PASS THE STRESS TEST! by Kenneth Copeland Imagine with me, if you would, the following situation: A man walks to his file cabinet, opens the drawer and begins searching for one specific file. He looks from front to back, then back to front, but does not find it. So he starts at the front of the drawer again, this time slowly and deliberately reading each tab from the front to the back, then the back to the front. When this still does not produce the missing file, he takes all the files out and piles them on the floor. Then he returns them one at a time to the drawer, still looking for the missing file. #10-6060 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved.
PASS THE STRESS TEST! We might laugh if we were to see someone actually do that. Why? All he is doing is creating frustration for himself. The fact is the file isn t in that cabinet, and no amount of fretting over it or looking for it will change that. Let s look at another, perhaps more familiar situation: You go to bed at night with something on your mind. You re trying to understand...what am I going to do here? How am I going to get out of this? What are we going to do? You go over the whole thing in your mind, but you don t have an answer. So, you go back through the whole thing again, still without an answer. You try to go to sleep, but you can t let the problem go. So you spend most of the night rehearsing the entire situation, slowly going over every detail step by step. And by the time you get through it again, you don t have any more answers than you did at the beginning. When you wake up the next morning after what little sleep you did get, your second foot doesn t hit the floor until you ve started through your file cabinet all over again. The point I want you to see is the answer to that mess that you were dealing with was no more in your head than that file was in the file cabinet. The only thing that came from your head was the stress. Now stress is something to which The WORD and the world have two different approaches. The world says cope with it, and offers everything from books and seminars to expensive counseling sessions to help you live with it. But the Bible says don t cope with stress get rid of it! Here are three simple steps to help you destress, followed by faith activities you can do right away! 3 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved.
#1: Rest Your Mind on God Proverbs 3:5 exposes the source of stress and gives us the answer to it: Trust in The LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. The Bible says don t cope with stress get rid of it! If you re leaning to your own understanding about something, you don t understand that you re in a mess. The way out of that mess, and the stress of it, is to trust in The LORD with all your heart. Stress is caused not by hard work but by failing to put our trust in the right person. The Bible tells us that in the days ahead stress is going to get so bad that people s hearts will fail them because of what is coming on the earth (see Isaiah 13:6-7). If we re going to have a Proverbs 3:5 answer to that challenge, we will need to remember what trust is. Noah Webster, in his 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, defined trust as: Resting the mind on the integrity, veracity, friendship and sound principles of another person. How do you rest your mind on God? In Matthew 6:24-34, Jesus repeated the answer to that question five times: Take no thought. No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved. 4
PASS THE STRESS TEST! fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Now if you ll think about it, those basic necessities of life that Jesus said to take no thought of are at the root of nearly all of our stresses. Jesus said you can t serve money and serve God. That word mammon in the verse above literally means money. Notice that Jesus didn t say that you can t have money and serve God; He said you can t serve money and serve God. Serving money is doing what the gentiles do. The word gentiles does not just mean 5 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved.
people who are not Jews by birth, but rather those who are not walking in covenant with God. They constantly worry about what they will eat, drink and wear. They are always thinking about how to get their needs met by the world s ways or system. How do you rest your mind on God? Take no thought. How do you know if you are walking like one who has no covenant with God? One way is to answer Jesus question: Is not life more than meat and the body more than raiment? If you spend all of your time thinking about food and clothing, then your life has become not much more than an issue of meat and raiment. Jesus would say you are serving money. You shouldn t be serving money. Money should be serving you as you serve God and others with your money. #2: Quit Adding to Yourself Now the fact that we need to be trusting God not money; not the world s way of doing things is not new to us. The challenge has been the process. How do we take no thought of those basic needs of life? How do we stop relying on a lifetime of training in taking care of ourselves rather than relying on God? If you re not going to take thought of the needs of this life, which your heavenly Father already knows you have need of, then you are going to have to take thoughts of something else. In verse 33, Jesus tells us what we are to think about: Seek ye first the kingdom of God (His covenant; His way of doing things), and his righteousness; and all these things Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved. 6
PASS THE STRESS TEST! shall be added unto you (Matthew 6:33). Do you see where our stress has come from? Instead of having God add to us our needs, and the dreams and desires of our hearts, we ve been trying to add to ourselves. When you think about it, there s only three ways we can add to ourselves, and none of them work very well. One, you can steal. You know better than to do that. Two, you could borrow. That doesn t benefit anyone except the charge card company. Three, you can work hard and save. That s good, but the world can do that, and even that is not enough if you don t have the grace of God in it. Obviously, we re not supposed to add to ourselves. If we seek first the kingdom of God, all these things will be added to us. That s God s way. So, you re going to have to stop taking all the thoughts about how to add to yourself and start taking the thoughts about God s way of doing things. Well after all, Brother Copeland, I am the provider of my household. Surely, I need to think about food, clothing, shelter and other basic needs some of the time. Not the way the gentiles thought about it, and not the way the world has taught you to think about it. Your heavenly Father has already thought of those needs and made promises for their provision that are far greater than what you could think about meeting through your best efforts. So think about what He has promised instead of what you consider your need. Stand in faith for those promises to be fulfilled. Abraham used this process to rest his mind on the promise of God. He quit taking thought of what he could do on his own and took only the thought of what God had promised. As a childless man nearly 100 years old, He considered not his own body now dead, when he was about 7 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved.
