Kenneth Copeland - Choose Life, Choose BLESSING
— Brother Jerry, welcome to this broadcast again today, man. You know, yesterday when we closed, I've known this, I've believed this for over 46 years, but yesterday's broadcast, it just got bigger. You were talking about when God was creating, He said He created it, oh, that's good, He created that, oh, yeah, that's good. And all of this He was doing to give to man. He created all of this mighty universe for His family, and He just kept doing it. And then He created this man, and He said, that's very good. He's doing all of these good things. God, all good, all good gifts, James said, come down from God. Why? Because He's good. There's no bad in Him. He's good, and He has good plans. And if you just take the time to do just a little bit of study, you find out He is good from here to here.
— That's right.
— There ain't no bad about Him or in Him.
— That's the reason you need to draw the battle lines.
— Yes, you do.
— That's the first sermon I ever heard you preach. You stood up there on that platform at Life Tabernacle in Shreveport, Louisiana, reading John 10:10, "The thief cometh not, but for to kill, steal, and destroy. But Jesus said, I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly". And you took the heel of your shoe and drew a line on the carpet on that platform and said, "If it's good, it's from God. If it's bad, it's from the devil. If it produces life, it's from God. If it's stealing and killing and destroying, it's from the devil. Now, don't ever mix them up again". That got on the inside of me.
— Well, now, and you take Deuteronomy 30:19, where God literally said that. He said, "I place before you life, death, blessing, cursing. Therefore, you choose life, which is coupled with a blessing, so that you and your family after you can live". So he split it up right then. In fact, the historical records show that he was dramatic about it. He put it all on one, a mountain on this side and a mountain on this side. And everybody was out there, and everybody could see it, that God is good. He's life. He's blessing. Cling to God, for he is your life. And over here was death and the curse. And they were, there were two different mountains, man, there's no way you can mix those mountains up.
— And then I think it's interesting, he said, "You make the choice".
— You make the choice. He'd already made his choice.
— He'd made his choice that, hey, I've prepared a good life for you. You want it? Choose it. It's yours. It's already been prearranged for you. If that's the way you want to live, it's already out there for you.
— Now you're going to have to receive it by faith. Faith is your connector. And to what? Faith is your connector to the grace. And the grace of God is what gave it to you in the first place. It is by faith, so that it might be by grace, that the promise might be sure to all the seed. His promise is just as strong to me. He'll hear me. He'll hear you in the name of Jesus, just as quick as he heard Jesus when he was on the earth.
— That's right. What Jesus said, "Show them that you love them as much as you love me".
— As much as you do me.
— Yeah. Well, you know, talking about everything God created was good, David in Psalm 8, I picture him standing out on the balcony of the palace, and he's looking out at the stars, he's looking at the moon, looking at God's creation, and he's seeing all this beauty. And then this thought comes, what is man that you're mindful of him? In other words, why would you even have a thought about the likes of us? And then God says, and I'm saying, it's Savelle version. He tells him in the King James that I've crowned you with glory and honor. David is saying, "Why would you have anything to do with the likes of us"? And God says, "Because you're my prized creation. I made all this for you. I've crowned you with glory and honor. I've even put all of this under your authority. I did all this so you could have a good life". Now obviously, sin interrupted that. But Jesus...
— No, because God did that before there was any sin.
— That's right.
— And he's never changed his mind.
— No, he never changed his mind. But thank God Jesus came and was made to be sin for us, that we might have right standing with God just like Adam did before sin ever occurred. So what Jesus did, not only redeemed our lives, but he restored our ability to live the good life like God had planned for Adam when he created him.
— He got it all back.
— Got it back, praise God.
— Like it never even happened.
— Now all a person has to do is get on that path.
— Yes, sir.
— And then here's the good part. He sent the Holy Spirit to be our guide and he knows where this path leads. He knows what's in that path. If I just determine that I'm going to let the Holy Spirit be my guide and keep me on that path, then I'm eventually going to have days after days after days of benefits and blessings and favor and good things happening.
— Every day.
— And even if something negative happens, why? It's not permanent. It's temporary. Paul said, "If you can see it, it's subject to change". Even if the devil tries to get me off that path or tries to interfere with the good life that God's planned, I can treat him like Paul did. None of this moves me. I'm on the path to the good life. Praise God.
