Kenneth Copeland - How To Live by Faith Every Day
The fundamentals of faith. It is extremely important to go back to the fundamentals. So open your Bible to Romans 3:27, in the 3rd chapter of the book of Romans. Are you there? In my Bible, everywhere I find the word grace, I've underlined it in red and now in the Baptist church for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, "Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, all and upon all them that believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness, or his right standing with God, for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? Nay: but by the law of faith".
There are physical laws. There are spiritual laws, there are aeronautical laws. God knew that so birds can fly. But people had to figure out how. Well, isn't it amazing that two young men by the name of Orville and Wilbur Wright... I have preached at the Wright Methodist Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. They... Wilbur and Orville, once they got that thing to fly, they went to England and they telegraphed their dad. "We have an audience with the king". He said, "Wonderful, don't drink her wine". God was involved in that. So laws govern these things and the fundamentals of faith, the basic fundamentals, you have to go back in any endeavor. Flying is a discipline. Safety is an attitude. Without being very disciplined at flying, very disciplined with maintenance, very disciplined with all of the safety situation and recurrent training over and over and over again... That all of these laws have been here since day one because a spirit created all matter.
So this is a Spirit book. Now, and of course, Galatians 5:6 says, "Faith works by love". Faith is a spiritual force. It is not a mental force. So you can be doing good works, I'm not talking about not doing good works, but anyone can do good works, but not by faith. So let's go over here to the Book of Hebrews. You know where I'm going... No you didn't, I'm going to the 10th chapter. I was with David Barton. We were doing television. Right before we started, he said, "Where do you get a white highlighter"? I said, "What"? "Where do you get a white highlighter"? He looked over there at my Bible and we were right there in the book of Hebrews. Because I lived in the book of Hebrews, I still do. I just live in it. And this one is so worn out that and I, you know, maybe start a new one. But. No, no, no, man, I have split the pages and then Scotch taped them back in some places where you can't even... and made so many notes on it.
Anyway. Verse 35 of the 10th chapter, "Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward". I heard Keith say, "That's the payoff". "For ye have need of patience, that..." Now that's one of the gifts of the fruit of the Spirit, right? It's not put up with, it's endurance, "that after ye have done the will of God, or the Word of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith".
Faith is a spiritual force. It is not mental. Believe it in your heart. Then say it with your mouth. Number two, faith will not work in an unforgiving heart. Number three, Abraham's blessing cannot be received with Thomas' faith. Number four, faith calls things that be not as though they were. That's where most believers get hung up. When it came time, so we came back home. I intended to stay there the whole four years and the seminary and all. Well, May, school was out. In fact, our landlord was a lawyer, and I went to see him to get some paint to repaint. Oh, that place was a mess, anyway.
And I asked him to draw up Kenneth Copeland Evangelistic Association papers in the state of Oklahoma. I intended to stay, so I got up the next morning and we had a very nice little blue table that Gloria had rummaged around in junkyards and stuff and found it. The top was one piece and the bottom was another. Put the two of them together and antiqued them blue. We had a nice table. Oh, Lord. So we went in. I went up, got dressed, put my suit on, got my Bible, sat down in the front room. I'm just wondering what to do during the summer. And it came up on the inside of me, I'm ready for you now. What?
I want you to go back to Fort Worth, biggest part of your destiny is there. I said, "Lord, you know what happened to you in your hometown. I don't want to do that". He said, "Didn't I tell you I'd take care of it". I said, "Oh alright, we're on our way". But the phone rang. Gloria said, "Brother Nichols wants to talk to you". So I answered it. He said, "Brother Kenneth, when can you come preach me a meeting"? I said, "Well, Brother Nichols, I'd like to say I need to check my schedule, but I don't have any schedule. When do you want me"? He said, "Can you come to me," it was a weekend after that or something, I said, "Yes, sir, I can".
Well, we drove that old car to Ft. Worth and that's all I knew was what I learned from Oral Roberts and from Brother Hagin. And so I just kind of preached and taught and we got through it and he said, "I don't think we can close that this weekend". Okay. He said, "Let's go next week". Well, we went for three weeks. We sat out in the car out in front of the church. He said, "Where are you going from here"? I said, "Brother, I don't have any idea". So we agreed. Hilton Sutton calls me. When can you come to me? I said, "When do you want me"? He told me three days over the weekend. Stayed three weeks. Well, his dad was there at the church. He said, "Young man, when can you come to me"?
