Kenneth Copeland - Expectancy for THE BLESSING
— Father, thank You so much for Your presence, for Your Word. We thank You for the life that You have given us. It is just marvelous in our eyes. We open our hearts and minds to receive revelation from heaven. We take it by faith and we give You great praise for it. In Jesus' name, amen. Join me again today, please, in welcoming Jerry Savelle to this broadcast. Praise God. Jerry, this has been a great week, man.
— It's been fun.
— Whoa, this has been good. And you did it, man. You preached me happy. In fact, it actually happened before we ever opened up Monday's broadcast.
— I know it, just getting ready for the broadcast.
— Oh, man, yeah. It has just been wonderful all week. And all week we've been reading Psalm 68:19. Let's turn over there. "And blessed be the Lord who daily loads us with benefits". Praise God. Loads us every day with benefits. So now we need to be receiving them, don't we?
— We need to receive them, yeah. And the key to all of this, it's one thing to see all this in the Bible. And, of course, you need to see it in the Bible first. But then it's developing an expectancy for it. You know, one time Brother Roberts and Evelyn were in our home. I'll never forget this. And we're sitting in the dining room. Carolyn had made an evening meal for us all. And Brother Roberts went to preaching. And he said, "You know, Jerry, miracles are coming our way every day. You either attract them or they pass you by". Listen to that statement. They're coming your way every day.
— They're coming every day.
— He said, "You either attract them or they pass you by". And I knew what he was going to say because I'd heard him say it before. And I said, "What causes me to attract them, Brother Roberts"? He said, "Expectancy, expectancy". Jesus said it this way, as thou hast believed, be it unto thee. Now, the world calls this the law of attraction. But the Bible is just simply expectancy. You know, daily loading us with benefits. Now, that's the foundation for my expectancy. In fact, listen to this, Psalm 62, Verse 5. "My soul wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him". My expectation is from Him. In other words, everything that I expect, everything I hope for, everything I desire, the foundation from it or for it is from Him. And when you talk about from Him, then you've got to include His Word because He and His Word are one and the same. So this is saying that my expectancy comes from what I see in the Word of God. Now, all those scriptures we talked about yesterday and all the scriptures we talked about on the last several days, every one of those scriptures are designed by God to create expectancy. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Expectancy comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So the more I see in the Bible about the power of the blessing and what it's capable of doing in my life, my expectancy just keeps going to another level to the point that you get up every day expecting benefits to show up, expecting the favor of God to show up, expecting the blessing to manifest in some way. Now, a lot of people, you know, their attitude is, well, that doesn't happen to me. Well, what do you expect? What are you expecting? Isn't it amazing? People want to argue with you when they expect the worst in their life. Well, I expect to get laid off. I expect to get the flu. I expect, you know, we'll probably wind up losing our house. I expect, you know, the kids will probably run off and get on drugs. And then when it comes to pass, they expected it, you know. But then if you turn that into a positive thing, well, I expect the blessing to show up every day. I expect benefits from that blessing. I expect the favor of God to go before me every day and open doors that no man can shut.
— Absolutely.
— What's wrong with that? In fact, it's working for me, praise God. But expectancy is the key. Once you find out what the Word says and you allow the Word to be the foundation for everything you expect. See, I'm not... this is not wishful thinking. This is not just the power of positive thinking. This is the Word of God creating an image in my heart of what God says belongs to me. And right along with that image comes the expectancy of it being fulfilled, of it coming to pass. David said it this way one time. If I had not expected to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, where would I be? You know? In other words, everything that I am believing God for, everything that I hope for, everything I expect to come to pass in my life, the foundation for it is from God. It comes from the Word.
— Now, that's real Bible hope.
— Yeah.
— When people say, are you going to get your healing in that Healing School in the morning?
— Well, I sure do hope so. There ain't no faith in that. And that's not Bible hope. Because real Bible hope is generated by faith.