— Cast him out and get on the road. Amen. I'll tell you, Jerry,
— Look, that Ephesians 2:10, once again from the Amplified, it says, "Taking paths which he prepared ahead of time that we should walk in them, living the good life which he prearranged and made ready for us to live". Now let's couple that together with what Paul said in his letter to the Corinthian church. I hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love him. And he goes on to say, "The only way that we could possibly know all the things that God has prepared for those that love him, it'd have to be revealed to us by the Holy Ghost". But that tells me, even though the life I'm presently living, I would describe it as the good life. But I hear God saying, in what Paul said, "Son, you haven't seen anything yet".
— You haven't seen nothing yet, boy.
— "There are things I've prepared for you that are out there that you haven't even reached into yet".
— Beyond what you could even ask me for. Isn't that good?
— Well, there's another point. Beyond what you can ask or think. But if you go back and read Ephesians 3, where that 20th verse talks about he's able to do exceeding abundant above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh within us. If you go back and read that whole thing, the power he's talking about is the power to conceive that. The power to see that on the inside of you.
— Let's read that, Jerry. That's right here in this third chapter.
— Yeah, Ephesians 3:10. He starts out with praying that we'll get a revelation of the love of God. The length, the breadth, the depth, the height of the love of God. That you might know the love of God. And then he says, eventually in verse 20, that he's able to do exceeding abundant above all that we might ask or think. But look at verse 18, that you may be able to comprehend. To comprehend something is to get a revelation of it. Is to be able to take it in, to grasp it. And he started with this, talking about, I'm praying that you'll get a revelation of how much God loves you. If you ever get a revelation of how much God loves you, if you can comprehend that, that's going to move you into the place where you can begin to experience exceeding abundant above all you can ask or think. And the Amplified goes on to say, even dream or imagine. Well, you know, I'm a pretty big dreamer. But God says, "I'm bigger than that".
— I was into that. I was studying specifically in the love of God because I'd been given the assignment of stripping fear from God's people. This is back right after 9-11. And so, you know, he said, "that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, length, depth, height, and to know the love," have an intimate relationship with the love. Now, 1 John 4:18 says, "Perfected love casteth out fear". All right. You begin to get a revelation and insight of how much God loves you and how much Jesus loves you and how committed He is to us. I'll tell you, Jerry, fear takes a hike. It just gets to the point where fear just loses its formidability. It just doesn't look big anymore. Love gets where it looks so big. Now, when that happens, what takes place? This then begins to function. Fear begins to subside and all of a sudden you begin, faith then begins to rise. Impossibilities begin to look possible, not only possible, hey, this is going to happen. So in that, then this begins to come to pass, filled with the fullness of God who is love. You begin to know how much He loves me. He begins to fill up everything. Well, preach me happy. You set me on fire this morning, man.
— Praise God.
— Boy, the love of God begins to fill you on the inside and you're like old Caleb, God give me that mountain, that's mine, I'm going to take it today.
— You talk about the good life when fear is a thing of the past. Now, what's the greatest fear that most people, including most of God's people have today? In a bad economy, recession, the fear of not having enough. The fear of how am I going to get these needs met? How am I going to pay my bill? How am I going to keep everything?
— Losing what I've got.
— Losing what I've got. That's the greatest fear. So it sounds like to me in times like these, the smartest thing the body of Christ could do, those that are fearing those things like the rest of the world, they need to get a revelation of the love of God.
— Oh, absolutely.
— Because if you get a revelation of how much God loves you, you start thinking like this, well, why wouldn't He meet my needs? He loves me. Why wouldn't He take care of me in times like these? He says He loves me. When you get a revelation of the love of God, which then opens up why He put that blessing on your life and why He's put favor in your life, that's all a part of the love of God. Then your attitude begins to become, no matter what's happening around you, you don't fear it because you know He loves you. You know the blessing's working. You know the favor's working. And you know somehow, some way, He's going to get you through this. He's done it before. He's going to do it again. And He'll keep doing it over and over again.
— So what are you upset about? I mean, I was in a first place. I was really tired. And there was some stuff going on with my body. And I really was tired of it. I want this off of me. And so I'm pressing my faith. Faith comes by hearing, hearing with the Word of God. And the Word of the Lord came to me. He said, "Kenneth, do I heal you because you've got faith"? And He said, "Now, it's good that you have faith because your faith is what connects you to me. But Kenneth, I don't heal you because you've got faith, son. I heal you because I love you".
— Yeah, that's good.
