:21).

Good Things

Not only does God have a good plan and a good place for us, He also has good things.

“But I thought things were of the devil!”

No, that’s what tradition teaches. The Bible teaches that God gives us richly all things to enjoy. He loves for us to have wonderful things. He just doesn’t want those things to have us.

Jesus pointed out how well God feeds the birds and clothes the flowers. Then He assured us that God will take even better care of us than He does of them. He said:

No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore do not worry and be anxious, saying, What are we going to have to eat? or, What are we going to have to drink? or, What are we going to have to wear? For the Gentiles (heathen) wish for and crave and diligently seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows well that you need them all. But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides (Matthew 6:24, 31-33, The Amplified Bible).

In Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus sheds even more light on the good things God wants to give us. He says:

If a child asks his father for a loaf of bread, will he be given a stone instead? If he asks for fish, will he be given a poisonous snake? Of course not! And if you hardhearted, sinful men know how to give good gifts to your children, won’t your Father in heaven even more certainly give good gifts to those who ask him for them? (The Living Bible).

Contrary to religious tradition, God knows how to give good things. He’s not mixed up about what’s good and what’s bad. (Read the blessings and the curses in Deuteronomy 28 and you can see that for yourself.) He knows sickness, poverty and lack are not good. So He doesn’t give those things to His children.

If you’re a loving parent, God is just like you (only better). You don’t want your children to go without food, do you? You don’t want them to be homeless and live on the street. You don’t want them to suffer sickness.

No. You want them to have a comfortable room, good clothes and nice things to enjoy. You want them to have a healed body. Your desire is to see them prosper all the days of their lives.

Put Yourself in Position

If you want your children to have those things, how much more does God want those things for you! He has them laid up for you. Like a quarterback in the Super Bowl, God has His mighty arm drawn back, eager to hurl His blessings into your life. But He can’t unless you are in position to receive.

So how do you put yourself in that position?

Think about Isaac Bruce during the Super Bowl. Isaac wasn’t distracted. He wasn’t looking up in the stands to see who was watching. And he wasn’t standing around with his hands in his pockets wishing he had a hamburger.

Instead Isaac was on fire to win that football game. Waiting to receive the pass, he kept his eye on the quarterback. He wasn’t preoccupied with something else. He was right where he was supposed to be, intensely interested in what he was doing. He was single-minded—Isaac was ready!

So just like Isaac, in order to receive you must be single-minded. And that means first and foremost, you seek God. You do what Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides” (The Amplified Bible). “First” is the key word here! There is nothing before first. First makes everything else fall into place.

And the word seek in the Hebrew means “to tread frequently.” Seek is a diligent word. It means “to make something your main concern, your primary pursuit.” Proverbs says if you seek for God’s wisdom as you seek for silver and gold, you’ll find it. So when we go after God and make Him our primary pursuit, we’ll begin to receive.

God has never been stingy toward His people. He has always wanted them to have the best of everything. But for us to receive the best, we have to put Him first. That’s His simple formula for success.

We don’t seek after things. We’re not money-minded—we’re God-minded. When you just go after God’s blessings, you miss the Father behind those blessings…and He is the only thing that makes life worth living. Money doesn’t make life worth living. A good career doesn’t make life worth living. The peace and joy that come from the presence of the Lord in your life—that’s what makes it all worthwhile.

Increase Your Capacity

The primary way we put God first is by putting His Word first in our lives. Since we receive from God by faith, and faith comes by hearing the Word (Romans 10:17), the more we honor the Word He has sent us—the more we believe it and obey it—the greater capacity we’ll have to receive!

If you think again about our football example, you’ll realize that professional receivers were not always qualified to play in the Super Bowl. They probably started out in the park catching the ball with their friends, and they just kept practicing. They just kept working out and playing the game, increasing their capacity to receive.

That’s the way Ken and I are spiritually. When we started out in the things of God we weren’t great receivers. We were broke, in debt and without jobs. But we began to put the Word into our hearts and our mouths. We began to put it into action in our lives. As we did, our capacity to receive from God began to grow. That was 40 years ago. We’ve come a long way since then, but we’re still striving to increase our capacity to receive. We’re still putting the Word first place and acting on it every day.

I’m going to continue doing it too. I’m going to keep on increasing my capacity because, to tell you the truth, it’s wonderful to receive. Of course, it’s better to give than to receive, but it’s still pretty good to receive! And besides that, if you don’t receive you won’t have anything to give.

What’s more, I love God and He has some “spiritual Super Bowls” He wants us to win. He has His arm of blessing ready and He is searching to and fro throughout the whole earth, looking for someone to receive. I want to be there for Him. I want to help Him rack up some points against the devil in these last days.

I want to be the best receiver I can be. Don’t you?