an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform (Romans 4:19-21). Stress is caused not by hard work but by failing to put our trust in the right person. Using that same process Abraham used, Hebrews 12:2-3 says we are to [look] unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Put what Jesus did on the cross on your mind when your body is giving you trouble or when your situation is giving you so much trouble that you don t know what the answer is. Roll the care of that thing over on The LORD and go to sleep. You re not going to do anything with it by laying there fussing with it. #3: Refuse Wrong Thinking The next time the devil tries to trouble you to take some of those worried thoughts about the basic needs of life, remind him what Jesus said in Matthew 6:32. Tell him, No, I m not taking those thoughts. My heavenly Father knows I have need of those things. So, I ll continue to focus my thinking on His covenant promises to me. I ll continue to make my money serve me as I give, and sow and minister. And I ll let the High Priest of my confession bring in to me the harvest of beyond all I could ask or think. Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved. 8
PASS THE STRESS TEST! If the thought comes that you ll never have anything if you don t figure out how to do it yourself, remember to consider the lilies of the field that toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you? (verses 28-30). God has plans to meet your needs and desires on a scale much grander than even the glory of Solomon s wealth and possessions. But you re not going to get there through borrowing. And you re not going to get there just through hard work. You re going to get there by seeking first His way of doing things. You re going to get there by considering Jesus and what He has done for you at the cross and what He stands ready to do today to see that your words of faith do come to pass. What do you do about stress? Refuse wrong thinking and worries. Fill your mind with the promises God has given you. Speak and act on God s Word in faith, controlling your destiny by what you say and sow. Consider Jesus not your body, your finances, or your situation and give the care of your harvest to Him. Then turn over. And go to sleep! 9 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved.
HOW TO REST YOUR MIND ON GOD Your mind can be trained to serve you, even in the midst of heavy darkness and trial. Here are some things that will help you rest your mind on God: 1. Realize that it s not impossible with God. Even if what God tells you to do seems impossible, God would not tell you to do something that you cannot do. 2. You don t have to do it alone. You have The WORD (God s thoughts) and the Holy Spirit to strengthen you. You have the mind of Christ. And, you have other people who are willing to encourage you with their words of faith. 3. Change what you re saying with your mouth. Speak The WORD continually, even if you don t feel like it and even if it seems like you just can t believe it at that moment. 4. Don t stay on the defensive. Get on the offensive! Shout at the spirit that s trying to control your thoughts. Tell him to leave you alone in Jesus Name. He has to obey! 5. Stay with it. Stay right on top of your thoughts. Don t start thinking about other natural things just to get your mind off your situation. That s false help. Remember, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but powerful through God for the pulling down of strongholds. You re dealing with a stronghold. Pull it down. Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved. 10
FAITH ACTIVITIES PASS THE STRESS TEST! Speak this truth aloud and put stress in its place! I refuse to take thoughts of stress, such as what to eat, what to wear or where my provision will come from. I don t serve money, I serve only God. His WORD leads me to live in faith, knowing He will provide all that I need. Watch and Listen Watch for thoughts of stress and fear. Refuse those thoughts and think about God s promises to you. Write one promise God has given you below (Hint: Philippians 4:19): Continue to find more promises in God s WORD that express His faithfulness to provide for you, and use those promises to remove thoughts of stress and fear. Start a Journal Pray, believe and speak that you have what you need. Start a journal of your needs and wants. Regularly follow up with the answer of how God provided. We look forward to hearing about your experiences of depending on God s provision. Please send them to us by visiting kcm.org/testify. 11 Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. aka Kenneth Copeland Ministries. All rights reserved.
We re Here for You! Your growth in God s WORD and victory in Jesus are at the very center of our hearts. In every way God has equipped us, we will help you deal with the issues facing you, so you can be the victorious overcomer He has planned for you to be. The mission of Kenneth Copeland Ministries is about all of us growing and going together. Our prayer is that you will take full advantage of all The LORD has given us to share with you. Wherever you are in the world, you can watch the Believer s Voice of Victory broadcast on television (check your local listings), the Internet at kcm.org or on our digital Roku channel. Our website, kcm.org, gives you access to every resource we ve developed for your victory. And, you can find contact information for our international offices in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Ukraine and our headquarters in the United States. Each office is staffed with devoted men and women, ready to serve and pray with you. You can contact the worldwide office nearest you for assistance, and you can call us for prayer at our U.S. number, +1-817-852-6000, 24 hours every day! We encourage you to connect with us often and let us be part of your everyday walk of faith! Jesus Is LORD! Kenneth and Gloria Copeland Kenneth Copeland Publications