Kenneth Copeland - Meditate On The Word Of God To Develop Your Spirit
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland, welcome to Tuesday's edition of The Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast. Think about it, the believer has a voice and it is the voice of victory. And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.
Father, thank you today, we give you all the praise and the honor for every deed that's done and every word that's said. And we thank you and praise you for revelation from heaven, insights and ideas and concepts about living this life of faith and walking worthily of the Lord who has made us able to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.
Thank you, Lord. Well, as I said to you yesterday, we have a group of people here that love the Lord. You know what a fanatic is? That's somebody that loves God more than you do. And shows it. Amen. These are friends and staff and so forth here at KCM and some partners. And we're just having a lot of fun here today. Now then, let's go back to Mark 11, where we began yesterday. We are majoring in these studies this week and next week, not so much on the force of faith, but on the inner man, the real you.
Let me say it like this, you are a spirit. You don't have a spirit, you are a spirit. Inside you, inside your spirit being resides your soul, made up of your will, your mind, your will, and your emotions, or in other words the intellectual part of you. You, your soul, live in a physical body. Now a good illustration of this, it makes it very, very clear, the rich man died, was carried into hell. The beggar died and went into Abraham's bosom. The rich man lifted up his eyes and recognized Abraham. Now he never met Abraham, but he knew him. So, when the body is removed, then the mind is more knowing than you think it is 'cause it's not limited by the natural physical body or the natural physical world. Abraham said, "Son, remember".
Now that is very eye opening. His memory was not in his brain. It was in his spirit and in his soul, that's where his memory was. The brain is the physical go-between, it takes the brain to express the intellect and the spirit. Now that's another study, but that's extremely interesting. And it is a study that 99.something% of born again Christians absolutely know zero about. And by not knowing anything about it, you wind up being religiously brainwashed and just go for a lot of religious traditions. God can't do that and won't do that, I don't understand, you know, a lot of things.
Well, there's a lot of things you don't understand, it's 'cause you don't know. You hadn't been taught. I've been flying airplanes for a long time, 57 years. And if you don't know, my conversation with you about airplanes is very limited. 'Cause I'd lose you in a second. It took me a long time to find all that out. But now back in the early days, see an airplane, the spiritual part of it's concerned, an airplane would have flown in 1800 just the same as it will the year 2000. Because all of the laws of physics were there, just nobody understood them. And there was some stupid ideas that people got killed trying to make it work because they really didn't understand the laws behind it. Not understanding the laws of the spirit create a lot of religious tradition that's not even true in the first place. Amen.
Let's go back here in Mark 11 and let's read that 22nd verse again. "Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his inner man, shall not doubt in his heart," we made mention of it yesterday that this is not talking about the physical heart. Of course, we're talking about a spiritual force of faith. But the reason it's called heart is because it's used in the same context as the heart of an issue, the heart of a tree. And I'm thinking right now the heart of a watermelon. Don't that sound good? But that's the core, that's the core of that tree. Well this physical heart, whoa, particularly when the scripture says the life of the body is in the blood. Whoa, that makes this physical heart very, very, very, very important. It is the heart of this physical system. Amen.
So the spirit man is actually you. It is the heart, it is the heart of man, the most important part of man, it is man. I said this yesterday, you can live without your body, but your body can't live without you. Let me say it like this, your body cannot live without its heart. Either one of them. Amen? I never said that before. Don't ask me to say it again. But really, your body cannot live without the blood pump, and it can't live without you. You are the human heart. See, the Bible is a spiritual book. It's not a natural book, it's a spiritual book. And it's not a Western book, it's an Eastern book. And that messes a lot of people up.
So anyway, let's go on. "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart," in his inner man, in his spirit being, "but shall believe," where? In the heart. "That those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when ye pray, believe," when you pray, start believing in the inner man. I'm not talking about your mind, faith is not of the mind. It's not of the head, it's of the heart. So this inner man needs to be trained and developed with understanding and grow up.
You remember the Bible said for babies, spiritual babies, desire the sincere milk of the Word that ye may grow thereby. Well, most baby Christians don't even get milk. Maybe they get spiritually what my grandpa used to call Blue John. You know, when my grandmother would churn and make butter, you didn't have anything left and all the fat was gone. It kind of turns blue when it's zero fat. That's a benefit of you city folks that never experienced that. Boy, he didn't like Blue John. "No, don't give me that, I want milk". Well, desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby. But then we know from the book of Hebrews, desire the meat of the word. Amen. Well, yes sir, I'll do that.
Let's go over there to the book of Hebrews 5 because this is right in step, look in the 13th verse. And this, by the way, is part of the mission statement of Kenneth Copeland Ministries. "Every one that uses milk," let's back up, 12th verse, "When the time when you ought to be teachers," you ought to be teaching by now instead of just still being a baby. "You have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not strong meat. For every one that uses milk is unskillful in the Word of righteousness: for he is a baby. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses," the physical body's senses, "exercised," or trained, "to discern both good and evil".
