Gloria Copeland — Overcoming Through Obedience

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Gloria Copeland

God has made a way for us to live successful, holy
lives. If we’ll learn to walk in the spirit, we’ll win the
war between the flesh and the spirit. There will still
be opportunities to enter into temptation, but we
will not yield to them.

Romans 6:20-22, 7:5-6 says:

For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free
from righteousness. What fruit had ye then in those
things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of
those things is death. But now being made free from
sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit
unto holiness, and the end everlasting life….

For when we were in the flesh, the motions
[or passions] of sins, which were by the law, did
work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.
But now we are delivered from the law, that being
dead wherein we were held; that we should serve
in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the
letter.

Sin brings forth fruit unto death. If we serve God
with the same diligence we once served sin, the
result will be holiness. We cannot serve God and
sin at the same time.

As believers, we’re not in the same condition as
when we served sin. We have been made free from
sin and can now serve God. We serve Him by
obeying the promptings of our spirits by the Holy
Spirit inside us (Romans 7:6, amp). We are no
longer to serve the lusts of the flesh and the ways
of this natural world. We are born again and are
spirit, just as God is Spirit. So, we ought to walk
after this new man inside and not after our bodies.

That ye put off concerning the former conversation
the old man, which is corrupt according to the
deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after
God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man
truth with his neighbour: for we are members one
of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the
sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place
to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more:
but rather let him labour, working with his hands
the thing which is good, that he may have to give
to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication
proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good
to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace
unto the hearers.

And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye
are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all
bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and
evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake
hath forgiven you (Ephesians 4:22-32).

The Apostle Paul stated the dilemma of the believer
in Romans 7:14-23. Paul made reference to a born-
again man, a spirit in the likeness of God, living in a
natural body. His body wanted to live after the
ways of the world; yet, his inward man delighted in
God’s ways. He said, “Oh, what a condition I am in!
I want to do good, but how to perform it or walk in
it, I don’t know!”

Doesn’t that describe us to some degree? Before
we were born again, we habitually followed the course
of this world. This world is following Satan. He is the
god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4). The world is
following him straight to death and hell. When we
are born again, our bodies don’t change. They still
want to practice old habits.

The reason I didn’t faithfully get up to pray every
morning was not because I didn’t want to. My heart
wants to do anything that pleases God. It was my
body that wanted to stay in bed and sleep. It has
never wanted to get up at 5:30 in the morning and
pray! But the more I did it, the easier it became.
Here’s why. Paul said:

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me
from the body of this death? I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself
serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation to them
which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath
made me free from the law of sin and death. For
what the law could not do, in that it was weak
through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the
likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin
in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might
be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but
after the Spirit (Romans 7:24-25, 8:1-4).

I recognized I was a spiritual being in a natural body.
There is no judgment against me when I walk in the
spirit. When I’m walking in the spirit, I’m a spiritual
being in a natural body that is trained to follow the
Lord!

Gloria Copeland

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