Kenneth Copeland - Faith for Your Family: Works Through Forgiveness
— Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. And this is Kellie and John in the order in which they came. Well, haven't these things been good because it's been an opportunity to share our testimonies with you of our lives together. And so now, and I'm going to talk about Gloria's testimony today. In 1988, while living in Wichita Falls, I found the BVOV broadcast on TV and started watching it every time it came on. I became a partner in 89 through watching the broadcast and started receiving partner letters and magazines. I also ordered the devotional from Faith to Faith and began reading it. In 1993, I was in a management training program with the company that I was working for, but I knew that God was calling me to do something for him. As I was driving home from work one day, I was listening to a Christian radio station and suddenly there was a man talking about finding a career with Kenneth Copeland Ministries. I knew that's what God wanted me to do, exclamation point. I went home, put my resume together and mailed it to the ministry. I started working here at KCM, February the 22nd, 1994. Praise the Lord, Charlotte, 1994. Praise God. Now, the testimony does not build faith. It builds capacity for faith. Now it builds capacity, but faith came. So have you enjoyed the testimony of our lives together? Well, these testimonies, what we're sharing, the Word that's come from it will give you faith. Faith comes. It can't not come unless somebody rejects it. I want to point out something. As I would talk about different things, John had something that that relates to. Kellie said, not mixed with faith. I knew where it was. That's because we've been together all of their lives. As they moved in other areas, it was still there. There was a time that John said, "Daddy, may I bring my tithe to you"? I said, "Sure, come on". He said, "The way I've been living, there ain't no time to rob God". What? He knew exactly what the book says about tithing. I didn't tell him that, except when he was very young, but it was in him. It was that time he said he wanted to get out of the home, and he did, but he brought his tithe to me. That was his statement. The way I've been living, it is no time to rob God. I expect God's sitting there saying, look at that boy. To God, that's precious. With him, it's precious. He can take care of the other part, and did, but that's the precious part.
— I love, again, we talked recently about what the Lord told Abel... Cain. Cain, the bad one. I get him confused sometimes. He said, "If you do well, will you not be accepted? It wasn't about what he was doing out there. It was how he came to God.
— What he did well. That's the way it did me. I mean, it blessed my heart, because it let me know where his heart and mind was. Let's go back here to this fifth chapter of... Well, if you read four, four leads into five. You know, these were letters. Somebody else gave us the numbers, bless their hearts, and sometimes their little marks are in the wrong place, but that's not my problem. Now, we having the same Spirit of faith, we speak, for we know. Well, you know something. We know this earthly house, this tabernacle were dissolved. We have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this, we groan earnestly. Look that up in your Amplified, please. For in this, we groan earnestly. That's 5:2.
— Okay. Can we read it?
— Yes.
— Here indeed, in this present abode body, we sigh and groan inwardly because we yearn to be clothed over. We yearn to put on our celestial body like a garment to be fitted out. I like that word, filled out, fitted, to be fitted out, outfitted, with our heavenly dwelling so that by putting it on, we may not be found naked without a body. Well, that's what it says here, being clothed that we shall be found naked. For we are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened, not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Glory to God. Chapter four is all about the light coming out of us and the true treasure that's coming out of the clay jar. It's not about the clay jar. It's about the treasure coming out. Then he continues to say in chapter four, it's actually one of my favorite chapters in the whole Bible, because it's about looking at Jesus, the one who's filling us and not looking at the seen, but the unseen. We're living from and for the unseen. Dad, all this whole time we've been talking, this whole week, John mentioned it the first day, fear of loss. That just keeps hitting my heart that it needs to, that fear of loss is based on the seen and the seen is nothing. It's nothing compared to the unseen. It's nothing in power compared to the unseen. The circumstances we see is nothing compared to what's unseen. The light of God on the inside, our condition of our life, our bodies, our circumstances is temporal compared to what the unseen light, the unseen power. It's unseen until you look at it and it starts coming out and manifesting out here. Five is really the culmination of everything it says about what's in us that we put on. We have already been outfitted. Can I just say this? When you would go skiing, one of John's friends always called you equipment man, because you had the equipment, you had the outfit, you had the this and the this and the this and the goggles. You and mom, man, stylish and outfitted for what you were doing, for what you were about to do. You would say to me, I would every time, almost as a kid, we'd go skiing and I'd say, I'm cold. I'm so cold. Of course, I was not outfitted for the slopes. I was outfitted with the right kind of hat, not really a hat or not a hat because my hair looked good. Wanted my hair to look good when I was 20. You'd say, "Kellie D, if you would put on a hat, your toes would be warm". I'm like, that makes no sense. That makes no sense to me. And every time you would put on a hat, your toes would be warm. Your fingers would be warm. So when I was about 40, I thought, I really don't care how I look right now. I am so cold and I got a better hat and I'm like, yeah, he was right. I don't know if I ever told you you were right, but my toes and my fingers finally got warm.
