Kenneth Copeland - Live Fearlessly Through the Power of God's Love
Now, 1 John 2:5, 1 John 4:12, 1 John 4.15-18, 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". Well, you say, call me Lord, Lord, and you don't do what I tell you to do. So, keeping that commandment, loving one another, his love is developing and perfecting in us, but that is loving God, keeping his commandment.
Now, we want to see that written down here. "This commandment have we from him that he who loveth God loveth his brother also, whosoever believeth Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth him that begat, or everyone that loves the Father loves him also that's born of the Father, or he loves the children. By this we know we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments for this is the love of God". Look what your Amplified there says. This is loving God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous.
Now, I want to talk about this for a moment that his commandments are not grievous. Keeping the commandments of God do not produce grief. There's not a way in the world to produce grief when you don't have any fear. Even when a very close loved one steps over on the other side and goes on home to be with the Lord while everybody else is grieving, you're rejoicing that that person has stepped over into glory. Hallelujah. Why? The other folks are grieving because they're left. What are we going to do now that he's gone? Oh, what am I going to do now that he's gone? Oh God, what am I going to do?
Grief is a sense of loss, but when you're working and walking and practicing the love of God and it's developing in you, you develop a sense of heaven. Heaven and earth come together. God and you come together. All of these things, your vision of life changes. Hallelujah. You say, well, what about somebody that died that didn't know Jesus? Well, when you walk in the love of God, you come to the place where you got better sense than to judge that for yourself. And you say, well, I trust God. I don't know that person may have whispered Jesus right before they stepped over onto the other side. Dear Lord, I sure hope they did. Praise God. Amen.
Now I need to do something here to help the people that are left and minister to them. You're still walking in love, aren't you? Now there's going to be a moment, particularly with somebody that you know, somebody close to you, there are moments of sadness, but not sorrow. The Word commands sorrow not. We are not a people without hope. We rejoice. We resist grief. Jesus bore our grief, so we resist it. Well, on the other end of resisting grief comes the joy of the Lord. You missed that. On the other end of the activity of resisting grief comes the joy of the Lord. The way on the other end of resisting sickness and disease comes healing, divine health. Amen.
I'll tell you, it's got joy tied to it just as sure as heaven rolls. Amen. Well, don't wait until the funeral to begin to develop this. Start working with it now. Pastors, begin to preach this in your churches. Get people ready because if you tolerate grief, you're tolerating fear and that spirit of grief is death's next door neighbor. It is death's companion. And if you allow people to just squall and bawl and wallow around in the floor and all that, well, bless your heart, time will heal it all. It won't do it. The thing will just bed up there in your church and manifest itself later in a different way. You listening to me? Practicing love, walking in love, perfecteth love, develops love.
Now, notice what comes in the very next verse. Whatsoever is born of love overcometh the world. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world? But he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of love. Now, turn with me to Ephesians chapter six and I'll show you the other side of the story. Ephesians six, verse eight. All right, let's read down into that. Well, let's just start with the first verse.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first commandment with promise, that it may be well with thee that thou mayest live long on the earth. You fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord who is love. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh with fear. Or that word fear there is not the fear we've been talking about that, that word properly translated is reverence, respect, honor. With honor and respect and trembling in singleness of your heart as unto the anointed one in his anointing, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as the servants of the anointed one in his anointing doing the will of God who is love from the heart.
Now, what all have I described here? This is living the life of love and faith. Isn't that right? I mean, everything he said there, honor your parents. That's loving them, isn't it? You can't honor without love and you can't love without honor. True honor... if you ask, see, we're into here our third and fourth generation of children, children, parents, now grandparents that don't know anything about honor. Don't know what it is. Honor has to be sensed as well as taught. Now they quit teaching it in schools. So, and most preachers didn't know what it was either. And so here now you got third and fourth generation that have no idea what it is. I just never heard of that.
Well, and you, but you can ask someone, you can say, "You believe in doing the right thing"? "Oh yeah, sure". But in their mind, the right thing is whatever is right for them. Because we're talking about being basically honest. What's basically honest? That's the little boys, like the little fellow that his Sunday school teacher said, what is a lie? He said, "It's abomination to God and the never present help in time of trouble".
