Kenneth Copeland - THE BLESSING Is Released by Giving
— Join me again today in welcoming Jerry Savelle to this broadcast.
— Thank you, sir. Good to be with you.
— Hey, I noticed even today, you come driving up in a new truck.
— I did.
— Yeah, blessed every day.
— I did, praise God.
— That's the way it ought to be. Glory to God.
— And it's paid for, praise God.
— It's paid for. Yes, sir. Ain't nobody else got their clamps on it. Amen.
— I can give it away tomorrow if the Lord tells me.
— Jerry, well, you know, listen, we laugh, but that's big.
— Yeah.
— Somebody else, nobody but the Lord Jesus Christ ought to have anything to say about what we give, when we give, where we get it, why we get it, or what we do with it, why we have it. He's the source of it. He has the last, the first and the last. He's the alpha and the omega. And to have to go ask the banker or somebody else, no wonder that's so far out.
— I asked the Lord years ago, of course, you are the one that taught me about, owe no man anything but love. And I asked the Lord years ago, I said, "Why is it so important to you that I be debt free"? He said, "Because then everything you have is a potential seed".
— Yes, sir.
— Your house, your car, your everything. In fact, that's how I got that new truck. I gave the other truck away.
— Sowed that in somebody.
— Yeah.
— And now that's the reason Jesus said, and the world has fouled it up, screwed it up, can't understand it, it's foolishness to them. It's more blessed to give than it is to receive. And the world just laughs at that. And carnal-minded Christians do too. But actually he's talking about the laws that govern the world and the heaven's world, not this earthly world. The kingdom of God that has come, that blessing is released by giving. So it's more blessed to give than it is to receive because receiving doesn't initiate the blessing. The giving initiates it so that you can receive.
— Yeah. And the worst thing you can do is be a receiver only and not a giver because you'll stop the cycle. You know, if that blessing of God is working in your life, which is abling you to accumulate your being daily-loaded, then that puts you in a position where you can be a greater blessing, a greater giver. And obviously you can't give God, you know, so you just keep that cycle flowing all the time.
— Well, let me ask you this now. When a Christian, when a Christian does something I mean that message you preached several years ago at Southwest on the blessing blockers, man, I mean, that's a kingdom classic it's just loaded, just pregnant with revelation about the blessing of the Lord and how it operates. But let me ask you this. When you do something through being carnally-minded or whatever that they're all, everybody's done one way or the other that stops the blessing, you stop tithing. Well, I can't do that anymore. I can't afford that. Or some other dumb something that God put into motion and yet we stop it. It doesn't just sit there static. Am I right that when if I do that, if I do something that chokes the blessing of the Lord, I've made room now for the curse to flow in and begin to steal everything I've got.
— Yeah. Well, in the book of Proverbs, it says that the curse cannot come unless there is a opportunity for it. Ask Adam and Eve, did disobedience block the blessing? God created them to be blessed and their disobedience, they're committing high treason against God. It became the blessing blocker in their life. They were no longer living the lifestyle that God had intended for them because disobedience blocked that blessing. Job even picks up on that, and Job 36 it says, "If they obey and serve him, they'll spend their days in prosperity and their years in plenty". But then it goes on to say, "But if they disobey," so disobedience becomes a blessing blocker. A lot of people, you know, that can't understand or think, oh man, you must be out of your mind. You think God can load you up with benefits every day? That's not possible to live blessed every day. It is if you're obedient to God every day. He said your days-
— On a continuing basis, if I'm going to continue to obey him for days, then the blessing accumulates. It loads up.
— Well, and then Proverbs also says that a faithful man shall abound with blessings. So daily faithfulness, you know, being faithful to God every day of your life, that opens a door to something manifesting from God in your life on a daily basis. You can't abound in blessings and something not be happening to you every day.
— Well, that's true, isn't it?
— Yeah, because abound would mean get into the overflow. It'd mean plenty more than enough. Well, that means something's happening in your life every day and it's a direct result of your faithfulness to God.
— While you were saying that, it just flashed across my spirit and my mind. 2 Corinthians 9, "He is able to make all grace abound towards you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work".
— Well, always in all would have to mean something's happening every day.
— All the time. All the time, isn't it? Always having all sufficiency.
— See, the guy who says, "Well, you know, God's done some things for me here and there, but I can't imagine God doing it every day". Well, that's your problem. You can't imagine it. You can't see it.
