Kenneth Copeland - The God Kind of Love Brings THE BLESSING
— Hello, everybody. We're Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. Gloria Jean Copeland, happy anniversary today.
— Is it today?
— It's today.
— And how long have I been married?
— 55 years today.
— 55 years.
— Of course, you were just a young thing.
— I was very young, very young.
— You really were just a young thing. In fact, she turned 20 just right before we got married.
— Thank you for marrying me. I appreciate it.
— Well, thank you for having me. My, my, my, my, my.
— We've done well together.
— The day I met Gloria, I absolutely fell in love with her. I just, the second I saw her, and I was in such a terrible spiritual condition at that time in my life, that it hadn't been but just weeks before I made the stupid statement, here we are, you know, studying that God is love.
— That's right.
— And I made the stupid statement that I don't believe love is real. So what I actually said, "I don't believe God exists". I was scripturally illiterate. I didn't know anything about that. But of course, the devil had such... such access to my life at the time.
— But then along came Gloria.
— I said if it is, I don't think I'm capable of it. I was very angry at the time. The moment I saw her, boy, it blew that deal right out of the tub. I thought, whoa. And it just, that moment in my life, we got married six months later, but that moment in my life, her love just, I mean, it slapped a knot on the devil's head. It just, and of course, my mother prayed all the time for me, and she just... She didn't know she was praying for me, though.
— But she did all her praying in tongues.
— That's good.
— And, God just was maneuvering things. Well, and I made up my mind. I didn't see her then for, for about two and a half, three weeks, and I, I made up my mind. So I called her, and she answered the phone. And she said later, she said, her mother and dad had invited her to go to Little Rock, and they live... Near Prescott.
— Yeah.
— And so, or Blevins. Wasn't it in Blevins? Yeah, Blevins.
— In Blevins, near Prescott.
— Yeah, near Prescott. Anyway. And she said, "No, I don't think I will because she thought, that boy's going to call me today". And sure enough, the boy did.
— I had a word of knowledge.
— And I called her and invited her on a date. And we went out and we ate supper. It wasn't much because I didn't have money enough to eat much. I spent all I had, but anyway. And we got back to her dad's house that night and walked up on the porch. I said, "Gloria, will you marry me"? She said, okay. And just turned around and went in the house. She didn't give me no kiss.
— What'd you want, a speech?
— Yeah, something. You know, she just, I'm just standing out there on the porch there. I didn't know what to do.
— That's funny.
— So I turned around and got in the car and went home.
— But now, we don't necessarily recommend this process, but it worked for us.
— Well, you do, you do if God's leading you.
— That's right. That's right.
— We didn't know it at the time. I was just, I was just so, so much in love with her. And here's, here was my thinking. I thought, this girl's got a lot of class. And I don't. I mean, I ain't got no couth at all. So, you know, so I'm going to have to get this thing started early because I thought, this is going to take a long time. I'm going to have to lie, cheat, whatever I've got to do. This is Kenneth B.C. and before Christ. So and when she said, yes, I just stood there. I was so stumped. I got in the car and we've been together. We have been together ever since. Just all of our time together.
— Yes. The Lord's been good.
— And it has been absolutely wonderful. And I'm talking about the whole 55 years. I don't remember the last, any kind of fuss or argument we've had. Any kind. If there's the least bit of tension comes up between us, we just immediately both repent and apologize to one another. And I'm going to tell you something, men, take the blame. Because where there's strife, there's confusion and every evil work. And you start that, I mean, you give... the scripture says, "Be angry and sin not. Don't let the sun go down on your wrath and to give no place to the devil". That's all one statement there in the book of Ephesians. So just say, "No, no, wait a minute, baby. I apologize. I shouldn't, I shouldn't have said a word and just grab her and hug her". And you just hug back and just spit that pride out. Some people say, swallow your pride. Don't swallow that. I mean, you don't want to keep it. Spit it out, boy. Just get rid of it and be a strong force in the love of God. Let God work. Let him work. Praise God. Father, we thank You for this broadcast today. And we give You praise and honor for it. We lift up our faith. We open our ears and our hearts and mind to receive revelation from heaven. Words that come from You, Sir. Words that come up through the Holy Spirit into our minds to bring faith. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God and to bring faith in Your love. We praise You for it and thank You for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's open our Bibles again today. Back where we were yesterday in 1 John chapter 4 and we're reading verse 8. "He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love". Now we talked about this yesterday. God is love. He doesn't have love. He is love. So now, listen carefully. In fact, I'm going to impact this a little bit more because we're going to be talking about believing the love. If you're believing the love, you're believing God. Isn't that right? So we're talking about having faith in that love. Most people don't. They think they do and don't.