Well, to be basically honest means you don't lie unless you have to, you know, I mean, basically honest. Well, he's basically honest. Ain't no such thing as basically honest. Honor then in current vernacular and so forth is to, well, you know, do the right thing. Yeah, but now, you know, you can push that too far. You got to take care of one another. You just cut your own throat because whatever you compromise to keep, you will lose it. That's the way the system works. Can't change it. Now we're here in the sixth chapter. Look at this. "Not with our service as men pleasers", verse seven "with goodwill doing service as unto the Lord".
Now remember loving your brother is loving God. Keeping the commandment to love is loving God. Developing the love all the time. You're developing the love. You're casting out fear. This whole system is working. You're praying in the Holy Ghost. There's a prayer life developing here. Amen. The more you do this, the less fear you have. You treat people right regardless of what they do. You don't treat them right just because you know they're going to respond right.
Now watch what happens. With goodwill doing service as unto the Lord and not to men knowing, say knowing, knowing... you're knowing something. There's something that has built up on the inside you and has brought you to the place where you know something. You know something. There's something here you don't even have to think about. There's something here that, I mean, you just know. You know that you know, and you know that you know that you know, and you know that you know that you know that you know, because you know you know, and you know that you know you know, and you know God knows that you know, and you know that you know God knows. Amen.
Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man does, the same shall he receive from the Lord regardless of whether he's bond or free, regardless of whether he's in his own business or works for somebody else, regardless of whether he's punching the time clock or he owns the time clock, regardless, regardless of the station in life, the same shall he receive from the Lord. That's the reason the janitor can have a jet. You listen to me? Amen. He's walking in the things of God. He is walking with God. The things that are in God are flowing in his behalf. And Jesus said, "I came that you might have life and have it more abundantly".
Now you come to this place. Confession brings possession. We've already talked about 1 John 4:15, 16, "Whosoever confesseth Jesus is the Son of love, God or Love dwells in him and he in God" and so forth and so on. So you continually confess what Brother Savelle developed here for us. That just thrilled me. You need to go back and read that over and over. And every time you find that word "grace", his divine favorite to me. Every time you find that word "peace", freedom from all fear. What should I be afraid of? Amen. God is my Father.
Now I'm acting and living in the love life and in the faith life. Every time you find the word "God" translated his love for Love. So Love the world that Love gave his only begotten Son, the Son of love and whosoever believeth on the Son of love should not perish, but have everlasting life. And then notice how the next verse just, just marries itself to it. For he did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it. Hallelujah. Are you following me here now? And then every time you find the word "Christ", the Anointed one and his anointing, rooting and grounding and rooting and grounding, sending those roots deep, rooted and grounded in love, to what?
The fullness of God going, exceeding abundantly beyond all he can ask or think because the fullness of God is working in you by the power that worketh in you to the glory of God. My, my, my. Hallelujah. Now confessing that the lifestyle becomes the lifestyle of the giver and not the taker. This is the highest form of life on this planet. And in the book of Deuteronomy, we are promised days of heaven on the earth. No, it won't stop the problems, but it overcomes the problem. You get the point of the problem, don't mean much to you anymore. You don't, you don't dwell on them.
I heard John Osteen say one time, you know, he said, "Brother Copeland, you know, I don't watch much television. Y'all have been through three or four crisis". I didn't even know was on. He said, "I didn't even know y'all was having all this trouble because I just missed it". They didn't tell me about it on television, so I didn't know it was there. You get to where you're walking in victory. You're resisting in the name of Jesus, but the devil is fleeing from you. Jesus said in this world, you're going to have trouble. Tribulation, you're going to have it. But he said, "Be of good cheer".
He didn't say get in there and mix with the trouble. The trouble's there. The devil is there and he's coming against you. You can figure on that. But he said, "Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world". Now listen to what else he said. You remember when he said, don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. He said right before that, he said, "My peace, my freedom from all fear, I give unto you, not as the world gives, give I unto you. Therefore, let your heart not be troubled, neither let it be afraid". How does the world give? Well, in first place, they're going to demand that you earn whatever you get. We get what we get by grace. Did you earn your salvation? How did you get it? By... and faith. Hallelujah.
