Kenneth Copeland - A Fearless Lifestyle Shows God's Love to Others
We want to go back into our seven steps to never being afraid again. And we were down through the fifth step. The first one, come to the absolute understanding that we are already delivered from fear. Fear has no right nor authority over us. Hebrews 2:14, and 15 said at the cross that Jesus delivered us from fear and from being subject to bondage through the fear of death. And then, of course, Romans 8:15.
The second step was resist the spirit of fear, knowing that fear is not okay. Fear is sin. Revelation 21:8. Joshua 1:9. 1 John 3, 2 through 4. Then, of course, 2 Timothy 1, 5 through 7. We've not been given the spirit of fear. So, if we've not been given the spirit of fear, we don't have any business with it. Amen. I don't want something that didn't come from God, do you? Jesus is my Lord. He's my Savior. I'm walking with him. I don't like things that are, you know, that are not respectful to him. I don't like, I don't want to receive anything that doesn't come from him. He is my Lord. He's my head. He's the one I receive from. So, if it doesn't come from him or through him, I don't want it. And we've not been given the spirit of fear. We've been given power and love and a sound mind.
Number three, faith is, quote, filtered or decontaminated through love. Galatians 5, 5 and 6, faith worketh by love. Ephesians 3:17, being rooted and grounded in love. Then we went to Jude verse 20 and 21, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keeping yourself in love. So, now that we see that exercising in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit in other tongues, functions in the realm of love and keeping us in the love of God. And then 1 John 5:18, whosoever is born of God, sinneth not, or is not living a sin practicing lifestyle. We make mistakes. We miss it, miss God, and certainly get misdirection and so forth. But our heart is to walk with God and to walk in God.
You know, real people, born-again people are not looking for a way to sin and get away with it. No, no. I mean, even people that get caught up in bondage and get caught up in addictions and so forth. You'll find that, at least I've found over the years, that even in the case, even in a case like that, somebody gets caught up in something that's just outright sin. But their heart is condemning them over it. And their conscience is just tearing them apart over the thing. But they've yielded to their flesh. And particularly if they don't know how to get out of it.
There's a lot of people that say, well, dear Lord, Brother Copeland, I just fasted and I prayed and I prayed and I prayed and nothing happened. Well, without proper acting on the Word, taking advantage of the weapons of our warfare, and learning how to resist and go against the flesh and win, then your flesh will just keep you bound up, just keep you swallowed up in that thing. And most people, when they get in a situation like that, instead of running to God in the first place, they get embarrassed and get to where they run from God.
And then you're trying to protect yourself, keep anybody from finding out about it and all that. And the more you're operating in fear, the deeper the thing gets. But even at that, that person is not trying to sin and get away with it. Do you understand the difference there in what I'm talking about? Now here, he's describing that. And in that scripture, it said, he keepeth himself. Well, we found out in the book of Jude what that's talking about. He keeps himself in love, perfected love casteth out fear, praise God. And so the scripture said that wicked one touches him not. Amen. Boy, that's good news too.
Then number four is receive the love. It's an act of receiving what God has done for you, just the same as it was when you got born again. You had to receive Jesus as your Lord and your Savior. The same thing is true with anything that God has done for us. We take the Word of God on it. And then we actively, as an act of our will, an act of decision, and then releasing our faith on it, we receive it. And we begin to alter our lifestyle to fit whatever we have just received. Amen. When you made Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, from that moment, you told everybody you were a Christian. See, with the heart, man believe with unrighteousness, but with the mouth, confession is made to it.
So confession needs to be made to John 17:23, that God loves us as much as he does Jesus. Well, Jesus prayed that and said that. Then in the 26th verse, it said, "The love wherewith you, God love me, Jesus, may be in them, and I in them," Jesus said. So we receive that. I received that Jesus said that. I received the fact that you love me as much as you do, Jesus. I don't understand that. Amen. It looks like God's getting a bad deal. But you turn over there to the book of Philippians and it said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who thought it not robbery to be called equal with God".
See, he didn't call it robbing God to stand and confess his equality with God. I'm his Son and he's my Father. If you've seen me, you've seen him. Hallelujah. They said, "Wow, that's blasphemous". No, he said, "I ain't robbing God. I know who I am". Praise the Lord. Amen. Now he said, "Let that mind be in you". That mind won't just get in you because that goes right straight across all religion. It goes right straight across all your natural feelings. It goes right straight across all the fear-based ideas that anybody's ever had.