Prayer for Salvation and Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Heavenly Father, I come to You in the Name of Jesus. Your Word says, “Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Acts 2:21). I am calling on You. I pray and ask Jesus to come into my heart and be Lord over my life according to Romans 10:9-10: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” I do that now. I confess that Jesus is Lord, and I believe in my heart that God raised Him from the dead.

I am now reborn! I am a Christian—a child of Almighty God! I am saved! You also said in Your Word, “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: HOW MUCH MORE shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (Luke 11:13). I’m also asking You to fill me with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, rise up within me as I praise God. I fully expect to speak with other tongues as You give me the utterance (Acts 2:4). In Jesus’ Name. Amen!

Begin to praise God for filling you with the Holy Spirit. Speak those words and syllables you receive—not in your own language, but the language given to you by the Holy Spirit. You have to use your own voice. God will not force you to speak. Don’t be concerned with how it sounds. It is a heavenly language!

Continue with the blessing God has given you and pray in the spirit every day.

You are a born-again, Spirit-filled believer. You’ll never be the same!

Find a good church that boldly preaches God’s Word and obeys it. Become part of a church family who will love and care for you as you love and care for them.

We need to be connected to each other. It increases our strength in God. It’s God’s plan for us.

Make it a habit to watch the Believer’s Voice of Victory television broadcast and become a doer of the Word, who is blessed in his doing (James 1:22-25).

About the Author

Gloria Copeland is a noted author and minister of the gospel whose teaching ministry is known throughout the world. Believers worldwide know her through Believers’ Conventions, Victory Campaigns, magazine articles, teaching audios and videos, and the daily and Sunday Believer’s Voice of Victory television broadcast, which she hosts with her husband, Kenneth Copeland. She is known for Healing School, which she began teaching and hosting in 1979 at KCM meetings. Gloria delivers the Word of God and the keys to victorious Christian living to millions of people every year.

Gloria is author of the New York Times best-seller, God’s Master Plan for Your Life and Live Long, Finish Strong, as well as numerous other favorites, including God’s Will for You, Walk With God, God’s Will Is Prosperity, Hidden Treasures and To Know Him. She has also co-authored several books with her husband, including Family Promises, Healing Promises and the best-selling daily devotionals, From Faith to Faith and Pursuit of His Presence.

She holds an honorary doctorate from Oral Roberts University. In 1994, Gloria was voted Christian Woman of the Year, an honor conferred on women whose example demonstrates outstanding Christian leadership. Gloria is also the co-founder and vice president of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Fort Worth, Texas.

Learn more about Kenneth Copeland Ministries by visiting our website at kcm.org

Materials to Help You Receive Your Healing by Gloria Copeland

Books

* And Jesus Healed Them All

* God’s Prescription for Divine Health

* God’s Will for Your Healing

* Harvest of Health

Words That Heal (gift book with CD enclosed)

Audio Resources

Be Made Whole—Live Long, Live Healthy

God Is a Good God

God Wants You Well

Healing Confessions (CD and minibook)

Healing School

DVD Resources

Be Made Whole—Live Long, Live Healthy

Know Him As Healer

* Available in Spanish

When The LORD first spoke to Kenneth and Gloria Copeland about starting the Believer’s Voice of Victory magazine...

He said: This is your seed. Give it to everyone who ever responds to your ministry, and don’t ever allow anyone to pay for a subscription!

For more than 40 years, it has been the joy of Kenneth Copeland Ministries to bring the good news to believers. Readers enjoy teaching from ministers who write from lives of living contact with God, and testimonies from believers experiencing victory through God’s Word in their everyday lives.

Today, the BVOV magazine is mailed monthly, bringing encouragement and blessing to believers around the world. Many even use it as a ministry tool, passing it on to others who desire to know Jesus and grow in their faith!

Request your FREE subscription to the Believer’s Voice of Victory magazine today!

Go to freevictory.com to subscribe, or call us at 1-800-600-7395 (U.S. only) or +1-817-852-6000.

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Your growth in God’s WORD and victory in Jesus are at the very center of our hearts. In every way God has equipped us, we will help you deal with the issues facing you, so you can be the victorious overcomer He has planned for you to be.

The mission of Kenneth Copeland Ministries is about all of us growing and going together. Our prayer is that you will take full advantage of all The LORD has given us to share with you.

Wherever you are in the world, you can watch the Believer’s Voice of Victory broadcast on television (check your local listings), the Internet at kcm.org or on our digital Roku channel.

Our website, kcm.org, gives you access to every resource we’ve developed for your victory. And, you can find contact information for our international offices in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Ukraine and our headquarters in the United States.

Each office is staffed with devoted men and women, ready to serve and pray with you. You can contact the worldwide office nearest you for assistance, and you can call us for prayer at our U.S. number, +1-817-852-6000, 24 hours every day!

We encourage you to connect with us often and let us be part of your everyday walk of faith!

Jesus Is LORD!

Kenneth and Gloria Copeland