Kenneth Copeland - Developing Your Born-Again Human Spirit
Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland and this is the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Let's have a word of prayer and we'll get right into today's Bible lesson.
Father, thank you so much for your Word. We open our hearts. We open our minds for revelation from heaven and we thank you for it. And we honor You, Lord Jesus, in this place. We honor you, Holy Spirit in this place. Oh, Lord Jesus, this place belongs to you. Hallelujah. And we ask and believe we receive Your manifesting Yourself just any way you want to. And because we're excited about you and we're excited about the Word and we're excited about these broadcasts. We thank you for it, in Jesus' name, amen.
Give the Lord praise this morning. Amen. We welcome all you to the studio and we've got a bunch of fanatics in here this morning. You hang around long enough, you'll be just as fanatical as we are about Jesus and His word and living by faith and walking in the power of his love and in the name of Jesus. Let's open our Bibles first of all, to the 11th chapter of the book of Mark. Brother Copeland, it seems like that's just where you start all the time. You finally realized that, huh? Amen.
Now, I'll give you a little background on that. Many, many years ago, and we're celebrating, at the time you're seeing this and, oh I think probably somewhere in the first part of March. But, while we're here this morning, this is January. This and we're celebrating our 52nd anniversary in the ministry, praise God. Gloria and I are excited about that. Back in the very, very early part of this, I enrolled as a student in January of 1967. A short time after that, and of course I was... Oral Roberts, praise God, my spiritual father who's in heaven now and I miss him. But just a short time after that, I was thrilled at my introduction to Kenneth E. Hagin's ministry. I began to watch Oral Roberts use his faith, I was part of the flight crew and I remember one of the first things I noticed in those meetings.
Now I was privileged to be in two of the last three tent meetings that they had. That was an experience. Whoa. I noticed, man, he uses his faith on purpose. I thought, "You know? He didn't just shoot a scatter shot at stuff. He's like a mechanic that goes to his toolbox and gets exactly the tool he needs at the time and he uses it just like a mechanic uses a tool". Amen. And it revolutionized my entire idea and concept about faith. I was hungry for faith. I remember reading, and of course, I was scripturally illiterate even when I went to school, but I remember after Gloria and I both got born again and six months after we were married.
I remember reading the 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews. I said, "Gloria, this is the hall of fame". But it's faith. How do you get that? I didn't know I already had it when I got born again. I just had a quest in my heart for it. I began to study after Brother Hagin as well as Brother Roberts. And, of course, a short time after that, the Lord said to me... Now, I've never heard the audible voice of God. I'm open, sir. But, in that place that every born again believer, and this is some of the things we're going to get into this week and next. We're going to be talking about developing and training the born again human spirit and most people don't even know you can do that. They know you can train your mind and train your body, but don't know you can train your spirit.
Anyway, you can train your spirit to hear God. He's speaking to us all the time. Then if He isn't speaking it's we been so spiritually dense as not to be able to be aware of what He's saying. Anyway, I heard this. "I want you to go teach my people faith". So I'm either going to start there or wind up there or go by there on the way because that is part of the original mandate of this ministry. And so, when I'm not really all that sure what I'm supposed to do in a certain service, I just go to Mark 11:20, 22, 3, 4 and 5 and start there and then the Lord'll take me wherever He wants me to go.
Now, most of the time, I would say oh, way beyond 90% of the time, I'm well aware of where I'm to begin. A lot of times, this happens more than once, He'll give me something like that we're going to do in these two weeks of study. This may be just the first part of the track. I've had that happen, too. Where you move in the direction He says and then He'll go here a direction and so forth. But we're open to the leadership of the Spirit of God, amen? And I know you're praying and you're helping me and you, too, amen. Praise God. Thank You, Lord. Mark chapter 11. Now, you remember the situation here. Jesus spoke to a fig tree and said to it, "No man eat fruit of thee hereafter forever. And his disciples heard it".
Well, they went on to Jerusalem. Then they were there until evening, went back then to Bethany and spent the night. So all day, at least what, 12 hours or so, probably, after He spoke to that tree, they went back by it. Nobody commented on that and you know good and well, they looked. I mean, unless it was so dark you couldn't see it. But, you know, people didn't wait till it was so dark you couldn't see to travel then so there was obviously enough daylight to get back over there. No comment. But the next day. So sometime during that time, the spiritual force of faith was applied to that tree when He spoke it and sometime during that time, the working of that spiritual force...
Now, look at this in verse 20. "In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree dried up from the roots". Notice, from the roots. That's very important. Most people without actually thinking about it look to the outside to see if you can see anything. And if it happens to be your body you're dealing with... Or can I feel anything? Well, that's not the evidence of anything spiritual. It may the result of it, but it's not evidence. This started... Spiritual things go to the root. So, "...dried up from the roots. Peter calling to remembrance said, Master, behold the fig tree which thou cursed is withered away. Now Jesus answering saith unto them, have faith in God".
Now faith is a spiritual force because God is a Spirit. Now, I'll tell you before we get any further into this. Jesus is demonstrating to them and to you and to me that as human beings, spirit beings, created originally in the image and the likeness of God, Who is a Spirit. So we have the spiritual capability and capacity to do what God did and does. We have that same capacity. Then when you get born again, then it's your spirit man, the inner man that's reborn, not your body. Now, your mind has to be renewed. But this spirit man is recreated. The spirit man is not healed. The spirit man is not just forgiven.