Now there's a lot of stuff, a lot of it that before I was born again that I have nothing to do with any more. It's repulsive to my senses. Tobacco in any form is absolutely repulsive to my senses. And when I got born again, I tell you, I hated that. I wanted loose from that so badly, but I didn't know how to do it, I didn't know how to receive it. Boy, I'd get all upset about it and throw them away. And then, "Lord have mercy, I ain't got money enough to buy any more". And turn around back there in there weeds hunting what I just threw out of that car. Now ain't that stupid? No, stupid is spelled B-A-B-Y. Baby. I was born again, Holy Ghost baptized, scripturally illiterate.
Now I didn't have any religious training, so I didn't have all that to, you know, my folks went to church, but didn't any of it stick to me. I rebelled at a young age and refused to go back. But when I got into the word, glory to God, and got under the teaching of the word. I didn't quit smoking, it left me. Now, I quit, you know, probably if I counted them up, maybe several hundred times. But I didn't quit, it quit me. Amen. Now that's what that scripture is talking about. Let's back to where we were in Mark 11. I want to point out something to you here from the 24th verse. "Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe," okay, now back up there. "Shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe," believe what, Jesus?
Listen to this very carefully. "Believe that those things which you say will come to pass," very important information. "And you shall have whatsoever you say". That's where 99+% of Christians get hung up. Right there. Not being taught the importance of words. Well, my goodness, we live in a word created environment, a word upheld environment. And the power of death and life are in the tongue. No teaching. No awareness of it. So that puts then a priority where? On the spirit, on the words, and on the believing. Amen. "And when you stand praying, forgive, if you have ought against any: that your Father which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses".
Now we're talking about developing and training the born again human spirit. But the little babies can't manage that because they are feeling oriented and hurt. "Well, I know I'm supposed to forgive, but I just can't". Yes you can. God has never told you to do anything you can't do. But you can't do it by yourself. You got to go back to this. I have to believe I receive. Believe what? Aha! Yeah, believe what? I have to go to 1 John 1:9 where it tells me how to receive forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness. Now I know spiritually, the spiritual law and as a spirit being, I need to be trained so that that doesn't bother me like that any more. But I'm spiritual adult enough and realize that I'm a soldier in the army of the Lord and I endure hardship like a soldier.
And there are times, it's a hard thing to walk in that kind of forgiveness. But it's a commandment, it's not a suggestion. It's not a Hallmark card. No, no, glory be to God. I mean, sir, yes, sir, they're forgiven. That's an act of my will, not my feelings. But this inner man needs to grow up like a soldier and be trained. And that's what we're talking about. Praise God. Here we go. The very first step in the developing and training, or the educating, of the born again human spirit is the practice of meditation in the word. To meditate in the Word is to take time to mull it over.
The root word in the Hebrew... you can go ahead and be looking up the book of Joshua, please, chapter 1. To meditate is to mutter, to talk to yourself, and talk about the word that you just read. And give the Lord an opportunity to expand your concept of that word. And it may be some word, I was thinking about years and years ago and I said, years ago and I believe that was in the... yeah, and I said, "Okay, Lord, here's what I'm going to do. Now I'm going to start meditating on these scriptures".
And I prayed about it, I mean, man this was 50 years ago. I was reading in John 5. "There was a feast of the Jews and Jesus went up to Jerusalem". And I thought, well, there's not anything in that. Then the Lord said, "I thought you was going to meditate that"? I said, "What? There ain't anything in that". "Oh, okay". So I said, "There was a feast of the Jews, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Hmm". So I just sat there and thought about that. And I began to see the road out there and so forth. All of a sudden something happened. Here's all of this multitude going to Jerusalem. And I saw it, I'm telling you, it was so plain. Jesus split off.
And I thought, "Where's he going"? And then I read the next verse. And I heard the Lord say this, "They all went to the religious place to do something religious. Jesus went to the Pool of Bethesda and raised a man up". Whoa! All of a sudden, you don't ever forget that verse. Here I am 50 years later and it sparks in me again this morning. Amen. That comes from meditating. I was meditating... well, let's read this scripture in Joshua chapter... where are we? Yeah, thank you, Tim. Remember, it's time for Joshua to lead this group across the river. Now last time he was there, there was some really big people over there. And walled cities and all that kind of thing. And he hasn't been back since.
So, what did he do? You know, he's thinking about that. But the Lord said, "This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you will meditate therein day and night and you may observe," you'll see, "how to do according to all that's written therein". That's what happened when I meditated that scripture, see. I saw something in it. "Then you shall make your way prosperous, then you shall have good success," the cross reference says you will deal wisely. One translation says you will deal wisely in the affairs of life. Glory to God. And we're out of time. "Have I not commanded thee, be strong and of good courage". Now he's saying, "You meditate on that". Why is he saying that? Because God is saying to him, "Sonny boy, I'm the giant here. You get your mind on the real giant here. I'm the biggest thing in the valley of the shadow of death". Glory to God. Amen. I said amen! Thank you, Lord. Praise the Lord.