So you have to adopt that. You have to let that mind be in you. And you have to begin to confess, whoa, I'm the child that God loves. Hallelujah. That's what the apostle John did. He said, "I'm the apostle that God loves. I'm the one he loves". Well, he wasn't singling himself out to be something bigger than anybody else. He just caught a revelation of that and he confessed it. That's the reason he's the one that wrote in first John chapter five or four rather in the 15th, 16th verses. Whosoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwells in him and he in God and God is love.
See, there's the whole thing. Well, he heard Jesus pray that. That's the reason he wrote it in his gospel. He heard that prayer. He received that prayer and he wrote it word for word in his gospel. Amen. So our confession then is our receiving what he has already said about us. And I'll tell you what, it'll turn you right square... Absolutely. It'll just run cross grain of most people that hear it. Well, I don't care. I mean, they got the grain out there. I would just run across it. Praise the Lord. Somebody said, "You just step on my toes every time I come to church". Well, you got them stuck out there, dear Lord. Do you ever notice two people walking together? You can't step on one another's toes. Figure that out for yourself. Praise the Lord. Now, receive the love.
And then number five was believe the love. 1 John 4, 15 and 16, we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love. And you know, right in the midst of those verses of scripture there in 1 John 4 and 5, we find scripture stuck in there like this. Find statements stuck in there like this, that we have confidence. That whatsoever we ask according to His will, He gives it to us. Isn't that amazing? That kind of confidence is fitted right into believing the love. That's easy to believe when you realize you have His favor. Amen. But fear-based religion never, never, ever says anything about the favor of the Lord.
Did you ever notice this? Someone that says, "Now, Brother Copeland, I believe God heals, but then now He doesn't heal everybody". Now, what's coming next? You never hear this. Now, Brother Copeland, I do believe that God heals, but now He doesn't heal everybody, but He always heals me. That don't fit there, does it? Somebody that says that is always one that He doesn't. It's always somebody else He healed, not me. Why? Because the first statement was unbelief. Well, you're not going to mix unbelief and faith all in the same sentence. I mean, the next sentence is going to be unbelief too, and He don't ever heal me.
I don't understand why. I mean, dear Lord, I'm just as good as the next guy. Well, we just don't believe in that healing much, Brother Copeland. Well, you ain't going to be bothered with it. There ain't no use you even talking about it. Now then, believe the love, and then we subtitle this with subtitle A. That was step five. Subtitle A, believe it's in you now. B, believe it never fails. I Corinthians 13:8. C, believe it is God. It's not the love of God. It is love who is God. Love who is God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Spirit of God or by the Spirit of love. Amen.
Now, let's go into number six. Use or practice the love. Make the quality forever. No turn back, no arguing decision to live the life of love and faith. Use and practice the love of God. Practice loving God. Now, let's go through a set of scriptures here. Go back over to 1 John. You need to read the book of 1 John carefully. Meditate on it over and over again. Read it from different translations. Just absorb this book because it is the centerpiece of what we're talking about.
1 John 2:5. "Whoso keepeth his Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected or developed, comes to full course". The Amplified translation says is allowed to run its full course in your life. Hereby know we that we are in him. Now, that is generally true concerning all the promises of God. Keeping the Word, acting on the Word, confessing the Word, believing the Word. The Word is the bottom line to our prayer life. You know, we start off with the answer. We start off where other people hope to so many days get. But God's Word is his part of our prayer life. We start off with what he said.
That's the answer to the prayer. And then pray the prayer based on what he's already said. Well, now that's certainly true. Whosoever does that, in him verily is the love of God perfected. But this verse of scripture is speaking specifically, look at verse four. He that saith I know him and keepeth not his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him. But so he's talking about keeping the commandment. What commandment is he talking about? Is he talking about the 10 commandments? Well, he's not putting them out of the picture. But Jesus said, "Love your neighbor as yourself, love God and you fulfill all the commandments".
So to love one another is our commandment, even as God for Christ's sake loved us, to believe on the name of his Son, Jesus, and love one another. And that is the commandment about which he is speaking here. If that commandment is first and foremost, if we've done just what we've talked about here, we have made a quality decision that our lifestyle from here on is to live the life of love and live the life of faith, praise God. Then in doing so, as you walk in that, as you keep that, as that develops in you, you're not going to steal. You're not going to break the commandments of God. You can't because you're walking and living in faith and love. Just to live by faith, amen. Well, faith worketh by love.
