Kenneth Copeland - Yield to God's Love and Resist Fear
At the beginning of the week, we began building a study outline entitled, Seven Steps to Never Being Afraid Again of Anything. Praise God. The process of coming to the place where there's no fear here and you can boldly announce to the devil, praise God, you don't have anything in me. Praise the Lord. Amen. We've come to the revelation and realization that fear tolerated is faith contaminated and it's that contaminated faith that we're dealing with. Now, the first step you remember was come to the absolute understanding that we are already delivered from fear. We got delivered from fear when Jesus went to the cross.
He bore our fear of death just the same as he bore sin, sickness, demons, disease, griefs, and sorrows, weaknesses, and pains, and so forth. They were laid upon him and he bore them. Romans 8:15 and Hebrews 2, 14 and 15 was our scripture on that step. The second step was resist the spirit of fear knowing that fear is not okay, it is sin because it is the violation and the breaking, willful breaking of a commandment because God commanded over 110 times in his Word to fear not.
Revelation 21:8, Joshua 1:9, 1st John 3, 2nd through the 4th verses were scriptures that we used there. Number three, which is where we were when we closed yesterday, faith is, quote, "filtered", end quote, or decontaminated would be a good way to use it since that statement we made earlier. Faith is filtered or decontaminated through love. Now, I want to go back over some scriptural points here concerning that one because I want you to see what's behind the statement Galatians 5:5 and 6, faith worketh by love. And what we're talking about here, the process that is involved. So we'll just connect the dots between several scriptures here.
I want you to pick back up on this again, because you're going to be studying it on tape, studying it on CD later, and you're going to be going through this process again. And we want to, I want to make sure that you see the progression of the scriptures here that faith worketh by love. Let's look first of all in Mark 4, Mark 4, verse 14, the sower soweth the Word. "These are they by the wayside where the Word is sown. When they have heard, Satan cometh immediately and taketh away the Word that was sown in their hearts. These are they likewise, which are sown on stony ground, who when they have heard the Word immediately receive it with gladness and have no root in themselves".
Now who stole the Word? Satan. Now this scripture right here strongly infers and implies had they had root in themselves, even though Satan came, he would not have been successful at stealing the Word from them. Because you get down to the closer to the end of this chapter and Jesus talks about those that receive some 30, some 60, and some hundredfold. Well, Satan was not successful then in stealing the Word from them, was he? All right. No root in themselves. Say that loud. No root in themselves. So it's obvious here Satan is going to try to get it while it's still a seed before it has time to take root and grow up. I'll tell you, a tree is a whole lot harder to take down than a seed is to dig up. Amen.
Now let's go to Ephesians chapter three. This prayer that the Holy Ghost prayed and authored into scripture through the Apostle Paul, 14th verse, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man that Christ the Anointed One and his anointing may dwell in you or in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love".
Well, now we've added a dimension to having no root in yourself, haven't we? "Being rooted and grounded in love, we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the depth, and the height, and to know the love of Christ," love of the Anointed, the love of God, that's God himself. The anointing is the expression of himself, "which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all the fullness of God".
Now I want you to really latch onto that statement, filled with all the fullness of God. Let me ask you this question. If you were filled with all the fullness of God, would there be any room for fear? Well, of course not. So this process is what we're digging into, isn't it? Amen. There's got to be some way of filling this thing up. Now, let's go over then to the book of Jude and look at the 20th verse, "But you, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God," praying in the Holy Ghost, praying in tongues, not as some sort of a super release of ecstasy at some place in time where you've prayed and fasted for 40 days, and you've got goose bumps stacked on goose bumps, and it finally just burst out in other tongues.
That's not what we're talking about, though. What we are talking about is the daily exercise, an act of your will, choosing to pray with your understanding, but to pray in other tongues. The scripture said in 1 Corinthians 14th chapter, when you do that, you edify yourself. You build up yourself. Jude says you're building yourself up on your most holy faith, but then he adds a dimension here, which is keeping yourself in the love of God.
Now, you remember the process here? Satan comes immediately to steal the Word, but we begin to build root in the Word, keeping ourselves in the love of God, rooted and grounded in the love of God. How do you do that? Well, whoso keepeth his Word, 1 John 2:5, in him is the love of God perfected. We're going to get over into that area here in a moment, but I wanted to remind you of that as we go. Perfected love casteth out fear. Amen. But right here, I want you to see exercising your spirit will build up your spirit the way exercising your body builds up your body. It doesn't just make your body bigger, it makes it stronger.
