Kenneth Copeland - The image of God in you

The Image of God in You

So you want to make some changes in your life. Maybe lose some weight. Or get your finances in shape. You're geared up, excited. Ready to shake those habits that have been haunting you and step into God's best.

You make some resolutions. Turn over a new leaf....

Then, all too often, something strange begins to happen. Your determination wanes.

And, as your new leaf grows, it begins to look alarmingly similar to your old leaf!

Suddenly you're back where you started.

Nothing has changed and you begin to doubt that it ever will.

That's happened to us all more times than we'd like to admit. But you know what? If you're a born-again child of Almighty God, it doesn't have to happen to you again. God has given you the principle and the power to make permanent changes in your life and in your circumstances.

Once you learn how, you cannot only turn over a new leaf-you can grow yourself a whole new tree!

But first you have to understand an important principle, a principle that's been in action since the beginning. It's the principle of the "inner image."

God Himself gives us the first lesson about it in the first chapter of Genesis. There we can see Him using the principle of the inner image to create the earth.

God didn't just come upon creation by accident and say, "Well, what do you know!

There's light!" No, He first had a desired result (an inner idea, or image, of what He wanted to create) and then said, "Light be!" and light was.

Now, God didn't have any problems making the changes He wanted to make, did He? He took the principle of the inner image, added faith and the power of His words, and pow(!) darkness was changed to light.

"But Brother Copeland," you say, "that was God. Surely you don't expect me to try to act like God!" I most certainly do. Ephesians 5:1 says, Therefore be imitators of Godcopy Him and follow His exampleas well-beloved children [imitate their father] (The Amplified Bible).

If we're going to imitate our Father, we're going to have to put the principle of the inner image to work too.

Let me warn you about something though. Don't waste your time sitting around trying to dream up a positive inner image all on your own. That's nothing more than positive thinking, and while it's better than negative thinking (or not thinking at all), it will eventually fall flat.

What you need to use as the basis for your inner image and for the words you speak is the Word of God. The Word has supernatural power. And if you fill that Word with faith and speak it out, it will work for you to change your life and circumstance as surely as it did for God Himself.

Think again about creation. God wanted light. So He said, "Let there be light." The words He spoke were directly related to His inner image. He used His Words to get that image from the inside to the outside.

Words are powerful. They are containers that can carry faith and love, or they can carry fear and hate. Words are so important that they can determine our eternal destiny.

Romans 10:9,10 says that if you confess the Lord Jesus and believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Proverbs 18:21 says that life and death are in the power of the tongue. And you are the one who will choose which of those you speak.

In fact, that is the part of you and me that is so like God. We have the unique privilege to choose and speak words.

Just think about the power you have to speak words! No other creature has the power you have. You may say, "Well, angels can speak." Yes, but they don't have the power to choose what they say. They say what they are told to say.

Satan once chose his own words, but it doomed him forever. He said, "I'll be like God and exalt my throne above the most high God." But he didn't have the right to choose those words.

Words can destroy or they can create.

They can take an inner image and project it to the outside world. Once you understand that, you're well on your way to putting the principle of the inner image to work in your life. But there's still one important question we haven't answered yet.

What do you do if your inner image is all wrong?

That's a problem that all of us face. You may be struggling to be thin while your inner image of yourself remains fat. You may be working to be a winner while seeing yourself as a loser. How do you change that?

With the Word of God and only with the Word of God!

You see, words not only release the creative force of faith, they also produce images. When you hear the word dog, the letters D-O-G don't run across your consciousness, do they? No, you immediately form a picture in your mind of a dog. You may even think of your dog. But if you heard big, black, mean dog, you would get a totally different picture in your mind. Words paint pictures in our minds.

That's why, in the first chapter of Joshua, God told Joshua to not let the book of the law (God's Word) depart out of his mouth. God told Joshua to meditate in it day and night.

Why? That you may observe and do according to all that is written in it; for then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success (verse 8, The Amplified Bible). To observe means "to see." God was telling Joshua that if he would meditate the Word day and night, he would get an image of that Word inside him. And Joshua needed that image. He was going to have to lead an entire nation and step into the shoes of a man who'd literally been with God Almighty.

Joshua couldn't afford to see himself as a loser or even as simply an ordinary man. He had to become what God intended for him to be by meditating the Word of God. And God promised him that the result would be wisdom, prosperity, and good success. The Word of God would change what was happening on the inside AND the outside of him.

It's important to understand that we're not just talking about improving your self-image here. We're talking about getting that image to line up with the Word of God.

The Word of God. That's the key. So let's take a closer look at that Word.

John 1:1-4 tells us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

If all things were made by Him and the Word is God, then I believe we have license to say that all things were made by the Word.

Hebrews 11:3 says, Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. Everything that is, everything that has been, and everything that ever will be was brought about either directly or indirectly by the Word of God.

If, as the writer of Hebrews says, the things we see were not made of things which do appear, what were they made of? Faith!

Verse one says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

God's Words are not empty like men's are.

God's Words are packed with faith. In fact, that faith is the energy that is in the Word that gives it the power to bring itself to pass.

In Isaiah 55:11, the Lord says, So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. God's Word is a living thing. It has the inherent power to cause itself to come to pass. It is alive with God's own faith.

Just as God's faith energized His Words and caused what He spoke to come into being for Him, the faith He has given you, mixed with His Words, can create new realities in your life.

I've had some believers try to tell me that they just didn't have any faith-but I know that's not true, not if they've been born again.