Kenneth Copeland - Strife Kills, but Love Heals
2nd Corinthians 10, turn there with me. "Now I, Paul, myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ". Did you hear that? The meekness and gentleness of Christ, the anointed one, "who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold towards you: but I beseech you that I may not be bold when I am present with the confidence, with which I think to be bold against some, which think of us as if we walked according to the flesh. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh". That's powerful. For though we walk in the flesh. Though we are in this body, we do not war after the body. "For the weapons of our warfare are not human, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds".
Now, a stronghold is not a bad thing, if that stronghold is the Word of God. Amen. So pulling down of strongholds, look, "Casting down imaginations, and every thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God". "Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against your knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ, and having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience of thought, when your obedience is fulfilled. Do you look on things after their outward appearance"? Because you don't know what's happening in the Spirit, don't look on it just from the outward appearance. Surround the situation with faith thoughts. Surround the situation with love thoughts. Surround that person. There may be somebody that just their calling in life is to make you miserable.
Well, no, surround that person with love thoughts, not retaliation and revengeance, and vengeance, or anything like that. Just surround them with love thoughts. Read the first chapter of the book of Romans. They did not acknowledge God. They were not thankful, therefore... Let's just look at it. Romans 1, look at that 21st verse. "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not at as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools". So what's the answer to that? Develop a grateful heart. Be grateful. I mean, just be grateful.
In 2004, Sunday morning at the Southwest Believers' Convention, a disc in my back didn't rupture, it exploded. I mean, it knocked me in the floor of my shower. I mean, I could hardly move. Well, the first thing that happened, I was determined, right then. "I will not have surgery on my back. I'm not going to do that". So, what must I do? I began to praise God. Now it took a little while because the pain was just horrible. But anyway, and of course, Dr. Colbert and Dr. Weeter went to work on me immediately, and thank God for Holy Ghost medical doctor and a Holy Ghost chiropractor. You're in good hands, good hands. They went to work on me with laser and all that, and oh, the pain. Oh, the pain.
So I got two heating pads and took sashes out of house robes, and tied those heating pads to that left leg, turned the heat up on them just high as I can get it, just to see which one's going to hurt the most, and went out in the backyard, and shouting just loud as I could, Glory to God, my right leg doesn't hurt. Glory to God, my hands don't hurt. Glory to God, my eyes don't hurt. Thank God for the trees. Thank God for the birds. Thank God. I thank God. Oh, glory to God my fingers don't hurt. Thank You, Jesus. It's only one leg. While I'm shouting, the pain would go away. Now, when I quit, why it came back. I don't have any pain in my body. I don't have any pain in my body today. Glory to God. It was a while coming. Praise and thanksgiving. I said, praise and thanksgiving.
I'm thinking about another situation in the television and this one person, not on our staff or anything. It was another network and stuff. Instead of just being irritated all the time, I just said, "Lord, I'll tell you. I just love so and so, and I know you do, too. They're just so wonderful. They're just wonderful people". Every time I would think about that person, and another two or three people that worked in there, because I knew everybody, but now listen. That's the way they chose to operate their network. If I don't like it, I should get off. The Lord hadn't given me release to leave that network, so I'm not going to sit around and think bad stuff about their staff. That's the way they have chosen to do their business. That's the way they've chosen, so I'm not going to be critical about the way they chose to do their business.
Now, if I don't want to do our business like that, then that becomes my business. But you think good thoughts, love thoughts. You just love them, and love them, and love them, and love them. Time came for that separation, and so that separation was lovely, and we could write a lovely letter and get a lovely letter back. Glory to God. I can think now and go back all of those years, I could have been critical all that time. It would not have done one thing to change them. It would've made me sick in my body. Because I would be having strife in my mind, my thinking and in the way I speak. Or someone would say, "Well, you just don't know what they did to me". Until you release it, they're still doing it. They've forgotten about it and gone on. Strife is a killer. If there's any one thing in the Bible that will make you sick and keep you sick, it's strife, contention. Our physical bodies, our brains, our heart, all of our organs were made by love, and we are wired up to respond to love, not strife, and argument, and combat all the time.
Dr. Avery Jackson is a neurosurgeon. He's on our board now at KCM, and you should hear him talk about it, and what it does to the brain, and how it scrambles. Caroline Leaf, another one that gets to tell you right off what strife will do to your brain. It just scrambles the brain. Hey, the brain is where all of the nerves coming down through that brain stem and going to all of the rest to the body, and you got strife, thoughts, and words, going down through all of those nerves, it will kill you young. So now, if there's someone in your life, some kind of strife thing, just stop right now. Put a smile on your face, and just see that person's face, and say, "Lord. Now that was weak". Just close your eyes and say, "Lord, I surround them with your love. I see them through your eyes. And right now, while I pray I forgive them completely and totally. And I will never touch that with my thought life again. Again. I bring those thoughts into captivity according to the Word and in your love, Jesus they are forgiven forever". Glory to God. Thank You, Jesus. All right. Praise You, Lord.