The motive is not to get your body bigger, to some people it is, because they want to look like Superman, but you can't make those muscles bigger without them getting stronger. And in good health, you're not looking just for good looks, you are looking for good health, which takes strength. Amen. The same thing's true with praying in tongues on a regular training basis, praying, edifying, praying also that you interpret, praying and stopping and believe you receive when you pray, just the same as you do in the natural and believe it's in the Holy Ghost, believe it's utterance from God, believe it is the vision of your future and so forth and so forth.
Well, what's going on? You're being filled with the fullness of God. What's happening? Well, sure, your spirit's getting bigger. There's two things that'll cause your spirit to get bigger. You know, the Bible said, "Desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby", but somewhere down the line, you have to get off milk and get on meat. So how do you go from milk to meat? Well, one of the things is meditation in the Word. Meditating in the Word builds your larger capacity for faith. The more you meditate in it, the bigger the Word looks, the bigger God looks, the bigger it looks to you. And the more you meditate or worry on the problem, the bigger the problem looks, the bigger it looks, the bigger you build a capacity for fear. You see the difference between the two? Same process, one going in one direction, the other in exactly opposite direction.
Now, edifying yourself, building yourself up, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping yourself in the love of God, what are we doing? We're sinking spiritual roots in love. Love is coming up. Love is coming up. Love is growing. Love, that's God. It's not something God has. That's God Himself being filled with the fullness of God. Amen? Now, I John, which is just right there next door to the left, I John, Chapter 4, we quoted this. Read it for yourself. Verse 18, "There is no fear in love". Well, of course not. There's no fear in God. But perfected or developed love casteth out fear.
It's that development that we're talking about in praying in the Holy Ghost, praying in the Holy Ghost. It's not the only thing that develops it, but it is a major function of your spirit. Now, look then at, come on over to the 5th chapter, "Whosoever believeth Jesus is the Christ, is born of God. Everyone that loves him that beget, everyone that loves the Father, loves him also that's begotten of him, or born of the Father". And then, Verse 3, "This is loving God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous. For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world".
Well, it was the world and Satan. You remember now when we went over there in Mark 14, you remember studying that chapter, you remember it said, talked about the cares of the world entering in and choking the Word. Well, I thought it said Satan cometh immediately to take the Word out. Well, where do you think the cares of the world come from? See, he's behind that. Cares of the world, lusts of other things entering in, he's behind that. Persecution and affliction, the Word said, arises for the Word's sake. Persecution and affliction don't come from God to try to make you stronger.
Dear Lord. It comes from Satan who's trying to steal the Word. You follow me now? All right, we're talking about becoming fuller and fuller and fuller. The love of God, keeping yourself in the love of God, edifying, building up, getting bigger on the inside than you are on the outside. Glory to God. Becoming God in me, aware and conscious. Greater is he that's in me than he that is in the world. See, now, follow with that now. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
Now, let's go down here to the 18th verse. We know that whosoever is born of God, let's read it like this. We know whosoever is born of love, he's born of love. He's developing in love. He's being filled with the fullness of love, who is God. Amen. Now, we've already found out that the fuller he gets and the fuller she gets here, training in love, keeping the Word, standing on the Word, meditating in the Word, and praying in tongues, and praying and interpret... spiritual activity, acting on the things of God, and becoming aware that greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, and meditating on these things. What's happening? You're filling this thing up with the love of God, and we found out that casts out fear.
The word "cast" is translation of the word that means to flush. It flushes it out. There's no room for it anymore. You've got more of something else coming in there, just pushing, and pushing, and pushing, pushing out. There are two words you need to get aware of. One is absorb, A-B, ab. That's what a towel does when you wipe water up with it. It absorbs that water into itself. But now, to absorb, A-B, S-O-R-B, is just exactly the opposite. It refuses to take into itself, and just swells up and pushes everything out before it.
Now, there would be a difference if you were trying to clean out a pipe. This pipe has got contamination in it, and you're going to clean it out. Well, you might run a rag through that pipe, and absorb whatever's in there, and pull it out. But then you pulled a rag out and looked in there, my goodness, I didn't do any good at all. This stuff is stuck to this pipe. This is just not working to absorb this stuff. It's just not strong enough. I can't get this stuff out of here.
What are you going to have to do? You're going to have to push it out of there. You're going to have to grind it out. You're going to have to push. You're going to have to somehow or another break what's in there loose. A-loose, that's a good Texas word. You're going to have to break whatever's in there loose, and then push it. You're going to have to put something in there that's so big and fat that other stuff can't stay. Big, fat, strong, powerful, amen, that whatever was in there before, once this gets driven through that pipe, there ain't going to be nothing left in there.
