Kenneth Copeland - How to Develop Your Faith in the Name of Jesus
Thank You, Father. We come before the Word tonight expectantly. Hallelujah. We open our hearts. Oh, how great Thou art. The greater One, yes, in the heavens, yes. But greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. And we give You praise and honor tonight in Jesus' name. Amen.
You may be seated. Thank You, Lord. Praise You, Lord Jesus. This afternoon, well, actually this morning, I was praying and seeking of the Lord about this meeting. I heard the Lord say this: "This meeting is a faith-in-the-name-of-Jesus breakthrough meeting". By Saturday night, your faith in that name, faith in the name itself, will have skyrocketed. I heard Brother Hagin say it many, many, many times, proven it to be true in my own life. "No faith in that name, no results". Even though you're using it a lot because, you know, particularly Spirit-filled Christians, we do that. That's part of our language. A little faith in that name, little results. Lot of faith in that name, amazing results.
Thank You, Jesus. You can't feel faith. From time to time, there may be a feeling and so forth of the results of it. But faith only comes one way. Romans 10:17, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". Amen. That's the way it comes. Now, when the Word of faith, the apostle Paul in that same 10th chapter called it the "word of faith," called the Bible the "word of faith which we preach". And the reason he said that is because God's Word produces faith. God's Word is full of His faith. It's already in there. Amen. So now, particularly with the name of Jesus, it is so familiar. You pray in the name of Jesus. "I thank You, Jesus. We thank You in the name of Jesus," and go on and on and on and still have no faith in it.
A mental agreement to it, but actual faith, see, here's the thing. Please get this. Please understand this, particularly if you're in the ministry, particularly if you're a preacher. Please listen to this. Faith is a product of the born-again human spirit. It's a vital part of your spirit being. And the moment you got born again, faith came. You got born again by grace through faith. Somebody said, "Well, which is the gift, the grace or the faith"? Both of them. What's the matter with you? But see, when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the word by which you did that, faith came, and that seed is in there. But it can go, help me, Lord. Let's take another illustration. God created everything, everything. Spirit, soul, body has to be fed. He designed it that way. Bugs have to eat. I mean, the grass has to be fed. So, He has provided, since He designed it, He created it to be nourished, then He was responsible for providing the nourishment.
And, let's take the physical body. The physical body has to be fed physical food. It's food of a like kind. What does it produce? Strength and energy. Now, this is the part I want you to see. As you use the energy, you have to replace that with food. I mean, this right here, I'm not exercising much. I'm not doing much to it. There's no weight, nothing in my hand. But you just stand here and do this long enough, you will use up the energy in your body. You're going to have to eat. And if you don't eat, eventually, you won't even able to pick your arm up anymore. Everybody knows that. Well, the same thing is true with your spirit. This is what I want you to get. Faith is that strength. Faith cometh by feeding and feeding on the Word of God. That's the way you feed on the Word, is hearing it. Hallelujah.
And as you use your faith, particularly if it wasn't very strong to start with, and you're using it, it'll get weak. It'll get to the place where it has no strength at all. But you don't find out about it like you do when you're using your physical limbs and your physical body because your physical body'll let you know. Your spirit's letting you know, but since you can't feel it. But you ought to know it because you're not getting any results. We've been going way too long and not receiving results. Amen. There's not anywhere in the New Testament or the book of Acts where Jesus or any apostle, nobody ever told anybody to wait a while.
People come up with that, you know, "Well, He always answers, and sometimes it's 'yes,' sometimes it's 'no,' and sometimes 'wait a while.'" I'm not going to tell you what I think of that. That just isn't true. "Well, Brother Copeland". Now, you know: In Him, in Jesus, what's the answer? "Yes and Amen". In Him all, somebody quote that for me. Yeah, but that's not what I'm looking for. That's a good answer. "All the promises of God in Christ are yes and Amen". That's what makes all things possible. Amen. He didn't say, "Wait a while". He just said, "Yes". The leper came up and said, "I know you can if you will". One translation said, "Well, of course I will". I can hear Him say, "Well, yeah. That's why I'm here, son. I came here to make you well! That's what I came to do! But you're going to have to wait about four years. You're going to have to confess this 16,728 times".
