Have you ever been invited to an attorney's office for the reading of a will? I haven't. Where I come from, there was never enough money left for the relatives to fight over when somebody died.

Most of the people I knew didn't leave wills, they left bills. But, glory to God, that's not the case anymore. I became heir to a fortune, more than thirty-three years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas, when I gave my life to Jesus.

At that moment, I was born again into the richest family ever known. I was born into the royal family that owns and operates the universe. I received an inheritance so vast, it will take me all of eternity to fully comprehend it.

Some people get excited about tracing their natural family history. They like to know if they have great people in their family tree because it makes them feel they come from good stock. You and I ought to be that way about our heritage as believers.

Our ancestors are the greatest men and women that ever walked the face of the earth. We can trace our lineage back to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, King David-all the way to Jesus.

Think about that! Those are our forefathers. "Now wait a minute," you may say. "Those are Jewish men. They lived in Canaan and Israel. You're an American from Arkansas! You're not part of that family." Well, not physically. But spiritually, according to the Bible, I am.

And if you've made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, you are too. Because Galatians 3 says:

Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Gal. 13-14, 29)

Let's Read the Will
As a Christian, you are the seed of Abraham! What does that mean? It means that everything God promised him belongs to you. It has been passed down to you through Jesus. Abraham's blessing is your inheritance. It has been willed to you by the Word of God. So let's read the will today.

Let's look in the Bible and find out how God treated Abraham, because that's how God has promised to treat us. Genesis 12 is a good place to start. There we see the first promise God made to Abraham:

I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing. And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee, and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.
(Gen. 12:2-3)

To fully grasp what God was saying here, you must realize that when He blesses someone, He is not just telling them to have a good day. He is conferring upon them the power to increase and prosper in every area of life.

In fact, according to W.E.Vine and Webster's Dictionary, the true definition of bless is "to cause to prosper, to make happy, to bestow favor upon, to consecrate to holy purposes, to make successful, to make prosperous in temporal concerns pertaining to this life, to guard and preserve."

It was actually the blessing of God that made Abraham rich. It caused him to prosper wherever he went. In fact, he became so "very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold," (Gen. 13:2) that he and his nephew, Lot, who was traveling with him, eventually had to go separate ways "for their possessions were too great for them to live together" (v. 6, AMP).

Do you know what Abraham did when that happened? He gave Lot first choice of the available land. He said: "Is not the whole land before you? You take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you choose the right hand, then I will go to the left. And Lot looked and saw that everywhere the Jordan valley was well watered. Then Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley" (vv. 9-11, AMP).

Notice that Abraham wasn't greedy or concerned about his own welfare. He didn't have to be. He had a covenant of blessing with God and he knew God would bring him success no matter where he lived.

Put Your Name in the Promise
Financial prosperity wasn't the only benefit God's blessing brought Abraham either. It also made him an overcomer. Because God had declared that those who cursed Abraham would themselves be cursed, Abraham could conquer any enemy that came against him or his family.

Years ago, when Ken and I first started to walk with the Lord, we were facing debts and problems that seemed overwhelming. So I took that promise from God to Abraham and put my name in it. I read it like this: "Fear not, Gloria. God is your shield, your abundant compensation, and your reward shall be exceedingly great!"

I decided that since I was an heir of Abraham, those words were just as true for me as they were for him. And sure enough, they have been. In the years since, God has protected me and rewarded me beyond anything I could ask or think. He has been as faithful to me as He was to Abraham.

God keeps His promises, and He promised Abraham that He would bless his seed. He said:

I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee.
(Gen. 17:6-7)

Circumstances Can't Stop the Blessing
When I look at the life of Abraham, I'm convinced there is no limit to what the blessing of God can do for those who dare to believe. It makes the impossible possible. For example, when God told Abraham and Sarah they would have a son, naturally speaking there was no way. They were both more than ninety years old, and Sarah had been barren all her life.

But that didn't matter. Their covenant of blessing with almighty God overcame those obstacles. It not only enabled Sarah to give birth to Isaac, it kept her alive until he was thirty-seven years old. It's amazing enough for an old, barren woman to have a baby. But for her to live long enough to raise him to manhood, that's really something!

Then, after the death of Abraham years later, God blessed his son Isaac. If you'll read about the life of Isaac, you'll see the blessing of God caused him to prosper just like it did his father. It didn't matter what happened around him, he just kept increasing.

Once, when there was a famine in the land, Isaac considered moving to Egypt to escape it. But the Lord appeared to him and said, "Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell temporarily in this land, and I will be with you and will favor you with blessings. And I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father" (Gen. 26:2-3, AMP) .

Keep in mind, famines back then were just as terrible as they are today. I'm sure it was just like the pictures we see where the babies' bellies are swollen from starvation and their arms and legs are little more than skin and bone. Yet, right in the midst of it all, "Isaac sowed seed in that land, and received in the same year one hundred times as much as he had planted, and the Lord favored him with blessings" (v. 12, AMP).

I want you to know, that's what the blessing of Abraham will do. It will enable you to prosper no matter what's happening around you. It will cause you to increase in the midst of recessions, depressions, and every other kind of economic calamity the devil can dream up. If you're the seed of Abraham, you shouldn't even worry about such things.

Use the Anchor
Joseph had quite a success story, but you should have an even better one. You are an heir, not only of the covenant Joseph had, but because of a better one with even better promises (Heb. 8:6).

Available to you are all the natural blessings that Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph enjoyed, plus the spiritual blessings Jesus won for you when He died on the cross and rose again. Jesus obtained those blessings as an heir of the Abrahamic Covenant. That's right! God promised Abraham that "thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies" (Gen. 22:17).

The fact that God has sworn to give you the blessing of Abraham should be an anchor to your soul. You should hold fast to it. When Satan comes to you and says, "You won't make it. You'll never prosper. You'll never have a good job.

You'll never have that home you need," God's promise and oath ought to rise up within you. You ought to say, "I am an heir. I have inherited a promise that in blessing, God will bless me. And in multiplying, He will multiply me. I rebuke you, unbelief! Now get out of here devil, you're not going to get my inheritance!"

Faith Opens the Door
That's what the devil does, you know. He tries to talk you out of your inheritance. He doesn't have any inheritance of his own. He has to steal everything he gets from the seed of Abraham, because the whole world belongs to us. It's true! Romans 4:13 says that God promised us the seed of Abraham, that we would be "heir of the world." You should never entertain another thought of poverty again.

Naturally speaking, your situation may seem absolutely hopeless. If so, remember you're in good company. Abraham once faced similar hopelessness. When God first promised him he'd have a son, he and Sarah were both old and wrinkled. They had tried for years, without success, to have a baby. But Abraham, "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken." (Rom. 4:18) Abraham believed God when there was no hope. He believed even when the world said, "It's impossible." "And being not weak in faith, 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." (Rom. 4:19-21)

The blessing of Abraham comes to us when we do what he did. It comes to us when we believe God's Word. As Romans 5:2 says, "We have access by faith into this grace." Faith gives us access to the favor and grace of God, and it gives God access to our lives.

It opens the door to our inheritance. And since faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God, I suggest you get out your Bible. Start reading it with a new perspective, not like a book of stories, but as the record of your forefathers.

Read and believe it like you would a will that detailed your inheritance and you will begin to enjoy the riches that are yours by virtue of the new birth. You'll discover for yourself that you are truly an heir to the limitless resources of the family of God.

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