Kenneth Copeland - The Holy Spirit Way Of Doing Things
Father, we praise You. We thank You. And greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. And we look to you, Holy Spirit, our teacher, the great teacher, and we thank You for teaching us. We thank You for standing with us and standing in us to reveal Jesus to us. And we boldly declare that the Greater One who lives within us will equip me today to stand in the office into which I'm called and to teach this Word and to minister as You will. And I thank You for it, and we praise You and thank You for it, and that You are helping people all over the world to hear Your Word and to receive revelation from heaven in the name of Jesus. We praise You and give You the praise and the honor. In Jesus' name, amen.
Now take hold of that right now. Say, "That's mine. I receive revelation from the Spirit of God today. Hallelujah". Say this: "Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world". Now, when the Word says that in I John, it was talking about, you have overcome them. The "them" he was talking about was the spirit of antichrist. You have overcome them spirits. You know, the grammar's terrible, but you hear what I'm saying. You have overcome the devil, because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. So just say it, "The Greater One is in me"! Hallelujah.
If you've never been baptized with the Holy Spirit, speaking with other tongues, now is the time to do it. This is the easiest thing you ever did in your life. Jesus said, "How much more your Heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him". So all you've got to do is ask. Now, you make sure you're born again before you do that, absolutely. Just say, "Jesus, come into my heart. Take my life and do something with it". Praise God. Just pray it right now. "I believe you've been raised from the dead, glory to God. I'm asking you for Your Holy Spirit baptism today. I fully expect to speak with other tongues as You give me the utterance. In Jesus' name, I receive it by faith". Amen.
Now, let's go right now, right to what we've been learning. We do it the faith way, not the natural way. "Well, I don't feel like He heard me". Well, hey, Jesus said that in the Gospel of Luke. Amen. In fact, let's just turn over there, and we just put our own eyes on it, and the 11th chapter of Luke if you've got your Bible there. You start reading Verse 9. "I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. For everyone that asks receives; he that seeks finds; to him that knocks it shall be opened". Now, remember we talked about this, I think it was on Monday's broadcast. That's true, but now you have to realize He's talking about asking in faith and believing you receive, because that's what He said over in Mark 11:23 and 24, particularly the 24th verse.
Now, "If a Son", so this is after you get born again, right? "If a son shall ask bread of you that's a father, will you give him a stone"? No. "Or if he asks a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent"? Will he give him a devil? No. "Or if he ask an egg, will he give him a scorpion"? He just got through calling those devils and just previously here a little bit ago. "If you then, being evil", or if you then just being natural fathers, "know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him"? Hallelujah. "Father, I'm asking you, and I believe I receive. Thank You. I'm Spirit filled". "Oh, Brother Copeland, now, it can't be that easy". I like to know why not. That's what the Master said.
See, faith cometh by hearing, doesn't come by feeling. Now, I fully expect and love some feelings here, but I'm not being led by them one way or the other. And as you pray that and... No, the Spirit of God's moving on you. It's your voice. They began to speak in Acts 2 as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, you just take it. "Ah-la-la". Let your tongue say whatever it's going to say. Now, if it wants to say, "Hallelujah," let it say, "Hallelujah". "Hallelujah, hallelujah". One dear lady we were praying with one time years ago, she said, "Hallekaluka, hallekaluka". This has become big in our family till yeah. This is 45 years ago, probably. Hallekaluka". She said, "I just don't know why I don't speak in tongues". I said, "What do you mean"? "Well, I just"... We say, "Okay".
We laid hands on her again. And she said, "Oh, God, Hallekaluka. Hallekaluka". And we said, "You're speaking with other tongues". "No, I'm not". See, she wasn't hearing it with her own ear. It was there all the time. Well, and we told her that. She said, "Really"? She said, "What'd I say"? And I think it was Gloria said, "You said, 'Hallekaluka.'" "Oh". She said, "Hallekaluka, hallekaluka". Man, I mean, just took off, praise God. I don't care if you want to start with "Hallekaluka", you know. "Well, I want it to be". Ah, quit fussing around about it. Just be like a little child and say, "Thank You, Jesus," you know. When the children were little, they'd say. I'd say, "What'd they say, Gloria"? But she'd tell me what they said. I didn't know what they said. Oh, thank You, Lord, all right. In the name of Jesus, where in the world was I when we got here?
All right. Isaiah 55, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord". And we're talking about the ways of God. The love way, we talked about that. The Word way, we talked about that. The faith way, we talked about that. The natural way of thinking is to look and see and feel and see, or to put "thy will be done". "Well, Brother Copeland, I thought you're supposed to pray like that". No. Now listen, the only time you pray like that is a prayer of consecration. That's what Jesus prayed. "Lord, if it be your will, I am yours to command. I'll go anywhere. If that's your will, I'll go over there. If it be your will". "Well, you know, why don't we pray that be ye willed to heal"? Because He's already done that. He's already expressed His will about that. You put that on Jesus. Jesus bore it. That's finished work of Calvary. Amen.