— And you know, they're not really... when they make a statement like that, they're not really basing it on the Word. They're basing it on somebody's experience.
— Yeah. And they're saying, well, "I wish I would". Now, wishing and Bible hope are two.
— No, not even close.
— They're not even close. Real Bible hope, the word translated hope, is intense expectation. Now, where do you get that? When God promises it and I choose to believe it, it sparks faith. And that hope and fire that goes with it. This thing's going to happen. This thing, hey, it's going to happen.
— That's right. Well, listen to what Paul said. In jail, writing that letter to the Philippian church, he said, Philippians 1:19, "And I know my situation here is going to turn to my salvation according to my earnest expectations". In other words, I'm not just talking to hear myself talk. This is not based on wishful thinking. It's not, you know, boy, I sure hope so. He said, I know I'm coming out of this prison. This is going to turn. And the reason I am so positive about it is because of my earnest expectation.
— Now, that earnest expectation, the force of faith that generated that expectation, is actually the very force that got him out of there. It didn't come from heaven down. It came from him, from inside him out. Now, Jerry, this is something that the Christian people have never grasped, like we should have. This whole worldly system, this whole Babylonian idea of government, the whole thing, is outside in. So that as children, we were raised and taught, if we're going to get anything, we've got to go out there to get it. So I have to ask somebody for it. I have to go to the government and apply for it. I have to go to my parents to get it. I have to go to the job, my boss, da-da-da-da-da-da, right on down the line. It's continually, it's out here. I have to go get it.
— Making everything but God the source.
— Yeah. But now, when you get born again, he turned that around. The kingdom of God, then, is on the inside, and we are inside-out people. Where did the curse come from that came on the earth when Adam sinned? It came out of him. It certainly wasn't in God.
— No. God is not even the one who put the curse.
— No.
— It was Adam's disobedience that produced the curse.
— Now, Satan didn't have the power to do it. He's not that big. He wasn't that powerful. But this man...
— If he had the power to do it, why would he have to get Adam to be disobedient?
— He'd have done it anyway. He couldn't get away with that. He'd already been slapped down when he exercised an order of war in heaven. That's a stupid thing to do. And he got kicked down then. But the force and the power of the blessing was in him and on him, intermingled with the glory of God. When he disobeyed God, what had been faith turned to fear, what had been courage and boldness turned to discouragement. The whole thing was twisted. And instead of being connected to God, he's now connected to the devil. And the devil used his power, Adam's power, and it cursed... He was supposed to bless the entire planet. And it was supposed to come out of him, not out of heaven. God put it on him and in him, and it was to come out of him and bless. And we got it back. We got it back, bud. I mean, the blessing of the Lord is on the inside of us. Amen. So it's coming inside out. And when that expectancy gets up there, it's going to happen today, bud. I'm telling you, it's today. What's happening? It's not coming here. It's coming out of here and drawing and manifesting it right here.
— Yeah. We see it on the inside first. And then it happens on the outside.
— And you see it. You can have it.
— That's right. If you can conceive it, you can receive it.
— And your concept is right here.
— Yeah. Well, I heard you say this years and years ago. It was actually before I came to work with you, and you were preaching in Oklahoma City. And then I got the tapes. And you were talking about image. And you made this statement. My heart is the canvas. The Holy Spirit is the artist. And the Word of God is the oil. If you spend enough time in this book, the Holy Spirit, the artist, is going to paint an image on the canvas of your heart of the way God sees you. And that's what happens when you spend enough time in the Word. You study the blessing. You study the benefits. You study the favor of God. You study what it did for lives of people in this book and how it worked and how they appropriated it. Study what will block it. You get into all that. And eventually, it's going to form such an image on the inside of you that you see yourself doing this, living this way, as much as you can read about Abraham living that way. You become a modern-day New Testament Abraham, praise God.