— Jerry, when He said that, all that struggle just went out the door. I said, "Oh, forgive me, sir. My, my, I've been struggling, fussing around here with this". He said, "I saved you because I loved you. I filled you with the Holy Ghost because I love you. I heal you because I love you. I prosper you because I love you. It ain't because you've got faith". He said: It's wonderful that you have faith because that's, then it's by grace. And that's what made the connection. It is in the grace. It's in His favor. And the reason He favors you is because He loves you.
— That's right.
— Isn't that just...
— And what a good life that produces. You know, not too long ago, I was in a Home Depot and picking up supplies. I was doing some work down at my lake house in Granbury. And I went into the Home Depot and picked up what I needed. I'm standing there at the cashier's desk and there was a guy in front of me. And the cashier says to the guy in front of me, "Well, how's life treating you today"? And man, I'm telling you, you had never heard so much negative stuff come out of one man's mouth. Oh, he just, you know, it was horrible. And I'm standing there listening to this. And then when he quit, she took up where he left off. And they both were having a horrible time. And I thought two things. Number one, how sad. Number two, these folks are preaching material. You know, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. They had no idea the good life that God had prepared for them. And then I thought about, hey, 44 years ago, I used to talk like that. Somebody asked me, how's life treating you? I was taught just like they did. I didn't know any better. I had no idea that God loved me so much that he had prearranged a good life for me. And I couldn't leave that place until I talked to that lady about, you know, the love of God. And I says, "Ma'am, I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with the man in front of me". And I said, "It doesn't have to be that way. Life doesn't have to be that way. God loves you. And God has prearranged a good life for you. You just need to surrender your life to him. Get in his Word. And I'm telling you, you will enter into life far better than you ever dreamed". I said, "I know. It happened to me 44 years ago". Boy, you could, you could tell. Just the entrance of that little bit of Word I gave her, the light came on. You know, the entrance of his Word gives light. Most people have no clue, including many of God's people, that this good life has already been prearranged for them. And all we got to do is get on the path. And how do you get on that path? You make Jesus the Lord of your life. That's how you start. And then just allow the Holy Spirit to be your guide. Get in the Word. This is the path of life. This is God's manual for how to get on the path of life. The good life, Hallelujah. Isn't that exciting?
— I heard Bill Winston say that. He held his Bible up here like this. He said, "We have been delivered from the authority of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. And this is our constitution. And it holds in it all that it takes for a good, full, wonderful, rich, healed life".
— Yeah, praise God.
— This is our constitution.
— Amen. And you need to read the constitution, brother.
— Yeah, your Bill of Rights is in there.
— Yes, sir. The real one. The real thing. But really, looking at this as an example, our founders saw that and got a revelation of that as being the base for a form of government that would bring good things into the life of the citizens instead of a government that continually brought bad things into the life of its citizens. And up until that time, there was no such thing as a good government. Can you think about that? All the governments of the world get so desperate in their taking away from people for the government and then doling it out and all this. And they're not big enough to take care of people. And they get in over their heads with the same thing. And it kind of turns into poverty over and over and over and over and over. And our founders saw from the Bible that we were created by God equal for the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
— And they got that from the Bible.
— They got it. They saw this is what God wanted us to have. And that there is a way to have a government that would do that. And my point is this, when you patterned it after God, it did good for the people. Now, all the rest of them did bad to the people. Why? Not patterned after God. So when you patterned after Him, brother, it's going to have to be good because God is good and there ain't no bad in Him.
— No, no bad in Him.
— And He loads us up every day with blessings.
— And listen to this. Ephesians 2:7, the King James says this, "That in the ages to come, He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus". Now, that's not just talking about when we get to heaven. He wrote this ages ago. I believe we're the generation that's going to see the manifested blessings and mercy and favor and goodness of God like no other generation has ever seen. But listen how the Message translation reads here. "Now, God has us where He wants us with all the time in this world and the next to shower His grace and His kindness upon us".
— Isn't that good?
— Has us right where He wants us. You get on that path and God says, "Now, I got you where I want you. And I'm going to shower you with my grace and I can load you up".
— Oh, Father, we give You praise. Oh, Lord, we worship You for it. Now, Brother Jerry and I pray for you and your family and your household right now. Take hold of it. Believe you receive it. Means to take it by faith. It's mine. I receive from You, Father, right now in Jesus' name. And then don't you let the devil take it away from you. And you hear anything else other than the goodness of God. You just simply say you're a liar, Satan is the father of it. I don't have to believe nothing you say and just keep on going. He can't make you think something. He can't make you say anything. And he can't make you do anything. Praise God. Amen.