— You know what? For one reason. Nobody's done everything right. If you haven't done everything right, if the devil can find something to condemn you over.
— Condemnation. Oh, that's good, Gloria.
— He'll put it between you and the Lord.
— And you start feeling guilty and, oh, Lord, I knew... Well, no, we're going to get there. We're going to get there and this is very, very important. I can't stress it enough. Now, he that loveth not... He's talking about loving your brethren. "Love the Lord thy God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself and love the brethren even as he loved the brethren" because that's what Jesus said in John 13:34. "Now, in this was manifested the love of God towards us because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation or the sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us". Now, I want you to see that right there. If we love one another, or walking in the commandment of love, right? "If we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him and he in us because he's given us of his Spirit. We have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he in God". Now, get this. Are you listening to me? "Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of love, love dwelleth in him and he in love". Begin to do this. What are you doing? You're renewing your mind to the fact that God is love and love is God. It's very, very important. Now, notice verse 16. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love and he that dwelleth in love, who is God, dwelleth in God, who is love, and God, who is love in him". What am I saying? I'm building an awareness here of the fact that God is love. Let me tell you something. The general public, including Christians, the word love doesn't mean much. It doesn't have any reverence to it at all. Don't you just love my new shirt? Boy, don't you love that pie? Don't you love this? Don't you love that? Well, God is love. Yeah, I know. It has no reference to reverence. Well, God is love. Yeah, I know that. Well, you try your best to mentally grasp that, but to mentally grasp something, won't get it. You have to renew your mind to it and get a revelation of it in your spirit before it produces faith. And you have to have faith in his love. Now, what did the Scripture say? Right here in I John, Chapter 2, Verse 15, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father's not in him. What do you mean there, Brother Copeland? That means we're not supposed to have anything? No. Didn't say we weren't supposed to have it. Said you're not supposed to love it. And I just gave you the illustration. Don't you just love my new shirt? No, I don't. I don't love your shirt. I love you, but I don't love your shirt. There's a very strong distinction in my renewed mind to this and in my spirit. Well, I don't want to use the word offensive to me, not like that, but I draw back from that because God is love and I love him and I love his Word and I love his people and the compassion of God is involved in it. But you will never, Jesus was moved by compassion and healed the sick. He was moved by compassion. He saw them, they were like sheep without a shepherd and he taught them many things. He's been moved by compassion. Well, you can't get there without first taking the step to reverence love for what it really is. Love will never actually develop. Excuse me, compassion will never actually develop to any degree and that's a powerful move of the Holy Ghost. It is just, I wish we had time to get into it. Maybe we will before we get done with this study. Anyway, now let me show you this. Timothy, the apostle Paul by the leading of the Holy Spirit wrote to Timothy. He was a young preacher, young pastor. And he was telling him certain things about the shepherd's office, the pastor's office and pastoring that big church there in Ephesus. And he said to him, he said, you know, one thing he said is the love of money is the root of all evil. Not money, the love of it. You hear what I've said? Love, love not the things of this world. You don't have no business loving money. It'll get you killed. It'll cause you to do things that you'd never ever do. Not money, it's the love of things. Now, he went ahead to say, charge those that are rich, charge the wealthy in this world, sell everything you got and get poor. No, he didn't. He said, "Charge them. Do not be high minded". You're not any better than anybody else because you've got money. Willing to distribute. What does that mean? Being led of the Lord in your tithing, sowing and helping the poor and all. Be led of the Lord because that will increase your substance, your sowing and reaping and tithing and blessing and so forth. Now listen, for he gives us all things, things, natural financial wealth things, richly to enjoy. That's what love does. Love never strips you and makes you poor trying to teach you something. That's a lie of hell and I can prove it from Genesis to Revelation. If you believe that, you're wrong. You may be sincerely wrong, but you're wrong. It is not scripture. Now, I had the Lord ask me one day, I had seen that but I still didn't have my mind renewed to that, but he gives you all things, richly to enjoy and loving not the things of this world. I was working that and renewing my mind and so forth. I heard the Lord say right there in my spirit like he talks to everybody if you listen. He said, "Do I give you..". you remember he said in Philippians chapter four, my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. He said, "Do I meet you, do I supply your needs by giving you things"? I said, yes. No, I don't. What?