— I heard Bill Winston say that. And it just... I mean, it struck me with force. He said, "The seed of greatness is inside the heart of every born-again child of God. And if you begin to water that seed with the Word, then greatness will rise up on the inside and you begin to see who you really are".
— Yeah, yeah. That's so good.
— Boy, isn't that just strong?
— And it's the desire to succeed, the desire to excel, the desire to overcome what men say can't be overcome. That was birthed in us by God.
— Yes, sir.
— There's nothing sinful about a desire like that. There's nothing wrong with having that kind of desire. That's something that God put in every human being. And not only did He put the desire, but then He put the empowerment called the blessing to make it happen.
— To bring it to pass.
— Yeah.
— Now, that brings us to the third and fourth chapters of the book of Hebrews. And it says, we labor to enter into His rest and we cease from our own works as, and actually, it literally says, even as God, or exactly the way God ceased from His works. Well, I've been told and read in books that God ceased His work. The last work He did was when He created man. Well, then I realized in studying that fourth chapter book of Hebrews that no, His last work wasn't when He created man. You brought it up a couple of days ago on the broadcast that He created him and immediately blessed him. So the last work that God did, He imparted to the human man, the same force, the same power on the same creative level as God, the same power and glory, when He said, "Light be", that created all matter, all material. He put the same thing on Adam to run this whole thing with and gave him authority over all the works of His hands, which went beyond the earth at that time.
— Yeah, crowned him with glory.
— Crowned him with glory. Now, so then how do we enter into His rest even as God? Well, how do we cease from our works as God ceased from His? He created man, but His last work, He released the blessing to do the work and He rested. Not because He's tired, but because He's finished. Wasn't anything else to do. Let the blessing do the work. He spoke the Word, let the blessing do the work. We now, just like our Father, we are supposed to go to the Word. Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto you are not mine, but it's the Father that dwelleth within me. He does the work". It's coming from inside out. So the first thing God did is give Him the Word. He spoke the Word, God did the work. Then He said, "Those that believe on me, do the same thing". How? The same way.
— It's letting the blessing do what it was designed to do. Praise God. You just get up every day expecting the blessing that is on your life to do what God said it was designed to do. Now, that eliminates me having to make things happen myself.
— It better.
— Yeah.
— Because we tried that.
— Yeah, it didn't work. And all the things that I made happen myself, I wish to God I never did.
— I'm glad they're gone.
— Yeah, amen.
— Amen, amen, amen.
— I'm telling you, we are supposed to experience the blessing of God working for us every day of our lives. I grieve in my spirit for Christians that only see this occasionally and think, you know, there's just no way this could happen every day. It's too good to be true. Well, it sounds too good to be true, but the truth Himself wrote this. Yes, He did.
— Yeah. Praise God. Listen to this before we leave here, talking about everyday blessing day. Lamentations 3:22 and 23. It is of the Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. The bad economy is not consuming me. You know, recession is not consuming me.
— That is good
— And it's because of the Lord's mercy. Well, mercy is another word for blessing. Or it is a byproduct of the blessing. The mercy of God is a characteristic of the blessing. It refers to God's loving kindness, His compassion, and His goodness. And it says, and it's new every morning.
— New every morning.
— Praise God. That means I can expect one of the major characteristics of the blessing, which is God's loving kindness, God's compassion, and God's goodness to be new in my life every morning. Amen.
— Everyday a blessing.
— And everything you fouled up yesterday is gone. Yeah, it went away during the night.
— Praise God. That's why He neither sleeps nor slumbers. He's cleaning all that up while we sleep.
— Glory be to God. Amen. Oh, you ought to be laughing too. You ought to be rejoicing right along with. I know you are. Amen. Because His mercies are new every morning. The Lord is good. His mercy endures forever. He died for the ungodly. And you and I and Brother Jerry all qualified. Praise God. And He has lifted us up out and has made us new.
— Newness of life.
— Newness of life.
— Reign in life is king.
— New creatures in Christ Jesus.
— Hallelujah.
— Amen.