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