Well, if the pipe is your spirit, and fear is the contaminator, and that... See, all sin is based in fear. Self-protection, self-indulgement, fear, I'm not going to ever get to do this again, or whatever it is. And unforgiveness particularly, which is a cardinal sin of the church. Unforgiveness is direct violation of the commandment to forgive, see? I mean, and when you get over into unforgiveness, and you get your pipe full of that, the glory of God can't move. Satan come along, steal the Word out of you, the faster you put it in there. Why? You get offended. No root in yourself. But what happens, that root starts to get powerful, and God himself starts pushing up in there. It begins to adsorb everything in there, every nook and cranny.
I mean, God is beginning to fill out the inside of your spirit. Glory to God. You look like a fellow that wore a size 40 suit, and he started working out, and now he's a size 44, and that old 44 suit coming all to... I mean, that size 40 suit coming all to pieces. He'd get too big for this thing anymore. Hallelujah. You follow the picture of this thing now? All right. Now, the 18th verse, we know whosoever is born of God, whosoever is born of love, whosoever is walking in love, is not only flushing out fear, he's flushing out sin. It'll get rid of the desire to sin. It'll get rid of all sin consciousness.
When you fall in love with the fact that God has fallen in love with you, amen. Oh, glory to God. Hallelujah. Take the fear out of there. The Bible says, awake to righteousness and sin not. I mean, love covers the multitude of sin. There is no sin that love fails in the face of. There is no sin that love is not overwhelming, overpowerful, and will flush it out of there. Praise God. One that has been practicing sin in some form or another, you get over to doing what we're talking about here, and it'll flush the desire for it out. It'll absolutely separate you from it. It'll get rid of it, and the devil, he doesn't have any more hook in you anymore. Why? You don't have any fear. Amen.
The cleansing power of the Word is working, and you're being washed by the water of the Word of God. Hallelujah. This marvelous stuff here. You need to meditate it out and study it out even further. But now here's the big part. We know whosoever is born of love, born of God, sinneth not. He's not a sin practicer. Why? Why does that do that? One of the big problems that we got into through religion is sin consciousness. Now, the book of Hebrews tells us once a worshiper is purged, he should have no more sin consciousness. 10th chapter of the book of Hebrews. And then the first chapter of the book of Hebrews said, "Jesus purged our sins".
The blood of bulls and calves and so forth in the old covenant couldn't purge you of your sin. It just covered it or was an atonement for it. To use the English word atone in reference to the blood of Jesus is not a bad word. It doesn't totally mistranslate it, but it gives the wrong concept. Actually, to atone means to cover up. The blood of Jesus doesn't cover for sin, it remitted it. It absorbed it, destroyed it, pushed it out, took its power from it. See, so we're talking about remitted sin, delivered from sin. You follow me now? So the blood of Jesus in the 10th chapter of Hebrews, the worshiper once purged should have no more sin consciousness.
Now, let me give you an example of sin consciousness and you'll pick up on it real quick and then we'll move on. And sin consciousness is based in religious fear. Sin consciousness makes statements like this. Well, we're just old sinners saved by grace. You can't be both. You're either an old sinner or you're saved by grace. But when you get saved by grace, you're not an old sinner anymore. Just as I am, just as I am without one plea. But he didn't leave you just as you were.
Any man that is in Christ is a new creature. Old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new and all things are of God. And he who knew no sin was made to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. But sin consciousness stands up and says, "Well, I know it says that Brother Copeland, but I, you know, I know I'm just unworthy. I'm just no good". "Well, why don't you get saved"? "Oh, I got saved, you know, in 1962". "Well, but you mean to tell me you got saved, but you're still not the righteousness of God"? "Well, I'm trying to be, Brother Copeland. I'm working at it".
Like Brother Jesse said, that's frustrating. You're trying to become what you already are now as God. And then when God doesn't respond to that, you think he don't care nothing about you, but he can't respond to that because you're exercising fear instead of faith. Sin consciousness is what causes that. Conscious of our unworthiness, conscious of sin all the time, conscious of falling short of the glory, conscious of all these things.
Now, all of these things, the scripture say, but the scripture is bringing these things out to let us know that we're not in that mess anymore. We've been delivered by the blood of Jesus and the more real these things become, and I mean, the more joy gets on your face, you're walking around saying there ain't nothing. I tell you, God loves me and I love God and I'm the righteousness of God. Hallelujah. He bore my sin, my sickness, demons, and fear. I'm a free man. Hallelujah.