— If you'll meditate on that Psalm 68:19 and think about it and meditate, what you and I are doing here under the anointing, we're actually meditating together and just like happened to me just those seconds ago, while we're thinking in one line, that 2 Corinthians 9:8, 9:10-11 just jumped up in front of me like I could just see my Bible open to it there. That's what happens when you meditate.
— That's why David wrote there the last little word in that verse, Psalm 68:19. "Blessed be the Lord who daily loathes us with benefits, even the God of our salvation, Selah". Stop and think about this, ponder this, meditate on this, let it be in your thinking all the time. And eventually you're going to get a revelation of just how much God loves you, why He wants you that way, why He wants to bless you like that. Not only what it'll do for your life, but what it will do for other people that He places in your life, where you can be a blessing to them.
— That's where revelation comes from.
— Yeah. Selah is a powerful word. And I used to read past that. I didn't know what Selah meant, so I just read past it. Selah to me meant, go on to the next verse, I don't understand that, but it actually-
— It's a command.
— It is a command and hey, before you go to verse 20, you need to camp out right here.
— You need to stop here and think about this while.
— And isn't it interesting? Listen to this, Psalm 3 and verse 8. And he's talking about the blessing again. In verse 8, he says, "Salvation belongeth unto the Lord. Thy blessing is upon thy people". And there's Selah again.
— There it is again.
— Seemed like God, when He's trying to get this revelation of the blessing across to people, He's telling them, hey, wait a minute, before you just read the next chapter, stop right here, camp out here, and get a revelation of the blessing being on your life. You think about that, and you'll never again think, oh, that blessing's out there somewhere. If I could just get that blessing. No, when you have Selahed or meditated and pondered on this and search other scriptures that relate to that, then the next thing that happens to you, you get up every morning realizing, there's something on me today that the rest of the world doesn't know a thing about. And it's an empowerment from heaven, and it's designed to cause me to prosper. It's designed to cause me to experience increase. It's designed to cause me to excel. It's designed to cause me to rise above what holds everybody else back. That is on me. I'm going to that job today with a smile on my face. I don't care if there's another Christian in my place of employment. I got something on me that's going to enable me to rise above what is keeping everybody else down. I don't care what CNN says. Don't care what Wall Street does. Don't care what's happening anywhere else. I know I got an advantage. I have something on me called the blessing, and it's going to cause me to succeed. Now, that is a result. Talk like that. I'm not being braggadocious. I'm not being prideful or egotistical. Talk like that is a result of Selah. Stop and think about it.
— Proverbs 4:20, 21, 22 says that that'll get you healed. You keep that before your eyes for they are life. Jesus said, "My words are Spirit and they are life. You might have life more abundantly". That's the reason he spoke words that give it to you. You keep those words in front of your eyes, and the scripture says, and they are health or medicine to all your flesh. At the same time you're doing that, it's working like medicine in your body to heal you. There's another advantage. That's another benefit.
— Well, just like that, you stop and meditate on that Psalm 68:19 who daily loatheth us with benefits. All right, let's just stop and meditate on benefits. If a guy is applying for a new job and the guy says, "Okay, here's what's required on this job," and he's thinking all the time he's being told what's expected of him, what are the benefits of working here? Well, number one, you'll get a two week paid vacation. That's a benefit. We're going to cover your hospitalization, your insurance. That's another benefit. We're going to contribute to your retirement fund. That's another benefit. Oh, by the way, if you excel at this job, eventually you'll get a company vehicle. That's a benefit. Well, look at it from what the Bible says. What are the benefits? Well, he healeth all thy diseases. You're blessed every day of your life. You got an empowerment on you that the rest of the world don't know anything about. God not only supplies your needs, but fulfills your desires and your wants. He'll just do things on a daily basis because he knows it'll bring joy to you. Those are benefits.
— That 103rd Psalm says, "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not his benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, heals all your diseases, redeemed your life from destruction, crowned you with loving kindness and tender mercy, satisfies your mouth with good things or good words so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's, executes righteous judgment in your behalf and gives you angels to support it". Your company can't do that.
— There was a man I met just a couple of days ago. He said, "Jerry, how old are you"? I said, "I just turned 66". He said, "My God, you're seven years older than me and you look better than I do". He said, "What are you doing"? I said, "Serving the Lord". It's a benefit to serve the Lord. He renews your youth as the eagle. He heals all your diseases. These are benefits. And the Bible says that he wants to daily load you. In other words, I take that as meaning these benefits that David said, "Don't forget them. Don't forget the benefits". He wants those benefits manifesting in some way in your life every day.
