Gloria Copeland - Live Long, Finish Strong: The Divine Secret to Living Healthy, Happy, and Healed

Copyright 2010 by Gloria Copeland

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible; Scripture quotations noted AMP are from The Amplified Bible, Old Testament. Copyright 1965, 1987, by the Zondervan Corporation. Used by permission. All rights reserved; and from The Amplified Bible, New Testament. Copyright 1954, 1958, 1987, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission; Scripture quotations noted NASB are from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission; Scripture quotations noted NIV are from the New International Version. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved; Scripture quotations noted NKJV are from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved; Scripture quotations noted NLT are from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved; Scripture quotations noted TLB are from The Living Bible, copyright 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Second eBook Edition: May 2011

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ISBN: 978-0-446-57287-3

T O K ENNETH

Thank you for teaching me and living out this long and wonderful life with me.

Thank You, Jesus, for teaching us the absolute authority of the Word of God.

Jesus is Lord!

T hank you, Keith Moore, for your teaching on longevity. (I recommend Pastor Keith Moores teaching on long life. You can find him and Moore Life Ministries on the Web.)

Thank you, Gina Lynnes, for helping me get this message on long and strong life into book form.

Thank you, Leah Lee, for all the editorial help and wisdom you have imparted.

Jesus is Lord!

H ow would you respond if a divine messenger showed up at your house today and promised you a long and blessed life? What would you say if a prophet, a minister, or an angel of God looked you squarely in the eye and said:

Your days will be long on the earth. Your days will be strong on the earth. If the Lord tarries His coming, you will live in length of days and strength of days.

Some years ago, thats exactly what happened to my husband, Kenneth. A dear friend of ours, an established minister who was visiting our home, spoke those words to him by the Spirit of God. Because weve learned some things about how to receive Gods promises by faith, we knew just how to respond.

We said, We receive it! We believe it! We rejoiced!

Thats a message anyone would like to receive. Its a powerful and encouraging message.

Best of all, you dont have to wait for a prophet or for some special message to come to you because this message is already confirmed in the Bible. Its Gods promise to you. In recent years, Ive spent many hours studying what the Word of God has to say about longevity and have seen for myself that the promise of a long, strong life isnt reserved for just a few special people. Its not meant for a select number of people who are divinely ordained to live to a ripe old age.

The promise of a long and blessed life belongs to every obedient child of God.

If you are a believer, it belongs to you.

God doesnt have to send an angel or a prophet to deliver that promise to you. All you have to do is open your Bible to find a multitude of verses that tell you God wants you to live a long, long time. As you read them, they will say to you much the same thing the Lord said to Kenneth:

Its My will for your days to be long upon the earth. Its My desire for your days to be strong upon the earth. If Jesus tarries His coming, My plan is for you to live in length of days and strength of days.

How you respond to that message will make all the difference. If you shake your head in disbelief and only wish it were true, it wont have much effect. If you respond in faith and say, I receive it! I believe it! it can revolutionize your life.

But, as most of us have discovered at some time in our lives, that kind of faith response isnt always automatic. It must be cultivated and developed on purpose.

How do we do that? By studying and meditating on what God has to say about this issue. For as Romans 10:17 tells us, Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The pages you are about to read are full of that Word. They are packed with scriptural promises that will help you build your faith for longevity. They are sprinkled with inspiring examples, both from the Bible and from the lives of ordinary people who lived long after the Bible was written, that will encourage you to reexamine your answer to the question: How old is old?

Even more important, youll discover some vital scriptural secrets that can help you extend your years decades beyond what you may have thought possible. Youll learn how, by living Gods way, you can live such a strong, satisfying life that you wont want to leave this earth until you are oldreally, really old. And not just old according to the worlds way of thinking, but old according to Gods way of thinking. Bible old!

Bible old is much older than most of us think it is. Its older than medical science says it is. And its far older than the way it used to be portrayed in the movies a generation ago.

That realization hit me a few years ago while I was watching an old John Wayne western that included a scene where a white-haired, bun-wearing old lady was celebrating her birthday. To me, the woman looked at least eighty years old. Imagine my shock when they announced she was sixty!

Whoa! I thought with great gratitude. Weve come a long way since that movie was made. Sixty looks a lot better these days.

According to recent statistics, sixty doesnt just look better these days, it is better. In 1960, the year I graduated from high school, the average life expectancy in this nation was only 69.7 years. So, even from a natural perspective, old today is at least seven years older than it was forty years ago.

If we answer the question How old is old? with those statistics, we might conclude that seventy-eight qualifies as old in our generation. Many Christians believe even the Bible backs up that idea.

But are they right?

The devil would certainly like for us to think so. Hes worked overtime to convince believers that when they celebrate their seventieth or eightieth birthday, they should start preparing to check out of earth and into heaven. But he has had to twist the Scriptures to sell us that deceptive bill of goods, because nowhere in the Bible do we find the average life span of Gods obedient people to be a mere seven or eight decades.