Kenneth Copeland - Your Faith Is a Spiritual Force
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Let's have a word of prayer, and we'll go right into today's Bible lesson.
Father, we just praise You and thank You. We worship You. Holy Spirit, You are so welcome in this place. Your will be done today on these broadcasts on earth as it is in Heaven. And we give You praise and thanksgiving for it in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Glory to God. Open your Bibles with me today. Oh, don't forget to download the free study notes, okay? Go to kcm.org/notes. Ha-ha. You need to do that. They're free, and you can just use them to teach your Sunday School class with. Hey, preacher, help yourself. "Well, I don't want to steal anything". Well, are you kidding? I stole it from Brother Hagin. He stole it from Jesus. I mean, come on man. No, we didn't steal anything. He gave us the whole thing. Praise God. You know, I'm glad you brought that up because I want to say something about that. That's been something that the devil has used to stop and inject pride in a preacher and the preacher don't know it's pride.
"Well, that's Brother Copeland's message. I don't want", It ain't my message. Look, if it was my message, The moment I preached it, I gave it to you. And here's the bottom line of it: Well, just like right now. I am going to begin on Mark 11:22, 23, 24, and 25. I learned that from Brother Kenneth E. Hagin. Well, when I first began to minister, I first began to teach it and preach it, I didn't know anything except what I'd heard him teach. But when I began to teach it, the Spirit of God came up in me and I would go into directions and things. I learned things that I didn't learn from Brother Hagin. You understand what I'm saying to you?
So don't let the devil steal and rob you out of that. I mean, if it'll help you, you need to stand up there like I did and say, "I want you to know, I learned this from Brother Copeland". Now, don't you be quoting me. You're saying, "Now, Brother Copeland said", hah. Don't start that. You say, "The Word of God says, in Mark 11:22-23, 'Jesus said'", All right? Amen. Now, then, let's begin there in Mark 11. "Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God". But then you come upon the cross-reference, and it says, "Have the faith of God". Now let me touch on that for a moment because we are born again by the Word of God which lives and abides forever. That word, that word which we were born again, when that came into our hearts faith came but its God's faith. Amen. Hallelujah.
Now, "For verily I say unto you, That whosoever". Let's stop right there. "Whosoever," that means me, that means you. I'm a whosoever. Glory to God. I just want to let that soak in on you a little bit now. "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith," or says, "shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith". Now, let's take some close look at this. "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; shall not doubt in his heart".
Let's touch on that a moment. He's not talking about our natural blood pump. No, no. No, you couldn't believe God with your physical heart any more than you could with your liver. How would that sound? "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his liver". No, no. No, you can see where that is erroneous. So what is he talking about? The spirit of man. You are a spirit being like God. You are in His very likeness. You and Jesus have exactly the same spiritual DNA. That's another teaching. But Let's think about this very carefully now. You are a spirit. You have a soul made up of your mind, your will, and your emotions. Picture it like this: If I could separate from my body and step out of my body, you would recognize me if you could see my body.
"Well, Brother Copeland, you think we're going to know one another when we get to Heaven"? If you know me here, you'll know me there. If you don't know me here, we've got to get acquainted. You're not going to turn into an angel no more than you'd turn into a toad-frog, brother, sister. Come on now. No, you're you, always will be you. But, hey, there's a whole lot better looking me and you that's coming down the road. Hallelujah. Because once this inner man gets fed on the Word and starts getting strong and beginning to be edified, praying in the Spirit, and so forth, whoa. And you begin to walk in the Spirit.
Now, I wanted to point this out. Here you can see both my spirit and my body. The soul (mind, will, and emotions) is inside my spirit, not just in part of my body. My brain is part of my body. Ah, you want me to... yeah, okay. You understand I just work here? So listen to this now. You remember the rich man that died and went to hell, and Lazarus went into the bosom of Abraham and the rich man in hell looked up and saw Father Abraham and Jesus told this story. But listen to what Father Abraham said. Now, the man's brain is in the ground up there. It's decaying away in the ground topside, his spirit, see. The body's not the "he". Amen.
Now, he looks up and sees Father Abraham, and Abraham said, "Son, remember". Ha-ha-ha. Isn't that good? See, his memory was still intact. His brain wasn't there, but your memory is in your spirit. Your brain is what your spirit uses, and your spirit and your soul use your brain to contact this natural physical world. Okay. Now, this faith, this kind of faith, the faith of God, is of the heart, not the head. So the heart, the spirit man, amen. That's where faith functions. It's born there, and that's where it comes from. Now, therefore, what are we supposed to believe? "Well I believe Jesus is Lord". Yeah, that's wonderful, but that don't work here. "Well, you know, I believe He's raised from the dead". I do too. That's what got you and me born again. Glory to God. But that won't work here.
