Kenneth Copeland - Jesus Provided Your Hearts Desire
Mark chapter 11, and we'll begin reading with the 22nd verse. "Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God". The King James cross reference says, "Have the faith of God," very accurate. Another rendering of this that I really like is "Have the God kind of faith". "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 heart," in his inner man, "but shall believe," believe what, Lord? "Believe that those things, which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith".
The God kind of faith, the faith of God, believes in his heart and says with his mouth and believes what he says is coming to pass. "Then Jesus said, Therefore I say," so you notice Jesus immediately put that spiritual law of words and faith into motion. "Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire," oh thank God. A loving God has provided a way for us to receive every desire of our heart met. If you and I don't have our desires met, it's our fault, not His, because He put it in the Book and wrote it in red, amen? Isn't that right? "Believe that you receive them, and you shall have them, and," now this is all part of it. And is a conjunction and ties together what He just said with what He's about to say. "When you stand praying," so this is part of our prayer life. "When you stand praying, forgive if you have ought against any that your Father also, which is in heaven, may forgive you your trespasses".
Now I want you to notice, this is very interesting. In that 24th verse, "Therefore, I say unto you what things so ever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive". Notice the word them is in italics. That means it was added. If they put it in there, we can take it out. This is very interesting. "Believe that you receive, and you shall have. Believe that you receive, and you shall have".
Well, yeah, Brother Copeland, I sure would like to have... No, that ain't what it said. He didn't say, like to have it and you will receive. He said, believe, you receive. "Well, I just don't have that kind of faith". "Well, are you born again"? "Oh, yes". "Then you do have that kind of faith". Every born again child of God... In the first place, you got saved by faith, not of yourself. It is the gift of God, amen. Then in the 12th chapter of the Book of Romans, you remember what he said? "God has dealt unto every man," not every man in the world, but every man among you, every born again person. "He has dealt unto every born again person," that's what happened when you got born again, "the measure of faith". Every one of us, when we accepted Jesus, got exactly the same measure of faith. It's a measure of the faith of God.
Do you remember what the Apostle Peter said? Now man, this is the great apostle himself. He said, "I'm writing this letter to those of you that have received like faith with us". You have a measure of the same faith that Peter, John, James, Jude, the Apostle Paul, You and I have the same measure when we got born again. How did he do that? Well, faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That's the way it's dealt. That's the way it's received. Faith doesn't come any other way. Well, Brother Copeland, I thought faith came through trials and tribulations. No, if that was true, everybody on earth would be a faith giant wouldn't they?
Romans 10:17, let's turn to that 10th chapter of Romans. This is so thrilling and eye opening. Romans chapter 10, talking about the word of faith. Verse 6, "The righteousness, which is of faith, speaks". Now there it is again, words, spoken words. Faith is of the heart, but it's released in words, accompanied by corresponding action. "Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven, that is, to bring Christ down from above". "Oh Jesus, if You could just come touch my fevered brow... Oh Jesus, can't You tell how bad I'm hurting"?
I know you are sweetheart, but that ain't going to get it. That's not going to get it. That's like going into the bank and falling down in front of the bank teller. Would you just give me some money? I just need some money really bad. I need some of my money out of this bank". "Well are you a depositor"? "Yes, I am," and you just fall down on the floor and started kicking the front of the cage. "I just need some help awful bad. Give me some of my money". They ain't going to give you anything, dumb-dumb. Forgive me, but come on. You have to follow procedures. The laws that govern deposit and withdrawal out of that bank, because that's to protect you, protect your money. If that's all it took, somebody could come in and claim to be you and kick the front of the cage a few times, and they'd give you a couple hundred dollars. That ain't going to happen, unless you've got a gun in your hand. Are you with me now?
These things function by spiritual law, and it has nothing to do with feelings. It has nothing to do with the physical man or the mental man. It has to do with the spirit, that inner man, the real you and the real me. We have this measure of faith. Now, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church of Thessalonica and said, "Your faith groweth exceedingly," so faith can grow. That measure can grow, or you can be, "O ye of little faith," or you can be, "How is it that you have no faith"? But you got the same measure when you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, so it's up to us what we do with it.
Let's look here, and He's going to tell us what to do with it. "Who shall descend into the deep, that is, to bring Christ again from the dead"? No, no, that's not faith. "But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is the word of faith, which we preach". This Bible is the source of faith. It is filled with God's faith, amen? You feed on it. Matthew 4:4, remember that? "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God".
Now, what happens when you and I feed our physical bodies on physical food? When you eat physically, the nutrition your body needs is in that food. Then the nutrition that you need, then your body assimilates it and uses what there is good to use, gets rid of all the other, and goes through all that. It just does it. You don't have to stop and say, "Come on, liver. Okay, now, come on". No, it just happens. Why? Because that's the way it was created. Now, in the spirit I knew this was coming sooner or later. You that are listening to CDs, I just went down front where I can step on people's toes and see the whites of their eyes. Get down there where I can talk to you.
When you're feeding on natural food, your body depends on the quality of that food, because it's the only nutrition it's going to get, is what's in that food. Now the physical body is a picture of the spirit. You are a spirit. You live in a body. In your spirit, there is a soul, made up of your mind, your will, and your emotions, or the intellectual part of you. Your spirit and your soul are not the same. The Apostle Paul said, "I pray that you might be made whole, spirit and soul and body". Also in the Book of Hebrews, "That the Word of God will divide the spirit and the soul and is a discerner of the thought and the intent of the heart".
Remember that? Jesus used that analogy. Let's you and I use it. "Man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God". Why? Because that's where faith comes from. That's where everything that has to do with life, spirit life... Jesus said, "My words are spirit, and they are life," John 6:63. Amen? If you're only gleaning from the Bible things that answer certain doctrinal questions, then you're not acting on anything. It's just what us, whoever we are, believe. Most people don't know what we believe. You have to ask somebody else, "What do we believe"? That's the reason James said you need to be a doer of the Word and not just a hearer only. The reason he said what he did...
Let's turn over there, James chapter 1. Go to the Book of Hebrews and turn right one book. Verse 22, the first chapter, "Be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own self. For if any be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholds himself and goes his way, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was". He forgot what he saw in that mirror. Why? Well, I mean, you know what you look like. Then verse 25, "Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty..."
You know the truth. The truth will make you free. The person that's looking into the perfect law of liberty is looking for truth that'll make him free. The other one is just reading the Bible, or just carrying it to church and not reading it at all. It looks good when you come through the door, but why? Why do you forget? I mean, everybody in this room looked in the mirror at least once or twice today. Okay, how long is your nose? You don't know unless you measured it. If you take the time to measure it, you'll never forget it. How long is it from the outside of one eye to the other one? You've been looking at yourself for 50-60 years, and you still can't answer that question, because you never made a decision to find out.
Now, you make a decision to find out and make notes, then you remember. That's the illustration that he's using. Once you decide and commit yourself to be a doer of the word, amen. What you see in that Book, you put first place in your life, faith comes. Faith comes. Whoa, and when you're a doer, faith grows. Now you can't feel faith. It's a spiritual force. Spiritual forces are the most powerful forces in existence. God is a spirit. Those that worship Him, worship Him in spirit and in truth. Jesus, God manifested in the flesh, amen, spiritual forces: life, death, faith, fear, blessing, cursing, love, hate... These are the powerful forces. These are the forces that make or break life. We need to measure in these first. Then you begin to get your physical diet right, and then it just takes all kinds of pressure off of you. You may not like it at first, but you'll get to where you're going, amen.