Now then, that same Jesus is right here right now. The Holy Spirit, his agent, and the angels are his healing agents. There was a man who testified to us. He had really just believed in God for. Just his heart was just really bad. He woke up suddenly in the night, and he said there was a man there with his hands in my chest. He said, "I woke up". He said, "Go on back to sleep. It's just me". He said, "I woke up the next morning. My heart's completely well". Now you're familiar with Bishop David Oyedepo, and we've gone there every year for many years. He called me and he said, "I'm going to be there in Fort Worth, and I'd like to see you". I said, "Well, that's good". He brought me a device, and I think we still have a picture of that. We can see it.
Anyway, a young man in his congregation that an accidental gunshot wound destroyed his elbow. Well, they put it in a new elbow, but ever since they'd put that in there, it was painful. It just didn't work right. There it is. You see that? Now it's got the serial numbers on it. That's in my hanger office there at home, and that's David Oyedepo's hand, and that on the left is all. They put synthetic bone on that and put it so that the natural bone will adhere to it. He told him, he said, "You've been working hard for me, and tonight I'm going to work for you". He woke up the next morning and that device was laying there in the bed. I mean, that thing has the serial numbers on it, the serial number, the doctor's number and the whole thing. Then later, Gloria and I met that young man and I had the privilege of putting my... There he is right there. Of course, that's the good elbow, the new one, a real one. But now that doesn't happen in the middle of the night, and you laying there thinking bad stuff about somebody. No, that doesn't happen. You just go on and hurt.
Now I'll tell you one thing that is taught, and that, congregation, is the love of God. I mean, it is just right up at the top of everything. Love and praise. He said this to me. Now, listen, these are African people. They are extremely aware of covenant. There's covenant all around them. A lot of it's not good. There are people that get together and do all kinds of blood stuff, trying to stop the work of God. I've had that come towards me in different places. Amen. But it doesn't work here. Now, a member of that church, even though they lived in a gated community, they came home from church one night and there was blood right out the front of their door. So, they called the police. Well, the police already had this man in custody, but then this collaborated what they were saying. But listen to what this thief said.
Now, this is a member Of Bishop's church, and they praise a lot. He said, "I tell you," he said, "Just as I began to break into that house, somebody cut me". He said, "There wasn't anybody there," but he said, "they cut more two or three times. I bled. They cut me". Well, angels have weapons. You better believe it. They cut him. Wouldn't let him in that house. Back years, and years, and years ago, there was a young man broke into the church, not our church, but broke into the church and stole the recording equipment, the amplifier, the whole thing. So we began to pray for the thief, and we began to pray for him, and we prayed, "Lord, we ask you to forgive him and send angels across his path with the Word of his deliverance, and so forth. We just love him. We'd like to have the opportunity to minister to him, and we just love him, and love him, and love him. Amen".
You remember Jerry, this happened to Grace Temple, is where it happened back years ago. Finally, he called the police. He said, "Come out here and get this stuff out of my house. Come get this stuff out of my house". Well, you know what happened after that? They called the church. The church went down there and got him saved. It's what you do with love. I was preaching in that same church. Now, this is Healing School, you understand? I was preaching in that same church on a Sunday morning. I just hung back to pray out in the foyer of the church there, just to pray. There was a whole group of young people, and they just walked into the foyer of the church, and they didn't smell too good. They were just kind of hanging back there in the foyer of the church, and then they went through the doors of the church, and there were a couple of women that had come in there and they said, "Wonder who is going to have to sit by them"?
Well, I heard that. I just didn't say anything. I went on in and I preached, and I just preached faith. I preached what the Lord had already given, just on the love of God, and faith works by love. Then I said, "You know what? We have some young people in the congregation this morning. I don't know their background, but they're here, and they need a place to where they can clean up". They were in an old Volkswagen van. "They need a place where they can get a hot meal". People said, "Hey, I'll take a couple of them home with me. Come on kids, you just go home with us. You just go home with us". Some of them were still kind of, they were still out in the etheric somewhere, on a trip. But then during the service that Sunday night, and I'd continued with what I preached that morning. One of those young men stood up right in the middle of what I was saying and he was one of them that was really spaced out when he got there that morning. He just stood up and he said, "I would like to announce that Jesus Christ is now my savior. Thank you".