— Every day. Every day. The lack minded, need minded generally thinks without knowing it, not being conscious of it, just the general way of thinking that I don't call on or walk in any of these benefits until I'm in trouble and I need them. Now I'm bad, sick. Well, if you don't forget them and selah on them every day and get loaded up with them every day, they are preventive medicine. They keep you healed instead of waiting until your life needs redeemed from destruction before it takes place. And that's what daily benefits do, don't they?
— Yeah, they do. Yeah. Praise God. Then you understand. I love the Message translation of John 10:10, where Jesus said in King James, "I've come to you might have life and have it more abundantly". The Message translation says better life than you ever dreamed, better life than you ever imagined.
— And I can attest to that.
— I'm living that right now. Better life than I ever dreamed possible. And obviously if we hadn't taken the time to selah the Word of God, you know, then I wouldn't be living that kind of life. But as a result of spending time, quality time in fellowship with God and fellowship with his Word and the excitement that comes from it, Carolyn is telling me just last night, she's studying the book of Ephesians right now. And again, and she come out of that bedroom so excited. And she said, "I'm telling you, I'm learning so much, we've been at this for 44 years now, but I'm learning so much". And you'd have thought she just finished the whole book. She's on verse three. She'd been locked in for a week, just got to verse three now.
— But that's because she's gleaning and feeding on it and feeding on it. I remember you preached a message on meditating in the word night and day from Joshua chapter one. I mean, then this was, Oh my goodness, Jerry, this was in the early eighties, maybe early to mid eighties. I heard you make this statement and it renewed my mind at that point. The moment I heard you say it and since it's part of my renewed mind now, every time he mentioned meditation or every time you talk about Selah and so forth, then that statement jumps up in front of me. I heard you say, you turned over to first Peter 2:24, by his stripes you were healed. And you stopped and you said, "Lord, how does this change my life today now that I know I'm healed? Not going to be healed. I just found out by his stripes, I was healed. Now, how does this affect my life today now that I know I'm healed? How does this affect my life today now that I know that he gives me all things richly to enjoy"?
— Yeah. How does it change my circumstances?
— How does it change my circumstance?
— Yeah.
— Now that comes up in my thinking, what's happened here? My thinking by that statement that you made under the anointing of God renewed my mind to the way I think. And here it is 30 plus years later. And you started talking about Selah a while ago, immediately that came into my thing. And so the thing that I'm punching at here is what Romans 12 says about the renewed mind will transform you. You change your way of thinking. Your mind is renewed. You no longer conform. You are transformed. And the scripture said, "We are predestined to be conformed to the image of God's dear Son". This is turning us into a new person.
— It is. It is. You know, you're just talking about me meditating on first Peter 2:24. I'll never forget sitting in that little bedroom and reading that verse and then just stopping and thinking about that. And I closed my eyes. And when I did, "The Lord said, see me on that cross". So I just closed my eyes and, you know, seeing, remembering pictures that you've seen of Jesus hanging on the cross. He said, "No, get a good picture in your mind's eye of me hanging on that cross". So I did. He said, "Now, go around to the back". And I saw myself walking around that cross. And he said, "Look at the stripes on my back". And I saw the stripes. And he said, "Every stripe represented some form of sickness and disease known to mankind. And they also represent your healing". And I got a picture of those stripes and the blood running from them. And I come out of that bedroom and it affected me like I heard it affected you. I run in there and told Carolyn, "Our days of sickness and disease are over".
— Now then that matches Exodus 23:25 that I serve the Lord and he has taken sickness and disease from the midst of me and will fulfill the length of my days because he's blessed my bread and he's blessed my water.
— You know, I heard you say this, uh, and the same thing happened to me. The first time I went to Israel and I had read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John stories so many times, Pool of Bethesda, the tomb of Lazarus. And when I got to Israel, I had meditated these things so much and saw an inner image. And when I got to Israel is exactly the way I saw it in that bedroom in Shreveport, Louisiana.
— You'd already been there.
— I already been there through my meditating, pondering Selah, the Word of God. And it just became so real as a result of, of just spending quality time. And that's what you and I have both done where the blessing is concerned. And the Lord told me recently, he said, "Don't ever stop preaching on the blessing. Don't ever stop preaching on favor. It is the solution to the chaos that's going on in this world today". Praise God.
— My goodness. We're out of time. If you hadn't stopped and just taking those few moments to meditate, you never would have made it around to the back of the cross.
— Yeah, that's right.
— You'd still been trying to get your healing.
— Yeah. Yeah.
— Instead of living all these years.
— But boy, when you see those stripes, that settles it.