— You flunked it.
— Yeah, I flunked that one. It was a loaded question and of course he knew it would help me renew my mind. I was kind of, huh, but I saw it about the time I heard him speaking to me, he said, "No, I give you things richly to enjoy and they meet your needs". Oh, glory to God. Well, Brother Copeland, now let me just tell you something. There's a way I believe it. Okay, tell us how you believe it, sport. Well, I believe that he meets your needs and never your wants. Really?
— Now, what scripture was that?
— Well, I don't know, Gloria, because he just knocked the 23rd Psalm right smooth in the head and that Psalm is about Jesus and we're living in the 23rd Psalm today. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.
— I think I'll stay there.
— Yeah, because, hey, and I've never seen... Help me, Lord.
— The righteous forsaken?
— Yeah.
— Or his seed begging bread?
— Yeah, and the young lions suffer wont, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken. I didn't get it right. I'll look it back up later. Amen. But here's the point. He doesn't want you lacking anything, nothing. You can find it right there in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 and chapter 9 that he is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you always having all sufficiency.
— That's the blessing.
— That's the blessing of the Lord. He does not want any born again believer dependent on anybody but him. He doesn't want you dependent on the government. He doesn't want you dependent on your family. He doesn't want you dependent on your job. He doesn't want you dependent on anything but Him, and He is our source. He may use a lot of different channels, but there's only one source, and His name is Jesus. Amen. Isn't that exciting? Why? Because he loves you. Love did that for you. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Amen.
— This is why He went to the cross.
— Let's get back here to this. "We have known," verse 16, "and believed the love that God has to us". Excuse me, please. Hold your place right there, and let's go back over to the book of Exodus, please.
— You know, that's the key to faith right there.
— Excuse me, the book of Numbers. Go ahead.
— If you don't know that, God is love, and he loves you. It's hard to have faith, especially if you've had a... You know, people have rough lifestyles up until the time they meet God. He loves them. They get born again.
— Oh, absolutely.
— And the blessing comes in, changes everything.
— Praise God.
— Whatsoever's born of God overcometh the world. Hallelujah.
— Listen to this. Numbers chapter 14. Now, God is love, and love delivered his people from Egypt. "The congregation lifted up their voice and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses, then against Aaron, and the whole congregation, and said unto them, Would God that we died in the land of Egypt, or would God we died in the wilderness? Wherefore hath the Lord brought us out unto this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be prayed"? In other words, that they'll kill our children and rape our women. God did that?
— No.
— Wherein is it not better for us to return to Egypt? What happened here? Gloria, they didn't believe He loved them.
— They didn't believe the love. That's right.
— No. Satan was able to get so into their thinking, and this was right at the beginning. And what's God going to do? They're covenant people, and they've turned on Him. We're out of time.
— What a place to quit.
— I know. They did not believe the love. Say it, I believe the love.
— I believe the love.
— I have faith in His love.
— I have faith in His love.
— Love never works ill to its neighbor.
— Love never works ill to its neighbor.
— So how could God work ill to me?
— So how could God work ill to me?
— He is love.
— He is love.
— We'll be back in just a minute.
— Praise God. Amen.