So we don't pray that. And there is the prayer of praise and worship. That's the highest form of prayer there is, is praise and worship. Oh, hoo, shkkk-kk, that is the big gun of faith. Hallelujah. But, see, you pray that prayer in faith, too. Praise God. You got all the Psalms. Just praise Him and pray them, and amen. Now, the faith way is, "I'm not moved by what I see". We walk by faith and not by sight. Now, we're talking today about "by my spirit," so the Spirit way. And of course, that's what led me into you going ahead and receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Zechariah 4. Now, you remember Jesus said, "Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and cast into the sea, and not doubt in his heart, but believe these things which he says come to pass, he'll have whatsoever he saith"?
Now listen to this from Zechariah 4 in the 6th verse, "Then he answered and spoke unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts". Wait a minute. "Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel, thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace, unto it". He said, "Mountain, who do you think you are"? Now, how is that? "Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord". Hallelujah.
Now, John 14, Jesus said, in the 10th verse, "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwells in me, he does the works". Get that? It's the Spirit of God that does the works. You and I do the believing. And we do the saying of the Word. We put the Word of God in our hearts and in our mouths. Just what Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: it's the Father that dwells within me, he does the works". In another place, he said, "I can do nothing of myself".
See, Jesus didn't walk the earth as the Son of God, he walked the earth as the Son of man. He lived and walked as a man. He got tired like a man, he ate like a man, He was strong like a man, but a sinless man. And the only words He ever said were the words that the Father said to Him first. Amen. "I only say what I hear my Father say, I only do what I see my Father do". Now, see, He's walking by faith, just like everybody else. "Oh, Jesus didn't have to walk by faith". Really? The Scripture says it is impossible to please God without faith. And the Scripture says Jesus perfectly pleased the Father. The Scripture says "Whatsoever's not of faith is sin," and Jesus never, ever sinned one single little, tiny time, which means He was also a tither. Glory to God.
Doesn't that thrill your heart? Glory to God, yeah. Oh, yeah. He stood right strong on Malachi 3:10, always. Oh, shew, boy, there's some stuff I'd like to say about that right now that those of you that think, "Well, we don't think tithing is now because everything belongs to God anyway". Well, everything belonged to Jesus, too, but He's a tither. And you come over in the New Testament, in the 6th and 7th book of Hebrews, that's in the New Testament the last time I read it, sweetheart. And said, there "Here men that die receive tithes," New Testament, "Here men that die receive tithes; but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witnessed he liveth".
Jesus is the high priest. He's our Melchizedek. He receives our tithes! Whoa. We're back to the Spirit, aren't we? It is the Spirit that dwells within, He does the work. The high priest is the high priest of our confession and our words, and it is the Holy Spirit within us that connects us with Him. And we hear Him tell us what to say and what to do and, whoa, there's the faith that does it. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. You've totally immersed yourself into the Word of God. Hallelujah. "I ain't got time for all that other mess. Man, I'm building my faith. I ain't got time for all that. I've got to speak with other tongues". He that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks unto God. He speaks unto God. He speaks unto God. Amen.
"Howbeit in the Spirit no man understandeth him". But then what does happen? He said, "He that speaks in another tongue edifies himself," or builds himself up. Joel put it like this: "Building up". Jude put it like this, at 20, "building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit". "By my Spirit, saith the Lord". Are you there? "We've not been given the spirit of fear but the spirit of power, the spirit of love, and the spirit of a sound mind". That's the renewing of your mind. We talked about that yesterday. The whole broadcast, we talked about that yesterday. Amen. And I'm quite sure we'll dig into it again next week.
Well, what's going on here? Spirit, soul... you are a spirit. If I could take my body off and you could see me, I would look just like me, only I would look somewhere around 30, 35 years old. That's what happens in heaven. I've talked to people that have been to heaven and been back; and a very, very, very close friend of mine had a wonderful visit with his dad who had just gone to heaven just a short time before. And he said, "When I saw my dad, Kenneth, I'd never seen him like that". He said, "He looked like he's about 30 years old or so". He said, "He is so handsome and so good looking. Glory to God".
I can hardly wait to see my mama, you know. I have pictures of her when she's that age. When she went home to be with the Lord, I set a picture up there on top of that box. And, we don't open the box at a funeral. I don't look at that. You can do that if you want to, but I believe in life. Anyway, we sat her picture up there, right... no, excuse me, it was not on the casket, it was right next to it, on a real pretty easel sitting there. And I told my dad, I said, "Daddy", I looked at right there.
I said, "Remember that? I remember the day she had that picture taken". I was just a little boy, but I remember it very, very well. I said, "Do you remember that"? He said, "Yeah, I do". I said, "That's what you're looking for, sir. Now, when you get there, that's what she's going to look like". Praise God. Amen. This is so real. This is so powerful. This is so wonderful. "By my Spirit, not by might, not by power". No, no, no. "Not by might, not by power, by my Spirit," saith the Lord. Hallelujah. Watch this.