Kenneth Copeland - Renew Your Mind to the Love of God
KENNETH: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Thanksgiving Week Special here on the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast.
Father, we thank You today for Your Word. We come before it with expectant hearts. And we receive from heaven. And we thank You for revelation of the Word. We thank You for revelation of yourself, Jesus. We seek Your face. In Jesus' name, amen. Praise God.
KENNETH: Good morning, Gloria.
GLORIA: Good morning, sunshine.
KENNETH: You look so beautiful this morning.
GLORIA: Thank you.
KENNETH: You always look beautiful.
GLORIA: Aw.
KENNETH: I get up looking like this, and you get up looking like...
GLORIA: No, you look great. I like that blue shirt.
KENNETH: Well, thank you very much.
GLORIA: It matches those blue eyes.
KENNETH: I appreciate that. Thank you. This week, we're going to be looking and turning our attention to the Word in the renewing of our minds...
GLORIA: Oh, my.
KENNETH: ...to the truth that God is love. He doesn't have love, He is love. Amen. Now, we've got to get ahold of this. We're going to grow in His wisdom...
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: ...concerning His love for us. So don't miss any of these broadcasts. Let's get right into today's message.
Let's open our Bibles tonight to the book of I John. I John, and we'll look in the 4th chapter. I John 4, and let's read the 8th verse. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love". Now, this book of I John is the book that reveals to us that God doesn't have love He is love. He has faith. He is love. Now, it is extremely important. I cannot emphasize how important it is. The Lord has placed this in my heart some months ago. And it has just been such a glorious thing to have a renewed mind concerning "God is love".
Now, the word "God" actually, the way you and I know it, is not a Bible word. It came out of German theology, "Gott". And you do understand that God has names? Amen. And his name is not God. His name isn't Christ. That may come as a real shock to some. For instance, He is God, English-ized "Jehovah". It's not actually pronounced Jehovah. That's been English-ized for us. Now, He is Jehovah, I really enjoy spelling his name in Hebrew because people actually, and for a large point, don't really know anymore how to pronounce His name because the Jewish people refused for centuries to pronounce it. And over the years, I won't go into all that. But Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey, the name, mm. The name. Say it. Whoa. Hallelujah. He is Yod-Hey-Vav-Hey Rapha. That's one of His names, our healer. Huh?
Now listen to me. If healing passed away, God would have had to have changed his name. That isn't going to happen. Amen. The stars will fall out of the sky before that happens, literally. Amen. Oh, this is so vitally important. But we've just used the word "God" and used the word, you know, "love". The reason, particularly with English-speaking people, and I'm quite sure it's this way in other languages. But with English-speaking people, I mean, we love everything. "Don't you just love my new suit"? No, I don't love your suit. No. There's a lack of reverence for Him, "Love not the world, nor the things in the world".
So what are we talking about here? Well, you need to reserve the word "love" for whom it was intended. "I love my God with all of my heart, all of my soul, all of my mind and my strength. I love my neighbor as myself. I love the brethren even as He loves the brethren. I love my wife. I love my family. I love the Word of God. And I love the brethren. I love you". I don't love my clothes. Come on. I don't love food. "Well, Brother Copeland, what am I supposed to say"? Are you really that... What does the Bible say? "I don't know". Well, what did the apostle Paul write Timothy? He said, "God gives us all things richly to enjoy".
Now, think about that for a moment. Think about what He just said now. He asked me one day, He said, "Kenneth, do I give you things to meet your needs"? I said, "Yes". He said, "No". Well, I knew then I'd been had because at that point, I didn't have a clue what He was talking about. He said, "No, son. I give you things richly to enjoy, and they meet your needs". See, it wasn't my needs that He had in mind. Huh? Boy, you missed a place to say "amen" right there. God is a god of joy. The joy of the Lord is our strength.
I was sitting on the platform one night, and the whole place was shouting and going on. I finally just sat down. And while I was sitting there, the Lord said something to me that startled me. He said, "Kenneth, if it hadn't been for sin, I never would have had a serious thought". He said, "What is there to be serious about"? He said, "I got serious when death came". And I grasped a snapshot of Him all of a sudden. He is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. Huh? Can you see it? You see what He is? And if it hadn't been for that mess, we'd all still just be dancing and a'singing. That's all anybody'd ever do.
He's big on dancing and singing. He commanded people to dance and sing. Amen. He's big on that. It's us that have been so stiff-necked, you know. "Well, Brother Copeland, you know, I'm just not very demonstrative. And I have a praise in my heart". Not in abundance, you don't. Because if it was in there in abundance, it'd come out your mouth because out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Now, that works all the time.
