The Difference Between Being Free… and Living Free

by Kenneth Copeland

President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862,

just one year after the Civil War began in America. By it he declared no
more slavery and every person in bondage to be set free.

Three years later the war ended. Yet people were still enslaved.

It took another 100 years before our nation finally dug its heels in the
ground and said, "We are not putting up with this bondage anymore!"

Meanwhile, generation after generation of Americans were kept in chains

long after they had been declared free.

The same thing happened to the people of Israel. They had lived as slaves for
400 years, then suddenly were released from captivity. They were free but
they didn't know how to live free. Generation after generation had lived and
died in bondage, so they didn't know any other way.

For centuries Israelite parents taught their children how to survive under an
Egyptian "master." They taught them how to figure out what the master
was thinking and how to figure out what he would do next.

It's no wonder that Israel left Egypt with a "slave" mentality though God
had set them free. They were free, but they continued living in bondage.

Today is no different for you and me as believers.

Romans 8:2 tells us that the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made
us free from the law of sin and death. But until we lay hold of that freedom
from sin and death, the devil pays no attention to it. He does his utmost to
keep us from knowing about or walking in any benefits of our freedom.

The truth is, if we are to live free, we have to declare our freedom with every
ounce of strength in our being and resist the devil. It's up to us to enforce
our own emancipation proclamation from the gospel-whom the Son has set
free is free indeed.

To Be Free, Think Free

It's one thing to discover you are free. It's another to break out and finally
live free.

As born-again believers we have to renew or reprogram our minds. We have

to learn to live like the free people we truly are-and Colossians 1:12-13 gives
a clear picture of what that means: "Giving thanks unto the Father, which
hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us
into the kingdom of his dear Son."

In this passage, the Apostle Paul is actually saying the same thing he said in
Romans 8:2, but with different words. To thoroughly understand what he's
saying we need to define some of those words.

First, Paul says that God "hath made us meet to be partakers" (verse 12).

The word hath can be translated as "has already," and the word meet can
be translated as "able."

Then he goes on to say in verse 13, "Who hath delivered us from the power
of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son."

The word power can be translated "authority" and darkness is referring to

"the law of sin and death" that he mentions in Romans 8:2. And finally, the
word translated means "to take out of one and put over into the other."

When we put all that together, this is how Colossians 1:12-13 reads:
Giving thanks unto the Father, which [has already] made us [able] to be
partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who [has already]
delivered us from the [authority] of darkness [that is, the law of sin and
death], and [has already] [taken us out of the law of sin and death and put us
over] into the kingdom of his dear Son [that is, the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus].
The moment you were born again, you were taken out of the law of sin and
death. And you were put over into the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
where the laws of love, faith, joy, and so forth, abide.

Certainly all that is wonderful. But before you were translated into the
kingdom of light, you spent years living in the kingdom of darkness which is
governed by the law of sin and death. That includes the laws of fear, hate,
bitterness, strife and the like. For years you put all those laws into motion in
your life by speaking them, thinking them and acting on them.

Suddenly, you're free from all that darkness.

Now what?

Sadly many believers receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior—they get born
again, translated out of the law of sin and death, and placed over into the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus—but they keep on living, talking and
thinking as though they are under the authority and rule of darkness. They
continue living under the law of sin and death and continue reaping the
harvest of sin and death.

The Dark Side of Faith

To understand how we disconnect-spiritually, mentally and physically—
from the law of sin and death, and connect to the law of the Spirit of life in
the Anointed One Jesus, we need to know how faith and fear operate in our
lives.

Fear is the activating spiritual force in the law of sin and death.

Under the law of sin and death you find sickness, disease, doubt, unbelief…
everything that causes death. And all these things are activated by fear.
They are fear-based, therefore they must have fear to function.

Faith on the other hand, is the activating spiritual force to the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

Hebrews 11:6 tells us that it is impossible to please God without faith.

Why?

Because without faith God cannot do anything for us.

Amos 3:3 asks the question: "Can two walk together, except they be
agreed?"

Certainly not.
Therefore if we walk in fear then we are in disagreement with God. We are
not walking with Him.

For example, God says, "I love you."

Fear says, "Oh, but, Lord, You don't know all the bad I have done."

What happened?

Fear called God a liar. Fear always calls Him a liar, because fear doesn't
believe a word God says. It does not believe the Word.

Jesus says, "You shall have what you say."

Fear says, "Yeah, but what if it doesn't come to pass when I say it?"

Again, that is disagreeing with God. And that is not smart because the
moment we disagree with God, that's the moment we agree with the devil.

Remember there are only two laws-the law of the Spirit of life in Christ
Jesus and the law of sin and death. There are no in—between laws. Either
we are with God, or we are with the devil. There is no "neutral" ground.

Once we get into that place of agreement with God or the devil, we begin to
put their respective laws into motion. We set the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus into motion, or we set the law of sin and death into motion.

Now going back to our example of a newly born-again believer: Often people
get saved after they have spent years living under the law of sin and death.
Then when something goes wrong in their lives and it doesn't seem that the
Word is working immediately in their behalf, they try to change things with
tears and a few little prayers. And when that doesn't work, they give up on
the Word.

That approach will not change a thing. Especially if they've been building a
stronghold of sin and death in their lives for the past 20 or 30 years.

Understand it takes using your faith day after day to develop your faith, just
the same as using fear day after day develops fear.

Why Practice Makes Perfect

To disconnect from fear—so we're no longer in agreement with the devil and
reaping harvests from years of living under his law of sin and death—we
need to do what it takes to get rid of that fear, and that's where 1 John 4:16-
18 comes in to help us:
We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and
he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as
he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love
casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made
perfect in love.
To break out of fear, we need to become developed in the love of God
because there is no fear in love.

