Kenneth Copeland - Exercise and Laughter Are God's Prescription for Pain
KENNETH: Hello everybody. Welcome again to the believers voice of victory broadcast. I'm Kenneth Copeland.
Father, we thank you again today. We open our hearts today to hear and to be healed and we praise you and thank you. And we are, we are, we are praising people, we are worshiping people and we, we just rejoice in the things that you've shown us and we thank you for sending Dr. Jackson to us. My, my, my, my, we are so blessed and we thank you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Would you join me in welcoming Dr. Avery Jackson? Glory to God! This has been wonderful, um, I want to go over here to Second Corinthians. You said something yesterday, verse six of the 9th Chapter. "This I say he who would soweth with sparingly shall reap also sparingly. He would soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give. Not grudgingly or necessity," not because somebody put pressure on you to do it. "For God loveth a cheerful giver". Now, you mentioned this in the course of, of, of our conversation of what happens when a person becomes a giver. When you have a giving lifestyle and you really enjoy it. I tell you, I love to give. I love to do it all time and it's just, it has just become so huge in my life and, uh, I look for it, odd places, you know, to sow. And you just mentioned about some of the things that happen when you give and I want to know more about it.
DR. JACKSON: Yes sir. So, um, there've been, there's studies in animal models as well as in, uh, humans regarding the pleasure centers of our brain that light up and areas of the hypothalamus. And so in both instances, the studies have shown that when we give those pleasure centers light up much greater than when we receive. So that's kind of interesting because...
KENNETH: That's what Jesus said!
DR. JACKSON: Said! And, but what's really interesting, right is, is that what's God's heart, God's heart is that he loves us individually and he wants us to be okay. So he knows that when we have a posture of giving, we're not focused on the worry because of lack of having something, and placing the greater value on not having something and the stress that we, that's produced with that lack. Instead, our heart is a giving heart. It's a thankful heart. It's a full heart. So it's, it's literally protective to our brains and our minds, as well as our bodies, because we know if we worry, that increases blood pressure and that increases your risk of having a heart attack or stroke, which are the number, you know, number two and three killers in America. So again, He's saying this is a good thing for many reasons, but one of the reasons is because he cares so much for us as a loving father, that it's protective to us individually when we give, and obviously it's a blessing to him and it's a blessing to the Body of Christ and a blessing other people, but it's specifically protective of us.
KENNETH: Praise God. Now, that's wonderful. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm going to have some more fun. It is absolutely amazing. I, I thought of all of the different things that Jesus was talking about and when he said it's more blessed to give. Because when, when you sow you, you and your, you're giving you release the, the seed to the blessing that's coming back. But of course I didn't know about the dolphins and all that. I know some people just use their first broadcast. Dolphins? What you talking about, Dolphins"? I'm talking about endorphins. Amen. And it does become a narcotic it, and I can see now why it's releasing dopamine. It's doing all of these wonderful, marvelous things in my, in my body. And of course my heavenly father knew that and he made the system to work that way. Praise God.
DR. JACKSON: So when you, when you give and you have a kind heart and only do you, you don't focus on the stress, but also you, your dopamine increases. And when your dopamine increases, it reinforces something that seemed good to you or right to you to do again. And so when that happens, what happens then you start to become kind of addicted to doing God's Word and addicted to love and addicted to giving. And so it becomes easier and easier and easier as opposed to this drudgery. Like, I've got to give, oh man, I can't. I've got to do this. It becomes fun. And what? That's a stress reliever. So then it affects the rest of your body.
KENNETH: Praise God, I want to see this in Luke 6:38. Um, you, you come back up all the way back up. Uh, verse 30, "Give to every man that ask of thee. And of him that taketh us away thy goods ask him not again. And as you would that men should do to you. You do also to them, likewise. For if you love them, which love you, what thank have you for sinners also love those that love, love them. And if you do good to them, which do good to you, what thank have you for sinners also do even the same. But if you lend to them of whom you hope to receive, what thank have you, for sinners also lend to sinners and receive as much again," But love your enemies. He's saying, protect yourself all the time. Protect your own, your own health, your own inner being. Don't let this get inside you.
