Kenneth Copeland - Exercise The Word To Develop Your Spirit
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Today's broadcast on the Believer's Voice of Victory is really, really important to your life. So like I used to tell the kids when they were small, "Get your catchers out," glory to God. Order the outlines and the downloads and so forth so you can follow along, and all the scriptures and everything that we're talking about here. Very, very important. We're talking about training and educating the born-again human spirit. We know that we can educate the mind. We know that we can train and literally educate the physical body. That's called muscle memory, and so forth. But hey, the born-again human spirit needs to be trained, developed, and educated, and the mind, then, renewed to the Word of God. Hallelujah.
Father, thank you today. We give you praise and honor, and we worship you. Thank you Lord Jesus. Amen.
Let's open our Bibles today. Now all this week we've been reading out of the 11th chapter of Mark, but today let's open to II Corinthians chapter 4, please. We talked about this inner man. It is the inner man, the spirit being that got born again. II Corinthians 5. Well, we're right there in the fourth chapter. Let's look over there to the right a little bit, verse 17. "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature". He's a new creation. He's not just forgiven. Who, the body? No. The mind? No. The spirit. The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. Amen. And he is a new creature. "Old things are passed away. Behold, all things become new, and all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and has given to us the ministry of reconciliation".
Born again is real. It's not a religious expression. It literally says being born from above, born of the spirit. And Jesus said, "Whatsoever is born of the spirit is spirit, and what is born of the flesh is flesh". Amen. Well, the spirit man is born again. Hallelujah. Now, this is what we're talking аbout: educating and training the real you, not just your mind or your body. So now I want us to look here in this fourth chapter of II Corinthians, on the 13th verse. "We, having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed," where? In his heart.
Remember that, Mark 11:23? "Shall not doubt in his heart, but believe that those things which he sayest shall come to pass". He will have whatsoever he says. "We having the same spirit of faith according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken". "We also believe, and therefore we speak, knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you. For all things are for your sakes, and the abundant grace might be through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God. For which cause we faint not".
Now notice, look at it. "But though our outward man perish, the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal way to glory while we look not at the things which are seen". You can't do that with your mind, but the spirit man can. We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary. They're subject to change. But the things which are not seen are eternal. Glory to God. And you can see things in the spirit that you can't see with your mind. Thank God. Now you remember what Thomas's problem was? It was an act of his will, and he was very adamant about it. He said, "I will not believe. I will not," unless certain conditions are met. "I want to see those holes in his hand. I want to stick my finger in them, and I want to see that hole in his side and stick my hand in there".
Now, what's he saying? "That's when I'll start believing". Now what did we find out, Mark 11:24? "Therefore whatsoever thing you desire, when you pray, start believing". That's when you start believing. If you wait till you see something, then it's already changed. What'd your faith have to do with it? Nothing. Really. That's like, say I walk over there to that fireplace, and I say, "Give me some heat, and I'll put in some wood". I don't think so. But that would be the same rationale.
Now, I wanted you to see that inner man, there. I wanted you to see the inner man in action, and the outward man is perishing. But this inner man is renewed day by day. Is it? Not unless you do something about it, and that's what we're doing here today. We're talking about the renewing of this inner man. Hallelujah. Now then, we've been talking about, all week long, meditation in the Word of God is the first step towards the training and educating, developing of the born-again human spirit. Step number two, meditating in the Word. Well, here you go back again and meditate these scriptures. This is what expands you. He told Joshua, "You meditate in my Word day and night, and you'll see into it. You'll observe how to do".
Now see, he didn't have any clue what he was going to do at Jericho, until he meditated day and night in that Word. And the more he meditated, he saw it. He saw it. He saw them marching around that thing. He saw them marching around it all week long. And then he saw the trumpets blow, and he saw all of that before he ever got out there to do it. Well in the natural mind, what is that going to do with a wall that's so big you can run chariots four abreast across the top of that thing? Around a whole city? What's that going to do? Tear it down, that's what it's going to do, but in the natural mind you'd never think of that. No, you're thinking about, "Well, I don't know where I'm going to get enough dynamite to blow that down". They didn't have dynamite, thank you very much. But you can still think that way. "Where am I ever going to get the money to take care of a problem the size of this"?
Well, the reason the problem's so big is because that's all you're thinking about. You're meditating on it day and night. You're meditating on it day and night. I'm telling you, the radio and television bill kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger in this ministry. Whoa. And instead of going there, just meditate on it. Glory to God. Oh, I can do all things through Christ. And just meditate the faith scriptures, and meditate all of that. Meditate that. Meditate that. I heard it. I heard it in my spirit. "Kenneth, don't seek ways to get the money in. Seek ways to get the word out. The money will come".
I was working on the wrong end of the deal. I'm trying to figure out ways to get the money in instead of ways to get the word out. And he said, "I'm coming so soon, I want this uncompromised message of faith on every available voice". Well how in the world you going to do that? I tell you how you're going to do it. You're going to spend a lot of lot of lot of lot of money. And I'd already committed to God. I will never ever write an appeal letter. Never. Amen. I'm not judging other people, now. Unh-uh. I didn't say there's anything wrong with that. That'd be wrong of me to do it, because I had the mandate of God on this thing, so I couldn't go there. So you just keep meditating on it.
Well when it comes that way, it is so strong. It inspires you, but you have to stay there. You have to keep meditating on it, and keep confessing it, and stay with it, and stay with it like the woman with the issue of blood. If you look that up in the Greek, she legoed. She kept saying, she kept saying, she kept saying, she kept saying, she kept saying, she kept saying, she kept saying, "By the touch of the hem of his garment, the touch of his clothes, I will be made whole". She kept saying it; She kept saying it. Jesus said, "Daughter, your faith made you whole". She said that till she got her hopes up, because she was dying. Amen. Well, glory to God. Now, the second step... and we'll talk more about this one next week.