I remember when I was a young boy and the church that we grew up in, one of the favorite things we heard. I'm just an old sinner saved by grace. No, you are not. If you're an old sinner, you need to get saved by grace. I know what we were trying to say, but that is a sin-consciousness concept. And really not aware that you have been made a new creation. We are new creatures in Christ. Praise God. Old things have passed away and behold, all things have become new, of your spirit. All things have become new and, say it with me, all things are of God. Everything about this inner man is of God. He's your Father. Amen. The Word of God is your DNA. The Word of God is Jesus' DNA. I mean, it was the very seed that entered into little Mary's womb. Hallelujah.
Well, what do you think happened to you, glory of God. You believed in your heart and said it with your mouth. With the heart, man believes unto righteousness and mouth, confession is made unto salvation. And when you did that, the same thing happened to you. Amen. For the Spirit of God hovered over little Mary and in her was conceived the Holy Thing. The Holy Ghost came and hovered over you and inside there was conceived a holy person. Glory to God. That's enough to make you kicking happy, glory. I mean right there, hallelujah. Praise God. Woo, ain't it fun? I'll tell you. I love it. Praise God. So our concentration today is not specifically on the force of faith, but it's specifically on this inner man, in which the force of faith lives. Hallelujah.
Now then, "Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart," in this inner man. Now, let me talk to you a moment about this. Most of you here are aware of this, but there are those in the television audience that are not. The reason the word "heart" is used is because... Well, you talk about the heart of a subject. It's the most important thing about the subject. The heart of a tree. You're talking about where the life of the tree is. The physical heart is, boy, that's the place where the physical life is. That's the reason it's called "the heart". Amen. But you can't believe God, you can't believe with your physical heart anymore than you can your liver. Because we're talking about two different things. Jesus said, "Whatsoever is born of the spirit is spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh". They're two different systems.
Now, this inner man... You remember the Scripture in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians. "Now abides faith, hope, and love, these three. The greatest of these is love". Well, of course, that's God. Now, te love of God is shed abroad in our heart in the spirit in the inner man by the Spirit of God. So think about the fruit of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, goodness, gentleness, meekness, temperance. Against such there is no law. Those are spiritual forces, not natural forces. Spiritual forces. They're the most powerful forces that exist. Now that we're tracking together on the same line of thought, this spirit inner man, the "you". You can live without your body but your body can't live without you.
Now that's a good way to think about that. That really builds a mental image of about Whom we're speaking and about Whom we're thinking. The natural world... And it's easy to understand why. I mean, we've lived our entire lives beginning 100% on the natural side of it. So we've been naturally oriented instead of spiritually oriented. And then went to church where natural people taught about natural things and the reason they thought miracles had passed away, because in their group, it had. They just thought God didn't do it anymore and kept teaching that and teaching that and teaching that and teaching that for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, even thousands of years. Amen. And just handed it down and handed it down and it wasn't true at all because God never changes. You think about it. If He decided not to heal anymore, He'd have to change His name.
Now this is something else that English speaking people have missed because our English Bible doesn't handle it very well. It just capitalizes L, capital O, capital R, capital D, to represent the name of God. And that came from Greek. I mean, the Greek Septuagint was in the middle there before it was ever translated from the Hebrew. So it got messed up. Didn't even translate the word "Messiah". Just left it in Greek: Christ. So it didn't mean anything to us English speaking people. But one of God's redemptive names is I AM, the Lord. Rapha. I AM LORD that healeth thee. Glory to God. But I don't do that anymore, so just write that... No, no. He can't change. He can't change. It isn't that He won't. I mean, He got it right the first time, you understand? Praise God.
So our central thought and thinking in this study and in this teaching from the Word is on developing and training or educating the born again human spirit. Now, if I mention the training of the physical body. Like, for instance, I have a trainer and I work out hard four days a week. On a Monday and a Tuesday and I have Wednesday as a rest day. And then Thursday and Friday and rest on the weekend. Well, I understand that. I didn't have to have a trainer to know that. Everybody knows that. I mean, come on. I mean, I was an athlete when I was in high school and all that. I know the principles. And everybody knows that the mind can be developed. The mind can be trained. It's amazing the things that can be done with the human mind, even in little babies.
Amen. My daughter and son-in-law, when Jeremy, who you'll meet as the announcer later. He's been in the ministry since he was three years old and never thought about anything else. What happened? Well, when Terri was carrying Jeremy, they would lay hands on him while she was still carrying him and read Scripture to him and tell him that he's a seed of Abraham. And that he will walk by faith and that he will preach the gospel. That's all he's ever wanted to do. Well, Brother Copeland, you don't think he actually heard it, do you? I'm not even going to answer that. Well, of course, he did. Of course, he did. Amen. But that's been scientifically proven.
So what I'm saying is, we know these things are available. We understand that. But very little, precious little has ever been said or taught or actually really researched about the training, education and developing of the born again human spirit. That's the one that needs developing. Amen. Oh, we're going to enjoy this. Glory to God. I don't care who it is. I've been doing this a long time, like I said, over 52 years. But compared to where we can be, oh, come on. Come on, man. I got so far to go and I'm the hungriest man for God you ever saw in your whole life. I want to know more. Praise God. And we're out of time. Praise God. Thank You, Jesus.