Kenneth Copeland - The Fruit of the Spirit Is Your Victory
Let’s go back to our golden text in the book of James, please. I’ve made notes all over this page. Let the Word correct you. Don’t get hurt and feel sorry for yourself. Let the Word fight its own fight. You can’t fight thoughts with thoughts. That’s impossible. Fighting thoughts with thoughts? No, no, no, no, no, no. You have to fight thoughts with words. So you take the Word that covers your situation, and you take that Word, you think it, you think that Word, and say it. You think that Word and say it.
You think that Word and say it until you say that Word without thinking. And therefore you have renewed your mind to that situation. Sometimes you can do it in a few days, sometimes you can’t. There was a time that this ministry was six million dollars behind on its TV bill. And I thought, we’ve had the worst year we’ve ever had. Oh, what are we going to do? We’ve had the worst year we’ve ever had. And I just waited. I had to go before the board and tell them we’ve had the worst year we’ve ever had. And George would prepare everything and give it to me, and I hadn’t even looked at it. I just waited. The board meeting is the next day. What am I going to tell these people?
Oh, my God, my God, my God, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? Oh, God. And I just waited and waited until late. I went down to my study and I went through there and this is the part. Best year we’ve ever had. This department, best year we’ve ever had. This department, best year we’ve ever had. TV department, six million behind. I said, «Lord, we’ve had a good year». Yeah, he said, «All of them except the one you tried to run». He said, «You know better than that. You roll that care over on me and you do it now». Gloria had already gone to bed. I said, «Gloria, come here and look at this. We’ve had the best year we’ve ever had, except for the mess I made in the TV department».
Oh, we grabbed hands and rolled a care of it over on the Lord according to First Peter 5. And stood on it. And Second Corinthians 10. I’m going to put that thought in prison. I’m not touching that in my thought life anymore. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And I’d be doing something… No, no, no, no. You get out of my mind. I don’t touch that. I do not touch that with my thought life. No, no, no, no. It took a couple of weeks and, and it got to where, and I’d think, I’d think about it. I said, «Oh, shut up. You’re in prison. I’m not going to let you out again». Now, George, you come tell the rest of the story because he and Terri and the staff were on the other end of this thing and I hadn’t told them anything about what I received from the Lord. Go ahead.
— Yeah, that was towards the end of 1988, 89 actually, because we’d just gone on daily television and we went on every available voice very quickly. But you and Gloria were praying, but what we were doing together as a staff every day in the month of December of 1989, we would gather together and we would praise God. That’s what faith does. Praise God. You praise God in the midst of whatever is going on. And so I was working with Gloria at the time. We were doing some things that we needed to do, cutting back on this and that. But we were told that it would take anywhere from 18 months to two years, if that, to get out of it. And we crossed over into 1990. And the accounts payable were caught up by March. And then the final television bill was paid on July the 10th.
— And what most people don’t understand, that television bill was a couple of million a month.
— It was. Yeah.
— That’ll keep a good picker picking when you’ve got to bring up six million more.
— We were six million behind at the end of 1989. Crossed over into 1990 and something happened. Something amazing happened. And by the time we reached July the 10th of 1990, I remember that day, Jen, our CFO, brought the final check of the TV bill, brought it to my office. It was nine o’clock in the morning and we were completely caught up and we’ve not been behind. Glory to God.
— And for the first time, we paid the TV bill all in one check instead of splitting it up.
— Exactly. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus. Let me go back over these. Nehemiah 8:10. The joy of the Lord is my strength. Psalm 18:1. I love You, O Lord, my strength. Psalm 18:39. Thou hast girded me with strength. Psalm 26. He is the saving strength of God’s right hand. Psalm 22:19. O Lord, my strength. Psalm 28:7. The Lord is my strength and shield. The saving strength of his Anointed. Psalm 29:11. He gives strength to his people. Psalm 27:1. He’s the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid? Isaiah 12:2. He is my strength and my song. Isaiah 40:31. They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and rise up as wings as eagles. Run and not be weary and walk and don’t faint. Thank You, Jesus. Now, let’s read this again.