Now then, whoso keepeth that Word in him verily is the love of God perfected. Now look in the fourth chapter at the 12th verse, 4:12. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God, who is love, dwelleth in us. And his love is perfected or developed or brought to full stature in us. So you see where we need to use the word practice to practice the love of God. This is our lifestyle. This is what we do all the time. We don't just go along in our natural little way until some situation comes up where we need to, oh, practice love. No, if you don't practice it all the time, think about it all the time, be involved with it all the time.
When that situation arises, you will think about it two days after you just knocked that guy stupid. You'd be like my son, John was when he was a little boy. He came to me and he said, "Daddy, how come is it I don't ever feel like repenting until after I sin"? Amen. But once you make the decision, I keep using that phrase, a decision of quality, that is a decision about which there's no more argument and there's no more retreat. I mean, there's no turning back. This thing's forever. It is a commitment.
The thing that solidly puts a decision in place is the written Word of God and that communion cup. Amen. You put the blood of Jesus and the body of Jesus on the table and you have the scriptures and you have the decision. You have all the elements of success and then the power that's in the Word, the power that's in the blood, the power that is in His resurrection, praise God, begins to work for you. Hallelujah. Amen. I'm telling you, you're on your way then. Praise God.
Now, practice the love. 1 John 2:5, 1 John 4:12. Let's read that 12th verse again. No man has seen God who is love at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and His love is perfected in us. Now, look at the 18th verse. There is no fear in love, but perfected love casteth out fear. Can you see what's happening during this process? You're praying in the Holy Ghost. You've made a decision to walk in love and to practice love, to walk in faith and practice faith. And here you are practicing this on a daily basis. If you're practicing love, if you're thinking of ways that you can love somebody, if you're thinking of ways that you can love and serve your heavenly Father, if you're thinking of ways to practice love all the time, guess who you're not thinking about? Me, my problems and what they did to me.
Now, if you've done this and you're doing that and they have done something to you, I guess who's gonna come up on the top of the list for you to practice this love on? Yeah, sister prune face over there that's been in your hair ever since you've been in that church. She's not your enemy. She's not your enemy. Poor miserable thing. I mean, she's hurting and you just happened to be the closest one. She spit and you were in the way. I mean, amen. Brother Copeland, it seemed like to me it was worse than that. Well, if you hadn't have been there, she'd have been on somebody else, wouldn't she?
So you have to learn, you have to start thinking like that. And as you're practicing this, start thinking love and faith thoughts about her to start with or about that person. And it may be a while before you have any business making contact with them. You just love, you just go ahead and practice. And after all, that's what we're doing right now. We just practicing here, praise the Lord. You got your own self to deal with here for a while. And you begin to build that up, build that up. You can think of ways you can bless that person.
Now don't try to think of ways how they are gonna respond. You ain't got any idea how they're gonna respond. Forget that, get that off of your mind. You know, most of the problems that we get involved in are things that we sit there and get to thinking about. And that little thing that goes over in your mind all the time, talking to you all the time. You got that little voice going on in there all the time. Well, I'm gonna do this and they're gonna do that and they'll do that and they'll do this and they'll do that. Oh, look at that truck. I just got hit by a truck. I'm rolled over in a ditch. My tires are upside down, going jib, jib, jib, jib, jib. I mean, it just goes on all the time.
The Word says, "Bring every thought into obedience. Cast down imaginations and reasonings that exalt themselves against the knowledge of God" or against your knowledge, what you know about God and the Word and what you're practicing. You have to get active in that all the time. Get that thing that is unruly and bring it into the confines of Jesus. Get that thing where it talks love all the time. Now then, are you with me so far? Now, I John 2:5, I John 4:12, I John 4, 15 through 18, perfecting the love of God, casteth out fear. Now look in the fifth chapter. Let's look at 4:21, verse 21 of the fourth chapter. This commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God loveth his brother also.
Now don't just breeze past that. Stop and think about that a minute. He who is practicing love, he's loving God. What? Well, I'm going to read this in a minute. I'm going to get ahead of myself a little bit here. Loving God, loving one another is keeping the commandment of God. So loving one another is loving God. You're not just on your knees saying, "Oh God, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you". That's good. That's wonderful. You ought to do that. Amen. And as you do that, as you confess that love for him, that'll just grow and grow and grow. But actually obeying his commandment is loving him. Jesus said, "If you love me, you keep my Word".