— Your hands like a chimney and all the heat goes right out your head.
— But you were trying to outfit me. Her feet had to get really cold before she believed what I said. But you were trying to outfit me perfectly, but you knew, equipment man knew, but we've been outfitted. I don't know. I just see that in my mind.
— The proper equipment is proper protection. I never went skiing in my jeans in my life. They weren't made for that. And if you're in a place where you need to do that, well, just believe God for the proper clothes and he'll see to it that you get it. And that brings up a... We went to Steamboat Springs and went into the ski storage where they had... Went in there and Amazing Grace was being played. And I said, is that Amazing Grace? And this man said, yeah. Well, I said, I think it's just wonderful. I'm a preacher. I'm Kenneth Copeland. He said, you're the Kenneth Copeland? We became such powerful friends that we were able to minister to he and his wife when he had cancer in a ski storage store. Kathie Nichols.
— You and mom, and you taught us to be this way. You did not ever walk out the door, wake up in the morning or go to bed at night without walking in faith. That's our equipment. So when you were off skiing and we were on vacation, you're never off. You're never on vacation for your mouth. There's so many preachers and people who talk right when somebody's looking. And when they think nobody's looking, they just live all kinds of ways, take a vacation from their faith and the way to live. Not this family. If you were messing up, you knew you were messing up and you're like, I need to get this right.
— We'd go on those motorcycle rides together and preach. I'm telling you, we preached to one another and some great revelation came out of those rides. But on those rides, all of us were just literally preaching all the time. And we'd either take our bikes on the trucks and things and get out together. And we just talked Jesus the whole time we were gone. And we'd talk Jesus and Jesse would make us laugh. And we went into a place one time and they had these caps with hair coming out the back of them.
— Like fake hair.
— Yeah, it's coming out the back of the cap and it was spread doing like this. And I looked over there and Cathy is on the back and she's plaiting that hair. Jesse had one on? Jesse had one on. And I said, Gloria, she's done that before. Because Jesse talked about when his hair was weighed down. And so she was plaiting it behind that cap. And they didn't know really right at that moment, how much joy that brought to us. Because we were no different on the road, on a motorcycle. We didn't take a vacation from our faith. It just brought the joy of the Lord.
— I'm telling you what we're seeing now is the... and I know it looks like the enemy is destroying things in ministry and churches and stuff. But if he doesn't have a foothold there, he can't destroy it. If God built it, Satan can't destroy it. So where people may be trying to be a faith person on a stage or on the world stage or in front of people, when you are, you trust the Lord, you're believing God, even if you've messed up, that relationship and faith in God will keep you in the zone, in the place of his being able to lead you, correct you as Hebrews 12 says. And it brings encouragement. Hebrews 12 says, Don't forget the encouraging Word. And then he goes on about correction, correction, discipline.
— The encouragement comes first.
— I had this at the beginning and I was just going to wait to see if it opened up for a place to say it. But what you said, I think a lot of people don't feel like faith will work for them because of guilt or shame or condemnation, because they're not perfect. I can understand it working for Kenneth because he's this faith giant. But for me, because I have this in my life or this in my life, or I've done this in my past, I'm not worthy. And God probably won't work for me like he works in your life or another minister's life because they're up here and I'm way down here. And Satan uses that guilt, shame, condemnation to keep you from expectations of God working in your life. And he wants to keep you down here in this pit. And you don't have to be in this pit because God doesn't look at those things. You've repented, you've moved on. Those things are gone. He doesn't see that. But if you put this Word in you and this Word comes out of you, the faith is not a respecter of persons. It doesn't respect dad more than it respects somebody else who's a plumber or electrician or a politician or whatever. God's not a respecter of people. He's a respecter of faith. And so no matter what you've done, no matter what you've been through, you repent, ask for forgiveness. That is gone. It's washed away. Even if you mess up again and you do something else that you regret or you wish you didn't do, you do the same thing, but it is not something that will keep faith from working in you. The only thing that will keep faith from working in your life is your lack of applying it and your lack of hearing the Word because faith comes, faith comes from the Word. And so without that, you don't have the fuel tank in you, right? You got to build that faith up in you through the Word, but it works for, it works for everybody. Just like it would work for him or Oral Roberts or Kenneth Hagin, but Satan is going to try to trick you into thinking that it's not going to work for you. And it's a lie. And I just want you to...
