When sickness strikes, it’s wonderful to receive healing from the Lord. But you know what’s even better? Living in divine health all the time.

That’s something I’ve endeavored to learn how to do and I’ve really gotten the hang of it. Praise God, I’ve been living healed for many years now! What’s more, I have my faith set on continuing to do so all the days of my life.

If you know much about me, this doesn’t come as surprising news. After all, I’ve been teaching Healing School in our ministry campaigns and conventions for over 35 years. When I first started, some people worried that I wouldn’t be able to apply what I was teaching in my own life. “What if you end up getting sick and dying young?” they’d say.

I suppose they thought I’d look foolish if that happened. But I never shared their concern. I figured even if I did miss it somehow and died young, I’d rather go to heaven doing everything I know to do to believe God’s Word about healing, than go there in doubt and unbelief saying some dumb thing like, “See, I told you God’s Word doesn’t work!”

Of course, these days no one worries about my dying young anymore. It’s too late for it to happen now. I’ve already passed up that opportunity. Now I’m starting to live in the fulfillment of the promise God made in Psalm 91:16: “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not winding down. The Lord also promised to renew my youth like the eagle’s (Psalm 103:5), and according to Genesis 6:3, that promise is good to at least age 120. So I plan to be around here for a good, long while yet—and I plan to keep living healed the whole time.

“But Gloria,” you might say, “if your body stays healed, how will you ever die?”

That’s easy! My body is just the house my spirit lives in. My spirit is the real me. All I have to do when I’ve been on this earth long enough to be satisfied, and I’ve finished everything God wants me to do, is leave this physical house.

When my spirit leaves, my body will die. Then they’ll dress it up and put makeup on it and everybody will look at it and say, “Oh, doesn’t she look natural.” But really, I won’t be there at all. I’ll be in heaven enjoying myself with Jesus!

Actually, I’m hoping the Rapture will take place before then because I really want to be a part of the catching away of the Church. I think it would be so exciting! I always envision it happening in the middle of the night. I picture people all over the world hearing a great noise like people did on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. “What was that?” they’ll say. “Was it a storm?” Then they’ll get up the next morning to find that the nicest people they know, all the people who are good and full of love, are gone.

Wow! Won’t that be something? I’m ready for it anytime! But if Jesus tarries and I die before He comes, I’m still going up. An angel will come get me and off we’ll go. I’ll be thrilled about it, too, because “to be absent from the body…[is] to be present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). So I don’t have anything to fear in death.

If you’re a born-again child of God, neither do you. But even so, you want to live out the full number of your days on earth. You want to complete the work God has given you to do here so that when you get to heaven Jesus can say to you, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

All of us who love the Lord want to hear those words someday. None of us wants to get to heaven and have God say to us, “Well…?” We don’t want to have to make excuses for why we didn’t complete our assignment. I don’t think they accept excuses up there anyway. So we need to make up our minds on this side of heaven to do what it takes to obey God, and to live long and in good health!

A Bad Day at Black Rock
Proverbs 3:1-2 gives us the key to this. It says: "My son, forget not my law or teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments; for length of days and years of life [worth living] and tranquility [inward and outward and continuing through old age till death], these shall they add to you." (AMP)

This is the way you live a long life and have a happy departure when you leave: You do what God says. You keep His Word. That’s pretty simple, isn’t it? As believers, we ought not to have to attend a lot of seminars to get hold of it. We should just open our Bible every day, study it, be strengthened in our faith and find out how God wants us to live. We should start our day with His Word and act on it all day long. Personally, I don’t let a day go by without spending time in the Word. I think it’s the most important thing I have to do.

The reason is simple: If I’m living by faith in and obedience to God’s Word, I can live a life of peace and tranquility even when the whole world around me is falling apart. I don’t have to be terrified when the newscasters talk about the latest virus that’s going around. I don’t have to take the flu off a bird, a hog, a dog or anything else.

In fact, I don’t have to be afraid of pestilence or epidemics of any kind. Instead I can declare that the Lord “is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God; on Him I lean and rely, and in Him I [confidently] trust.” (Ps. 91:2 AMP)

According to Psalm 91, when you really believe that and say so:
[God] will deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the deadly pestilence…. You shall not be afraid of the terror of the night, nor of the arrow…that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor of the destruction and sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side and ten thousand at your right hand, but it shall not come near you. (verses 3, 5-7 AMP)
It’s a bad day at Black Rock when 11,000 people fall down dead all around you. Yet God says if you stick with Him, live obediently in His secret place and speak His Word, even in the midst of the worst devastation, you’ll be protected. When it’s all over, you’ll still be standing there testifying of the truth of verses like Psalm 145:8-9: “The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion…. The Lord is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works”!

Maybe up to now you don’t feel like you’ve experienced much of God’s graciousness. Maybe you’re thinking, It doesn’t seem like God has been very good to me at all!

If that’s the case then it’s because you haven’t been giving Him first place in your life. You’ve been going along doing whatever you want, ignoring the things you know are right. For life to be good on the earth, we have to get with God’s plan. That plan starts when we get born again by receiving Jesus as our Lord and Savior.

It takes another leap forward when we receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. So if you haven’t already done that, I encourage you to do so. It’s very difficult to live a victorious life without it. You can’t get the revelation you need to live healed without the Holy Spirit’s awesome help.

He is our Teacher. He’s been sent to strengthen us, train us and empower us. Once we receive Him, He’s on the job 24/7. We never have to go hunting for Him. He’s always there when we need Him.

My life was sad before I got filled with the Spirit. Even though I was born again, I was just struggling along. But once Ken and I received everything God has provided—not just the new birth, but the Word and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit—things started turning around for us. Our sick days were over. Our broke days were over. Life started getting good!

Excerpt permission granted by Eagle Mountain International Church, Inc.
aka: Kenneth Copeland Ministries