Kenneth Copeland Ministries: Pursuit Of His PresenceSample

From the Roots Up

by Kenneth Copeland

“And Jesus answered and said unto it [the fig tree], No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.... And in the morning, as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots.” Mark 11:14, 20

You can’t wipe out a weed simply by mowing it down. If you want to get rid of a weed—you must destroy its roots. That’s elementary information. Even people like me who avoid yardwork at every opportunity know it.

But did you know that same basic fact is true in every other area of life? If you want to change a situation permanently, you must tackle it at its root. You can lose thousands of pounds, for example, and you’ll regain every one of them (and probably more) if you don’t solve that weight problem at the root.

You can get out of debt a dozen times...but you’ll get right back in before you know it if you don’t deal with the root of the matter.

That’s what’s so awesomely powerful about faith. If it’s founded on the living Word of God, it will change things in your life from the roots up.

Read Mark 11 and you’ll see what I mean. Jesus is walking from Bethany to Jerusalem with His disciples. He’s hungry, and according to verse 13, He sees a fig tree. Seeing that it has leaves, He checks it for figs. When He sees it doesn’t have any, He “answered and said unto it, No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever. And his disciples heard it.” He cursed it at the root, and He answered it.

Jesus answered the fig tree because it spoke to Him first! By the very fact that it had no fruit, that tree was saying to Jesus, “Forget it, fellow. You aren’t getting anything to eat here.”

Your circumstances talk to you in the same way. Do you realize that? If you’re standing against sickness, that sickness is talking to you every day. When you get up in the morning, it says, You haven’t received your healing. You’re hurting all over. Can’t you feel it? This faith stuff isn’t working. You might as well go back to bed.

Poverty will talk to you the same way. It will interrupt your every thought if you’ll allow it. Its biggest lie is, You can’t afford it!

Those situations will talk to you all the time. So do what Jesus did. Answer them! Curse them at the root. Answer them with the Word, “By His stripes I was healed! My God meets all my needs according to His riches in glory! I am more than a conqueror in Christ Jesus. I overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony! Great is the peace of my children!”

Speaking words like that in faith will change things for sure. Jesus cursed the fig tree at the root...and it made a permanent change. You have the same power where your circumstances are concerned. If you’ll release your faith, you can hit even the most stubborn problem and dry it up at the source. You can get rid of it from the roots up!

Speak the Word

“I have the same spirit of faith as Jesus. I believe, and therefore I speak.” —2 Corinthians 4:13

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