You're beginning to connect, aren't you? You were connecting the dots and it always comes out a painting of Jesus every time you do it. Now, if they do give you something, you owe me. You owe me and I am going to collect. Amen. He said, "I don't give it to you like that". How does he get it? He said, "Freely, you have received, freely give. I'm giving my peace, my grace, my freedom". Now, he said, "I don't go anywhere, but what my Father says go. I don't do anything, but what I see my Father do it. I don't say anything, but what my Father says it". Remember him preaching that? Then the scripture says right there, the narrator comes in and said, "Many believed".
Right at that point, he just taught about that and many believe. Now he's talking to those that believe. And he said, "Continue ye in my Word". Now, wait a minute. He just got through saying, I don't say anything unless my Father says it. Huh? Now hold on to that connection. This is the way we got his peace. He said, "Continue you in my Word that I got from the father and you will be my disciple indeed. Just like I'm a disciple of my Father. And you will know the truth and the truth will make you free as I am".
The rest of you get the tape and study it till you get it. Hallelujah. Get on the giving side of life. The giver gives. He gives when he has it to give. He gives when he doesn't have it. He prospers every person with whom he comes in contact. The taker takes all the time. He takes when he has it and he takes when he doesn't have it. And he never has other people's prosperity on his mind. Now this comes down into the simple little things of life. You have to come to the place if you want to be on the right hand at judgment, because he said, "I was naked and you gave, I was hungry and you gave, I was thirsty and you gave, I was in prison and you gave".
Amen. Over here, he said, "I was naked. You didn't give me anything. I was thirsty. You didn't give me anything. I was hungry. You didn't give me anything. I was in prison. You never showed up. I was sick and you didn't care. So here are the takers over here". They're the goats and here are the givers over here and they're the sheep. Why? Because God gave his best. God is a giver. He gives all the time. Satan, the slanderer is the one that accused him of being a taker. God will take your children. No, he's not a child taker, husband taker, wife taker. He keeps his commandments. He's not a murderer. Amen.
So I'm talking about the little things. When you get back to your hotel room, put all that soap back where you got it and just use what was put out there for you to use. You don't need them little old skinny bars of soap anyway. Amen. Quit trying to prosper and add to yourself and start trying to prosper and add to the folks that own that hotel. Any good thing any man does the same shall he receive of the Lord. The Lord will see to it you don't ever run out of soap. Put the towels back. Put the hangers back.
Well now Brother Copeland, this ain't gonna hurt anything. I mean that's an insurance company that's gonna take it. Hey, insurance companies are people and you're the one that's getting socked with those premiums because there's a lot of other people out there conning and forging and beating the insurance companies. We want to prosper. Amen. I'll tell you one thing. I believe in all that Brother Copeland. The thing that's eating me up is taxes and the government. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, you better close your ear to the way people are knocking this government. Amen.
You begin to bless. Every time you pay your taxes, you lay your hands on that and say they don't have to extract this from me. The Word of God says pay my taxes without grumbling and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I sow my seed into this government in the name of Jesus and I believe I receive all that I'm due for this government's concern and I bless it. I bless it. I bless it. I bless it. Sure they do a lot of things that are not right. How could they not?
The church has been pulling them down and criticizing them and beating them over the head instead of being who we are, the express image of Jesus, the giver. Hallelujah. Gloria and I started doing this back in 1967 and we've prospered over the years. We've paid a lot of taxes and I refuse to grumble about it. God had blessed us and it was there and it was over here and that, and we put it together and paid that. We never no more felt that and God replaced it just almost all overnight and we just kept right on going. Praise the Lord.
Now that's not the only time stuff like that happens. I mean, it's happened over and over. We have always had the money to pay our taxes. We have never been put under pressure because of it, because we blessed it and any good thing any man does the same shall he receive of the lover himself. Now, step one, step two, step three, step four, step five, step six, and step seven, and now we are walking and practicing the love of God.
Welcome to no fear here. You'll be there before you know it. You will be there. You'll wake up some morning, some little old something will happen and you'll laugh about it and you'll stop and think. My goodness, six months ago I'd have been under the table, wiggling around in the floor, crying and squalling and bawling, and here I am this morning. I'll just walk off from that. Praise God like ain't nothing to it. Hallelujah.