The little twin engine airplane I had, the first twin we had, it had tip tanks, fuel tanks on the wing tips. And that fuel tank, it was a teardrop tank, and it came to almost a point in the back where it was about like that. And it was just this high. And if you weren't looking, you could really do some serious damage to your forehead if you weren't looking, and bang your head into that tip tank. Well, I walked into the maintenance shop one day, and they were working around in there. And just as I walked across the hangar floor, one of these mechanics hit that tip tank. He hollered. You could have heard him out, you could imagine what he said. Yeah, that's right. Just what you thought he said.
He got his head up here, and I walked up. "Oh, preacher. Forgive me". I said, "Don't let me cramp your style, brother. Glory to God. I ain't here to judge you". I said, "When Jesus was on the earth, He said, 'Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.' We know what you're full of". I didn't help him a bit. Amen. Now then, to be aware and to respect that word, love is God, and God is love. I enjoy things. Amen. But I reserve my expression of love for the things that God loves. And it starts off with Him. Amen.
Oh, yeah. Gloria and I are fully aware, as much as we love one another, we are together almost all the time. I have no remembrance of the last any form of an argument that we had. I mean, we've been married 55 1/2 years, and now, back there, you know, Kenneth B.C., I tried to fight with her. She never would do it. You know you can't fuss by yourself? She just wouldn't. She just always ministered to me and changed my life. Absolutely changed my life. We were in Hawaii. We had just come back from ministering in the South Pacific, just back before the days of our airplane being able to go across the ocean. And we got in to Hawaii. I mean, we had been ministering just a really extended period of time, in Australia and so forth. Anyways...
Oh, I was tired. I'll tell you, I felt like I'd been, you know, pulled through a keyhole or something. I was just "huh-huh-huh," just seemed like bone tired. Now, there ain't no excuse for that. I don't care how tired you are. Amen. And so we went down to breakfast at the hotel where we were staying, little outdoor continental breakfast. We went back down there. Just barking at everybody. And I threw some money down there on the table. And when I turned around, Gloria had come over around and behind me. And when I turned around, she was standing right there. And she looked up at me, and she caught me by my shirt, and this little tear was coming down. She said, "I am going to be a blessing to you some way. Okay".
And then another time, some years later, she walked around behind me. I was sitting in a church, sitting in their study. And, oh, man, it seemed like just all the pressure you could imagine would come in there on me. And here again I was really, really tired. She walked around and put her hands on my back, and she began to pray for me. And she said, "Sweetheart, I find no fault in you". That one moment changed my love life forever. It got through to my spirit being. It went in there like a bolt of love that it took all of that out of me forever. I've not been gripey and grumpy, well, maybe a little. But at least I've had sense enough to stop it before I became as obnoxious as I was back there then. Amen. Those words of love changed my whole life.
"I wish I had a woman like that". Well, you can't have mine. You'd probably have if you'd treat her halfway right. Well, I'm not going to go there right now, but... Amen. We better get back to our business here. Now then, honoring the word "love," to honor God, to renew our mind. And this takes a decision because you're in the habit of saying these kinds of things. It takes a decision to correct yourself. "No, no, I don't love my new car, I enjoy it. Amen. I love the Lord that gave it to me. Amen. And He gave it for me to enjoy". Hallelujah.
Now, let's read this verse again. "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love". Now let's go down to the 16th verse. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God," who is love, "and God," who is love, "in him". Now, we're going to do some of these things in this service tonight, but I just want to start you off like this: In the beginning, love created the heaven and the earth. Love did that. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God, who is love... Can you see what I'm doing here? See how that strikes your thinking, causes you to begin to renew your mind? You start cutting new grooves in your brain where the word "love" is concerned and where the word "God" is concerned. You do the same thing with the word "Christ," amen, the Anointed One and His anointing. Amen.
So, now, look at that 16th verse. "We have known and believed the love". Now, every born-again human being has had that holy moment of knowing Jesus by the Holy Spirit. But almost all born-again, Holy Spirit-baptized, healing, believing, tongue-talking, faith-walking Christians don't believe that God loves them. "Oh, yes, I do". No, you don't. You mentally assent to the fact that He loves you. But how much love and faith are you putting in that love? "Have faith in God". I just said, "Have faith in love". Whether I realized it or not, that's what I just said. "Have faith in God," who is love. Not have faith in His love. Have faith in love Himself.