Let's go to the book of James, chapter 1. Being a doer, an actor on the Word. Become a doer. Now this means one has to make certain commitments and decisions concerning the written Word of God, or you never ever will. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God". You can spend a lot of time in the Word of God and build your faith up, and never get anything out of it, because faith requires corresponding action. But I want you to notice, 22nd verse here. "Be ye doers of the Word and not hearers only," look, look, "deceiving your own self".
If you're just a hearer only, you'll keep on talking yourself out of it. You're not meditating on that. You're not a doer. "For if any be a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. He beholdeth himself, and goes his way straightway," just almost immediately, "forgeteth what manner of man he was". He forgets what he saw. "But whoso," look at the words. "Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty," glory to God. This word is a perfect law of liberty. You know the truth; it will make you free. Not that it can or should; it will. It will make you free. Praise God. "And continue therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the Word". This man is blessed in his deed. Hallelujah.
Now what's the difference? And he uses looking in a mirror as the example. If you don't make a decision to really check something out on your face for a specific reason, then you just looked at it like you looked at it every other day. Even when you put your makeup on, or you fix your hair, or whatever you're doing. You're probably doing it the way you've done it all over and over again, very seldom you ever change that. Most of you around here have heard me say this. But if somebody asks you... It doesn't matter; inches or centimeters either one... How long is your nose? I don't have a clue. Well I do, because I measured it, but what's the distance of the width of your face? You don't know. Why? You never made a decision to find out. You didn't have any reason to find out.
Now people read the Bible, study the Bible, memorize the Bible, and never make a decision to act on what it says. Never make a decision to act like it's true. Just act like the New Testament truth. "By His stripes ye were healed". Okay, thank you very much, I'm healed. Not make any difference what the symptoms are. "Brother Copeland, I just don't understand that". I know it. You've been deceiving yourself. But when you make up your mind, "Whatever's in there is mine. That's mine, and that's the truth". "No, Brother Copeland. I can't say I'm healed, because look at this. I can't say..." No, that thing on your arm is not the truth. That's a fact. That's not truth. The truth is, "By His stripes you were healed". You meditate on that, and you make up your mind that is the truth, then I don't let it depart from my eyes. I keep it in the midst of my heart, because it's alive to me and health to my flesh. The truth will change that fact, and get rid of it. But I have to spend time at that, daily. I said daily.
"Brother Copeland, I don't have time". You're too busy. You're way too busy. And besides that, you've got a clock. Change it. Mm-hmm Oh, yeah. Get on up and work out before you go to work. Don't tell me you ain't got... Particularly, don't tell me you don't have time, and you get off of work and come home and watch television five, six hours. Don't tell me you ain't got time. "Well, I don't watch anything but Fox News". Well, I've never yet heard one of the news commentators on Fox quote Mark 11:23 or I Peter 2:24, or III John 2: "Beloved, I pray above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers".
Now I notice this about Fox News, they're not against that. They're not against it. Others that I've watched are against it. But that's not a big issue. That's not a major issue. The major issue is my spirit, my soul, my body, my wife, my children, my ministry, my life is more than the news media. I've got good news. I got news before it happens. Oh God, hallelujah. Being a doer, an actor. And I've made that decision, whatever. Gloria and I made it in one of Brother Hagin's meetings one night, and we stood with the rest of the people in that little meeting, and we made a absolute commitment to God: "Whatever I see in your Word, and I understand what it's saying to me, it is final authority in my life. I put it first place, and I'm a doer of it. And I go to your Word first, not later".
I may be on the way to the doctor, but I've been to the Word first. Amen. That is, if you need a doctor. We're not against doctors; thank God for them. Most of the Christians would have died without them. But I'll tell you, that's of God, absolutely of God. Humans are not smart enough to figure that stuff out without God's help, even though some of them just deny God. But they're not that smart. They still have to have the help of God to do it. They don't know that, but they do. But the thing of it is, when you put that Word first place in your life, how do you do that? And that's the third step, really. Meditation in the Word, becoming a doer of the Word, a doer, an actor of that Word, and you put that Word first. That's final authority. Forgiveness is final authority.
There is no valid excuse not to forgive. Those of you on staff saw that video that we played of a family that is partners to this ministry, good friends of ours, the Finlaysons. Their oldest son was killed in a collision with a drunk driver, and Tiki Finlayson got it from the Lord. And so did Tom, but they both got it about the same time. "You're going to have to forgive her. It's not optional, sweetheart. No. Because if you don't forgive, then you're a murderer". What? Well, I'm not going to go digging around in everybody's... but the love of God does not abide in you. That means alive. It may be in there, but you're not standing on it. And you hate that person.
I John says what it says, so we don't have any option. But it takes a strong, developed, born-again human spirit in control of the soul and the body in order to do that. And they did it, and became very, very close friends with that woman. Glory to God. They are like family. And one person said, "Well, their son went to heaven, but they gained them a daughter". They are that close, and they speak at different... about drunk driving and all of that, and got on television and all of that. This is a big thing. But the biggest thing about it, you're not only ministering to the woman that killed their son, but now their own spirit is not full of grief and the spirit of death that'll get in you and kill you. And we're out of time. Boy, it's been a good week, hasn't it? Praise God. Hallelujah. Say it, "I'm a meditator. I'm a doer of the Word. And I put God's Word first place in my life".