James, a servant of God in the Lord Jesus Christ to the 12 tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting. My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into different temptations, tests, and trials, knowing this. You have to know something. And the only way you’re going to know it is get out of this book. Knowing this, that the trying of your faith works patience. Let patience have her perfect work that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not. And it shall be given him, let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavers is like a wave of the sea, driven with wind and tossed. For let not that man think he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted. But the rich in that he is made low, because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no longer risen with the burning heat, but without the grass and the flower and so forth and so on, the grace of the fashion.
Now, what I want to get to here, let no man say when he is tempted, I’m tempted of God. One translation says, don’t you dare say that. You don’t say that. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Wavering is caused by asking in fear. He gave birth to life. And my notes are all down across here. And I’m going somewhere. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth. That we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear and slow to speak and slow to wrath. For the wrath of a man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness, superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholds himself and goes away and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty…
This book is the perfect law of liberty. So… Galatians chapter five. Galatians five. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free. And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold I, Paul say unto you that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole law. Christ has become no effect unto you. Now, do this. Every time you see the word «Christ», stop, meditate and translate. Wherein Christ the Anointed One and his anointing have made us free. And be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. For I Paul say unto you if you be circumcised, Christ the Anointed One and his anointing shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is debtor unto the law. Christ the Anointed One and his anointing has become of no effect unto you. Whosoever of you are justified by the law you are fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ, the Anointed One and his anointing neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision. But faith which works by love. Aha.
Well, we’ve settled something here. Faith works by love. You did run well. Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth a whole lump. I have confidence in you through the Lord that if you will be none otherwise minded… that if you will be otherwise minded. If, if, if. Mm-hmm. But he that troubles you shall bear his judgment whosoever he be. And I, brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, why do I yet suffer persecution? Then is the offense of the cross ceased? I would they were even cut off with trouble. He’s a little plain, right? Yeah, he said just what he meant. For you have been called unto liberty. Only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. But by love serve one another. For all in the law is fulfilled in this one word, even this.
Love your neighbor as yourself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Most people want to walk in the flesh until they figure out how to walk in the spirit. It doesn’t work that way. You go for the goal first. You do what the book says. For the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And these are contrary one to the other. So that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past. They that do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. This man got really close to that. He was persecuting the church, looking for ways to persecute the people in that way. And Jesus just knocked him off his horse on the way to Damascus. Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? No, no, no, no. He was persecuting the people. No, no, Jesus took that personally. Why persecutest thou me? It is hard to kick against the pricks. That was a chariot, a war chariot term. Those chariots had big golds on each side of the wheels.
And if you got in combat with somebody and you ran up against that, if they could work those horses around and get up against your chariot and jam that thing in there, and the wheels would collapse. And you could just, the Roman soldier could just kill whoever was there. And Jesus said, «That’s what you’re doing to me. I take it personally. What are you persecuting me for»? He said, «Who are you, Lord»? That’s the shortest salvation prayer I ever prayed. And scales came over his eyes. He couldn’t see. So God spoke to a man named Ananias. And God told him what he wanted him to do. He said, and I’m paraphrasing. He said, «Lord, I don’t believe I want to do that». He said, «I’ve heard about this man». The Lord said, «No, I’m going to show him what he must suffer for my namesake».
I had trouble with that for a while. And I prayed about it. And the Lord showed me. He said, I had to have a man. Now, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and so forth. I mean, they were present. But the Lord said, I had to have a man well educated. This man sat at the feet of Gamaliel. An educated man. In the Torah… He said, I had to have a man in the field that would prove the second covenant. And prove it under hardship that only Jesus had suffered more. I will show him what he must suffer for my namesake. Why? Because his name will do the same thing he can do. Hallelujah. So, there you have it. Now… But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, joy. The fruit of the Spirit counted all joy.
Now, what does this show? That joy is already in your spirit… if you’ll stir it up. The fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. That’s holiness. Galatians chapter 5. But the fruit of the Holy Spirit, the work which his presence within accomplishes is love, joy, parenthesis, gladness. Gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. Peace, patience, an even temper, forbearance, kindness, goodness, benevolence, faithfulness, gentleness, meekness, humility, self-control, self-restraint, continuous. Against such there is no law that can bring a charge. There is no law. That’ll hold up in any courtroom in the world. Thank You, Jesus.