In fact perfected or developed love is what casts fear out of our lives.

But again, it's one thing to "know love"—to know God who is Love. It's
another matter to "believe" the Love, to believe God. And as we become
developed and perfected in His love, that love will cast fear out of our lives.

In verse 18, the words translated as "casteth out" can also be translated as
"flush out." When the tide of love which has been shed abroad in our hearts
by the Holy Spirit begins to rise (Romans 5), there is no room for fear. Fear
gets flushed out.

So the key here is developing the love God deposited within us when we were
born again.

How?

Well first by using love or practicing it.

But also notice what 1 John 2:5 has to say about developing our love:
"Whoso keepeth [God's] word, in him verily is the love of God perfected."

Keeping the Word of God and the commands of God develops His love
within us.

Before Jesus went to the cross, He told His disciples, "A new commandment
I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also
love one another" (John 13:34).

The reason Jesus made "loving one another" a commandment is because He

knew firsthand that there are times and circumstances when it is difficult to
love.

Nonetheless love is a commandment that needs to be practiced just as much

under stress and in ugly situations as it does when times are rosy, happy and
everyone looks beautiful.

Love is a commandment, not a suggestion. It is not an option for any

believer. For those who would live under the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus and enjoy the fruit of a victorious, abundant life, it is essential.
To walk in and keep the commandment of love, we must practice and
practice and practice.

Time to Dig In
At the same time we're becoming well developed in the love of God by using
it—which in turn flushes out fear and disconnects us from the devil—we also
need to become developed in other things of God. We need to become skilled
in faith in the Word, and in practicing the presence of God so our
connection to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus becomes stronger,
no matter what situations we face.

Jesus' disciples once came to Him and said, "Increase our faith."

His response to them was, "If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye
might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be
thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you" (Luke 17:6). In other words,
He was telling them faith grows—it matures and develops—the same way
seed does.

On another occasion, Jesus explained to His disciples that once a seed is

planted, it brings forth the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear
(Mark 4). His point was, like a seed planted in the earth, spiritual things
such as faith, love, joy, and peace grow constantly and continually, all the
way to maturity, if you keep feeding, watering, cultivating and taking care of
them.

A major problem is we have used our emotions and feelings until we are so
highly developed in them that we cannot find our faith. But our faith is not
in the "feeling" realm of our being. Faith is in our spirit man.
You see, each of us has the equipment to believe what we cannot see. We are
a spirit, we have a soul—made up of our mind, will and emotions—and we
live in a body.

Our human intellect—our mind, will and emotions—has no equipment with

which to believe anything other than what we can already see.

Consequently, using our minds to try and believe for something we cannot
see is like trying to plow a field with a pickup truck instead of a tractor and
plow. All we have is a truck. There's no equipment to do the actual plowing.
We can drive up and down the field all day, but we will never produce a
crop.

While our minds were given to us to make decisions, our spirits were given
to us to live by faith. Our spirits are where faith abides, where the love of
God is, where hope lives.

The moment we decide to do something by faith, our spirit man should

say, Hey, that's me…I can do that!

But we have to do it on purpose. We have to enforce it with the confession of

our mouths, because the more we say it with our mouths and hear it with
our ears, the more it gets down into our spirits.

Keep in mind, however, that while faith comes by hearing and hearing by
the Word of God (Romans 10:17), fear also comes by hearing. It comes by
hearing the lies of the devil.

Faith and fear operate by the same law. In fact, they are the same spiritual
force, but faith is going one way and fear the other. Adam's faith perverted
by sin became Adam's fear.
Finishing Touches on Faith
Jesus is the author of our faith. He is the finisher, or the developer of it
(Hebrews 12:2).

That means, when we purpose to exercise our faith, He is there to develop it,
to stretch it, to cause it to grow. And He does that by backing the words we
put in our mouths from His Word, because He is the High Priest of our
confessions (Hebrews 3).

When we make the decision to live the life of faith, the life of love, the next
step is to go to the Word and find out what the Word has to say about it and
begin practicing that Word.

Practicing the Word of God develops faith.

People often ask me, "Brother Copeland, how do you memorize all those
scriptures you quote?"

Well, I never really set out to memorize a bunch of scriptures. I have

memorized a few on purpose, but the majority of scriptures I know came
from practicing the Word and acting on it, particularly when I set out to
develop my faith in a certain area or situation.

When you start practicing and acting on the Word, suddenly all that
scripture gets indelibly ingrained in your spirit. And that's when you can
pray in tongues for a moment or two, and then just slip over into your spirit
and start quoting scripture. The Word will just keep coming up and coming
up. You get to that place by practicing the Word.

Now practicing the presence of God is much like practicing the Word.
When you practice the presence of God, you are actually practicing listening
to His voice. And the more you do it, the more you are able to hear His voice.

In reality you are training your spiritual ear to hear. That's why Jesus told
His disciples time after time, "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."

Think about it. If you were invited to the White House to meet with the
president of the United States, and you were told that you had only 20
minutes with him, would you go into the Oval Office jabbering away from
the moment you were ushered in until the moment you were ushered out?

Hopefully not!

Well, as you begin to practice the presence of God, get up in the morning
and say something like, "Oh, hallelujah! This is another day that the Lord
has made and I will rejoice and be glad in it…."

Then don't allow your mind to take off thinking about what a hard day this
is going to be, how you wish you didn't have to face the situations you know
are out there.

No. Start your day by visiting with Him. "Lord, anything You need of me
today, I am ready, willing and able. I'll go where You want me to go and do
what You want me to do."

Then shut up for a while and listen for His voice…enjoy His presence.

Practicing the presence of God, becoming perfected in the love of God, and
becoming more skilled in the Word of God—all these work together to
develop our faith. They make all the difference in the world.
The difference between just being free...and truly living free.