People today are hungry to see Jesus.

They don't just want to hear about Him. They don't just want to know what other people say about Him. They want to see Him for themselves. They want to see His character. They want to see His life. They want to see His power.

The time has come for us, as the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, to rise up and give them what they want. It's time for us to let Jesus walk and talk and live His life through us. It's time for us, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to do the works that He did so that the world can see Jesus through us.

That's been God's plan for the Church all along. He has always intended for us to reveal Jesus to the world during our earthly lives just as Jesus revealed the Father to the world during His earthly life.

Think about that! Jesus revealed the Father so perfectly that when one of His disciples said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us," Jesus answered him and said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:8-9).

What do you think will happen in the world when we manifest Jesus so completely that the same thing can be said of us? What will happen when the people of the world can say of us, "If you've seen them...you've seen Jesus"?

I'll tell you what will happen. We'll have a worldwide harvest of souls swept into the kingdom of God the likes of which this earth has never seen!

The Word of God tells us that time is coming. Ephesians 4:13 refers to it as the time when "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ."

What's more, the Holy Ghost is letting us know that time is now! We've entered into the last of the last days. This is the time for the fullness of the manifestation of Jesus through His Body on the earth.

The Excellent Pathway to Power
That's one reason so many Christians desire to operate in the gifts of the Spirit these days. They're responding to the stirring of the Holy Ghost within them.

They're sensing the Church shouldn't just be reading about the manifestations of the Spirit described in the New Testament anymore, but rather, Christians should be walking in them!

For as First Corinthians 12 says:

The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; to another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. But covet earnestly the best gifts.
(vv. 7-12,31)

Many believers today are wholeheartedly obeying the instruction in that last verse. They are earnestly coveting spiritual gifts. They long for them. They pray for them. They study the Bible to build faith for them. But for the most part, the church is still not moving in them fully.

What more can we do?

The Apostle Paul himself answers that question. Right after he tells us to earnestly covet the best gifts he says, "...and yet show I unto you a more excellent way." Then he writes an entire chapter on the subject of love.

Pursue love...and desire spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 14:1). According to the Bible, a more excellent way to walk in the power of God is to pursue love. That's the best way to develop a lifestyle of doing the works of Jesus. Walking in love is the best way for the world to see Jesus through us.

Why is that so—why is the way of love such an excellent way? Think about it scripturally for a moment and you'll see the reason.

Acts 10:38 tells us that "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." So if we're going to do the works Jesus did, we'll do the same thing, right? We'll bring healing and deliverance to those who are oppressed.

Keeping that in mind, consider what Isaiah 54:14 reveals about how the devil inflicts that oppression. It says, "Thou shalt be far from oppression; for thou shalt not fear."

According to that scripture, oppression comes from fear! Fear is the spiritual force behind sin, oppression, sickness and every other bondage of the devil. Fear is the spiritual connector to the entire spectrum of death.

But, glory to God, the New Testament tells us that "perfect love casteth out fear" (1 John 4:18). Love destroys the devil's hold. It undermines his whole operation!

And not only that, love connects us to the oppression-destroying power of God because that power operates by faith and faith works by love (Gal. 5:6).

Kenneth Copeland Ministries
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