Now, notice what He said: "Whosoever say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith," or says, "shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he says". That's where the faith is released and that's the control factor right there, is believing in your heart. My faith is in my spirit. It's a spiritual force. Believing what the Word of God says, put it into my spirit, and believe it, and then say it with my mouth, it will come to pass. Now, "Whatsoever thing you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them. When you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any".
Faith will not work when you have an air or a presence of unforgiveness about you. Unforgiveness is a strong spiritual force, and it creates fear because it activates Satan, who is the spirit of fear. Now then, let's take a look here in the book of Romans 12, and let's look in the 3rd verse. "For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you". Who was the book of Romans written to? Okay, let's just see. "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (Which he had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures.)" And he says to, "Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh; declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection of the dead to all that be in Rome beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace unto you".
If it is for everybody in Rome, it's for everybody in Fort Worth. It's for everybody wherever you live. Amen. So now notice what he said here. Now, he's talking to born-again, Holy Ghost-baptized, tongue-talkin', healing, believing Christians in Rome. "I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God has dealt to every man" among you "the measure of faith". Because the apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, and he said, "all men don't have faith". He said, "wicked" and "unreasonable" men do not have faith.
So you've got unsaved people, and they may be good and wonderful people, not wicked and unreasonable men, but never accepted Jesus as their Savior, never been born again. They don't have the faith of God in them. They have natural human faith. Everybody has natural human faith. You have to have. I mean, you wouldn't know what chair to sit down on. "You think that thing will hold me up? Oh. I don't know whether I want to sit down or not". No, no. You've got to come to a point where you believe something, but that's natural human faith. We're talking about the faith of God that changes things, the faith of God that removes mountains, the faith of God that heals the sick, the faith of God... hey, you understand? Ha-ha. I know you do.
Now then, this faith, as I said, is of the heart and not the head. It is not a mind force. It is a spirit force. I remember in I Thessalonians 5, the apostle Paul used this phrase, that "God make you whole," your whole spirit, soul, and body. A lot of people, if you were to ask them, "What is the difference between the spirit and soul"? And there was a time I thought they were the same thing. Did you know most people think they are the same? But they're not. Also remember what the Word of God said in the book of Hebrews, that the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword dividing asunder the soul and the spirit, huh? So they can't be the same thing.
So let's go back over that again. Your soul is made up of your mind, your will, and your emotions. It is part of your spirit man. So say it with me, "spirit, soul, and body. I am a spirit, I have a soul, and I live in a physical body". Say this: "This physical body is my earth suit". Now, you know when astronauts go into space, they have to have a space suit. Why? Because there's no environment out there and you can't live out there. Without this physical body, you can't live in the earth. The moment your physical body dies, your spirit's going somewhere. It's going up or down; your choice. Did you know God's never sent anybody to hell? He created hell for the devil and his angels. He has never sent anybody to hell. He never, ever made that choice. He gave Jesus. He made a way. The only sin today that'll send you to hell is by not believing that Jesus Christ is Lord. Amen.
That's another teaching that I wish I had time to get off into that but I don't right now. Maybe later. Now notice, He said, "according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith". Two things here: One, every child of God, the moment you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, each one of us received the exact same measure of the faith of Jesus, the faith of God, the very same measure. Now, it's up to you and me whether that measure grows or gets weak. It can become strong. Faith, now, is a spiritual force. Always remember that. It's not of the mind, not of the body. It is of the Spirit, dealt unto you at the time you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior. It doesn't go and come. In other words, it doesn't leave you and have to come back. It doesn't come by praying for it. It's not dealt by prayer. "Well, then how'd we get it"?
Well, just back up two pages here, Romans 10:17. "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". It is the Word of God that dealt that measure to you to begin with. Praise God. Now, let's go over here to the book of Ephesians a moment because I want to touch on this a moment here, in the 2nd chapter of Ephesians, and let's look at Verse 10. "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them". So there was a new creation happened here, II Corinthians 5:17-21. "any man that's in Christ, is a new creature: old things are passed away; and all things become new. And all things are of God".
Now take that, then, and back right up here, in Verse 7, "That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. For by grace are you saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God". Amen. This faith is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God. When did He give it to you? When you accepted Jesus. It's all part of the package. That's when you were born again. Amen. That's when that faith came in there. Praise God. Isn't this wonderful? So He "has dealt unto every man the measure of faith". "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God".
Now, how does faith grow? Think about that a minute. What causes faith to grow? Let's turn over to the book of Mark, Chapter 4. Now, remember now, in Mark 4, let's look at Mark 11 again because we have to keep this just right up here in front of us. Thank You, Lord. "Jesus answering said unto them, Have the faith of God. For verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe believe that those things which he says shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he says".