— Did Jesus or did he not say, I was in prison and you didn't visit me. Well, what's the use of him visiting prison if he's not going to forgive the prisoner. And you've heard me say a lot of times before, I baptized a serial killer. Well, they had to only convict him of one. And so I was with him and I won't go into that whole story, but it had this little cage here. And then, and I said, Stephen, do me a favor, brother. I told him before, I said, you have time. He said, "I don't want to reprieve anything else. I want to get out of here". And, uh, but he said, "I only have one five year old boy. And I don't, I really don't even want him to know I ever existed". So I said, "Stephen, let me know. The Bible said grace is sufficient. He said, yeah, I told him.
— He was on, he was about to be put to death.
— He was on, he was, he was right there ready. And I said, "Stephen, you have time enough here to be an expert on prayer". And he was a brilliant man. And he was. He knew the scripture. I said, you know, the Bible says grace is more than enough. He said, yes. I'm talking to him. I said, do me a favor. All right. Let me know if grace is enough. Listen, lethal injection, that thing makes a noise, bang, you know, it's just seconds away. And he went, "More than enough".
— And it's more than enough for all.
— I taught him through the Word that he was a new creature in Christ Jesus. Now the Spirit of God had John bring this up, the condemnation. So let's go to the eighth chapter of Romans in the 23rd verse. I see another law working in my members, working against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my flesh. Oh, wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ, the Messiah, our Lord. So then with my mind, I received the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin, therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit who walk after the Word. None. There is none. Self-condemnation causes depression and then fussing and fighting. Why, you did that to me? No, you did that to me. No, the devil did it to both of you.
— I think people have a hard time forgiving themselves a lot. That's probably a bigger deal than forgiving others for them.
— The Word said, love your neighbor as you do yourself. Let me tell you about Gloria and why she's not here. In this really terrible car wreck that we had, she had a brain injury and she, listen...
— Years ago.
— Yeah, long, long in the... 67. 66. And then we went to ORU in 67. We didn't realize it at the time, but it was caused in that car wreck and I won't go into all that. Well, and now y'all better look out. And now her physical therapy and the things she's doing and she's getting so much stronger and her people that are helping her and that's where now she's walking all over, strong enough to walk all over, out in the grounds and everything. And here just recently, she said, "Well, wait a minute, wait, wait, I'm not going out there.
— Why?
— I need my Bible. So she's carrying her Bible, walking around. I'm telling you. Yes. And this coming year is the year. I believe it in my heart and I say it with my faith. She will be with me at Southwest at Healing School. Now I want to make another announcement publicly. Are you ready for this? Benny Hinn is going to help me do healings. He's going to help all of us do Healing School this year at Southwest. Hallelujah. And have you noticed on the Victory Channel, he's begun to come on in the evenings. That's because I asked him to do it. And it'll go from where he is right now in, uh, in Charis Bible College. But you see all of these other buildings and just cram full. He's going to work his way into those meetings so that we'll all be a part of the healings inside those meetings in Benny Hinn. Cause Benny and I have been together a long, long, long, long time. Amen.
— I think y'all, I want to be in the room. Two generals pressing in for more. Cause these aren't generals. They're like resting on what they know. Resting on. Yeah, I'm good. I live by faith. No, they're pressing. You're pressing. You're pressing. He's pressing, pressing through things, growing, coming up higher, higher, higher. And I'm not, I'm not going to miss that.
— That's good.
— Hey, dad while we still have some time. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you.
— Well, thank you, John.
— You have lived the example for not just Kellie and I, but in the rest of your kids, grandkids, but for the people. I just want to say it before I forget about it during this broadcast. You've lived the example. You've shown us by example. I couldn't imagine having a father or be more proud of anybody than I am of you.
— John. Thank you, sir. I receive that.
— You live humbly. You walk mercifully. And you're hungry for Jesus. You're hungry for what you don't know. You're hungry for more. You're hungry to talk to him more, grow more. And I just feel like you're worthy of following because you're following Him. Introduce us to be able to follow him directly. You've never tried to be God or icon or hero, or, but yet you're a hero in the faith and we appreciate you.
— We just have a great God, don't we?
— Yes, we do.
— And we're out of time.