So I went to Beaumont and stayed three weeks. And then after that he said, "I want you to come back every quarter". That's the way it started. One after another. Then I had a meeting in his church and he called me there to stay for three weeks and I heard it in my spirit. This is going to be the best meeting financially you've ever had in your life. Got there, flu. He said, "Brother Kenneth, couldn't guarantee you $50 if you stayed a month". I said, "Why"? He said, "Oh, everybody's out with the flu". I said, "You know what to do. Get your oil bottle and let's go to work". So there was only one man that wouldn't do it. He said, "I'm not about to, I'm not going to believe I have".
So I'm standing there with my Bible in my hand in the hospital. "I'm not about to say something I can't feel or believe" and he liked to died and all the rest of them got healed, just got up anyway, he was in the bed for two weeks. He finally showed up and it just went on, just powerfully and Dad Sutton, I mean, the first morning we only had two people, he and his wife and two women. So I just preached like the place is full. That night we had six and one got saved one got filled with the Holy Ghost. And I said, "Praise God, we're having a landslide". One fellow said, "That poor boy don't know the difference between a landslide and a flop". Well, I had learned to speak by faith and kept it up, just kept doing it. Just kept on, kept on, kept on, kept on.
So Dad Sutton, he took the checks. And of course they belong to the ministry, not us. There was $900 worth of checks at one time and a whole sack full of change. So I got home, now I was driving that old car and I was listening to tapes, I listen to this night and day. And I said, "Lord"... now listen to what he said. I said, "If you can keep this old car together..." I'm driving along there about 40 miles an hour. I said, "If you keep this old car together at 50, 60 miles an hour just the same as you can at any other speed". He rose up in me and said, "That right, as long as you stay at the speed limit or less, that's the speed limit, limit". He said, "You get out above that speed limit, you're out of my hand. When you got your driver's license, you promised to obey the speed laws".
And I realized liked to kill everybody with before. Anyway, got home, this whole sack full of money, and I took the other out. I said, "Now, Gloria, this is for your birthday". She said, "Come on". I was tired. I didn't want go anywhere. She said, "Come on". So we got in the car and went, she said, "Go to that store". So I went there. So we walked in this store, she walked just right straight to this bright red purse and a bright red pair of high heeled shoes and set them up there on the counter and just poured that whole sack full of change out on the counter. And these two women started counting that out. I don't remember how much it was. Got done, we had about $0.55 left. She said, "Well I broke you" and Gloria said, "No you didn't. There's more where that came from". Got her pretty red shoes.
We were in her closet the other night and I said, "Gloria, those old red shoes. You remember those"? Oh, she said, "I do". Hallelujah. There's more where that came from. We were learning one step at a time. And so the time we spent in Tulsa was incalculable. Little did we know that we had the anointing of two families and I began to see in the 4th chapter of the book of Ephesians, the supply of every joint, the anointing of every joint. And I began to see that the anointing of Kenneth Hagin and the anointing of Oral Roberts, that that was the reason we were in Tulsa in the first place. And our relationship there with those two powerhouses of faith. Brother Roberts said to me one time, he had a way of expressing himself. He said, "People that don't live by faith, they can't figure out the puzzle".
He looked me in the face, he said, "You always know there's a key issue to everything. If your finances get bottled up, you pray in the Spirit until the Lord reveals you the key issue. When you find that key issue, you fix it, whatever it is, and it'll turn your finances loose". Well, not long after that, I went to Arkansas and I was praying up there and I said, "Lord, I don't understand... Our finances are all messed up". I remember what he said. I said, "I don't know what the key issue to this is". He said, "I tried to give it to you once before and you thought about it and just did away with it". I said, "What"? "You're not tithing the ministry". "What"?
Then I remembered, I'd heard Jimmy Swaggart say something about that and I just kind of passed it off. He said, "That's the reason you're a million behind in your ministry right now". And I said, "But you don't..." He said, "Don't tell me that all of it belongs to me. Do government employees pay taxes"? I said, "Yes". He said, "Well, doesn't it all belong to the government anyway"? Alright, okay I see it. So I said, "We'll do it".
And I just got over on my face, repented, and I said it. Consider it done. We got home and I just announced to everybody we are going to tithe this ministry, we're going to tithe the church, we're going to tithe the whole thing. We'll sow it into other ministries. We'll do whatever God says do with it. I want you to know that million dollars just came just flying in there. It changed this whole operation. The faith of God. Faith is a spiritual force. And when you know what it is and you know where it comes from. So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, you know that. So you know what it is. You know where it comes from. Now, you have arrived at a place, from there on it's training.