Now, I've been in the Lord's face over this for quite some time now. And Keith and Phyllis and I yesterday were discussing this. The authority of the name of Jesus and developing faith in that name is of vital importance when it comes to getting results in the kingdom of God and in the kingdom of darkness. Let's turn to the 16th chapter of Mark's Gospel. We're not going to be in a hurry about this. The last chapter of the book of Mark, Verse 15, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned," or condemned. "And these signs". These are signs. These are supernatural signs. And I want you to notice now, each one of these signs have to do with the curse of the law.
A few Sundays ago, my grandson Jeremy was preaching there at the church at EMIC and Terri and George were in Europe. And he was talking about being raised in the household of faith. And he said, "You know, I thought our house was the household of faith". He said, growing up, he said, "I really thought that, well, that's what the Bible's talking about, our house". And he said, "Our kids are different. You know, they talk different". Now, Jeremy is his oldest, and he said that Jeremy's little friend, who was also raised right there in our church at EMIC, and he was just a little guy, and they went on a road trip. And all of a sudden, they had a potty emergency, and so they pulled over to a roadside rest area and went in there and he said, "Ooh, daddy, this smells like the curse of the law in here"! Now, only a faith kid would come up with some, you've got to be raised in a faith family to, "This smells like the curse of the law". Oh, my goodness. "These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils they shall speak with new tongues".
Well now, how does that have anything to do about being redeemed from the curse of the law? Well, think about this. What happened to Adam? He lost his supernatural communication with God. Whew. And on the day of Pentecost, we got it back. Yes. Ha, hallelujah. If you never have been baptized in the Holy Ghost, receive it right now. "They shall take up serpents; if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover"! Why? Because of the name! The name. Faith in that name. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Thank You, Lord.
Acts 3. "Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the 9th hour," or 3:00 in the afternoon. "A certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered the temple; who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, Look on us. He gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them".
Let me get my stuff. I'm tired of going up and down this stairway. Get down there where I can look at you. Thank You, Lord. I keep looking in your eyes, I can tell whether you're getting it or not. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Now, I want to ask you something. Why do you think he expected to receive something of them? You ain't even close. He was laid there daily, right? Jesus went to the temple, looked around, went back to Bethany. Who was with Him? All the disciples. Then He went back the next day, preached there all day long after casting out the money changers and so forth. Then He went back the next day. They gave him something every time they walked through the door. You know Jesus never passed him up. That, at least, should have generated a smile instead of sitting there looking at me like this.
Okay, if that didn't do it for you, let me see what this will do for you. When Judas got up and left the room in the middle of the night at the Last Supper, some of them thought Jesus told him to go give to the poor. I would have thought, "Well, you know, he's probably going to the restroom". You have to have an extraordinary record of giving to the poor in the middle of the night to think that. So He's not going to pass this crippled guy by. He looked up and saw, "Oh, it's you guys. Yeah, I know y'all". Okay. I thought you'd like that. Now then, let's just skip on down, well, "Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; such as I have". I have this. It's mine. I have it. "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk".
Did he pray for the man? No. "He took him by the right hand, lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength". Go with me to the 16th verse. Well, let's go down to the 12th verse. "When Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, You men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we have made this man to walk"? "Yeah, but Brother Copeland, I mean, that was Peter. He was an apostle. He could do that". That's not what he said. And besides that, he didn't do it.
Now Verse 16, "His name, through faith in his name, through faith in his name"! Read it and say it with me. "Through faith in his name have made this man strong". Faith in the name made him strong, not the fact that he was an apostle. You notice where we read there in Mark 16:15-20, there wasn't anything mentioned of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher, only believers. Jesus only mentioned believers. That didn't work for Peter because he was an apostle, it worked for him because he was a believer.