DR. JACKSON: Right. Protect your emotional self too.
KENNETH: "Love your enemies, do good, lend hoping for nothing again, for your reward shall be great and you shall be the children of the highest for he is kind unto the unthankful and unto the evil. Be ye, therefore, merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful, judge not that you not be judged, condemn not, you shall not be condemned, forgive and you shall be forgiven, Give and it'll be given unto you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over shall men give into your bosom for with the same measure you measure, it will be measured to you". You give nothing, you received nothing. Except a bad heart. And a messed up brain. Yeah. Amen.
DR. JACKSON: Yeah. I think about the, the, the gentleman that had the talent, you know, the, you know, one talent and he, versus the other two who had more, and he went on and complained and talked about this, this master and why he was upset and nervous and see all the excuses that people have all day. And so I buried this talent because I knew you were a cruel and unusual, you know, master. So I'm going to make, put all the excuses on him, why I didn't do this.
So I've got fear in there. Probably lied, you know, I've got all this, oh, you know, all of these negative thoughts that are in there at that time, seeing that versus the other two got busy. They were productive and as a result they had a productive lifestyle. And so again, I think it's very protective. You know, we talk about the weather a lot. You know, when I'm in the operating room, people come in and, and uh, nurses and others and the first thing they'll mention is it was a nice day or it was too hot or too cold. But it's it feels like nails on a shock, a chalkboard in my spirit.
When someone starts complaining about the weather and they're waiting for someone to come right along me. Yep, Yep. And agree with it. And it is. Soon as I hear that, I immediately stop and say, they say it's too hot. I say, it's, it's wonderful because it dried up so-and-so, or it's, it's too cold, I say it's wonderful because now we can do this, that, and the other because it's cold or it rained too much. It's great because we needed the rain. And so for every there's like always a counter measure. And so in, in speaking what I want and have my mind and my heart rate is, is just protective. To me. It's a blessing to everyone else who listens. But it's protective to me.
Just like in terms of giving and especially my enemies, cause my enemies would make me so mad that as you all know, blood pressure goes up and now I had a stroke because someone cut me off when I was driving. I have road rage and why did you do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They can't even hear you. It doesn't help them. I mean, you're not even correcting them. It's not even instructional to them. But to you, you're screaming in this car like, crazy blood pressure's going up. Then the cascade from the frontal lobe, hypothalamus to the rest of your body. Immune system is going crazy. Blood pressure's elevated and now you're setting yourself up for a stroke or heart attack.
And in our biomedical model, you know, in our research and science, I mean we, you know, thank God for all of the advancements that we've made, but we don't camp on high blood pressure related to, uh, our thoughts and especially the spiritual side of that so much. I mean, Henry Benson was one of the first in Midwest and from Harvard to to mention that prayer is important in helping us with our blood pressure and our health and so forth, but on a daily basis to have someone say, you know, you walk into the physician's office and say, you know, my blood pressure's high and say, well not only you know, you may or may not need a, a low blood pressure pill to lower in the short term, how's your exercise and your, your diet. Fine.
What's your stress like? Do you pray in your heavenly language? Cause that'll lower it right now. Right? And especially with your enemies, how do you deal, how do you treat those, you know, how you treat those who despitefully use you? Well, it's kind of interesting, right? Because if you see them as the way that God sees them, that He loves them, He loves them, and maybe they're hurting for some reason, something happened to them when they were young. You don't know. You don't know why. And so you see them in the same light. Well now it's protective to you. Your blood pressure is okay. Now you're not gonna to have stroke, heart attack, diabetes, or all the other issues. And now you can bless them because they'll say, wow, wait a minute. Why are you being nice to me? I just yelled at you. And now god gets the glory.
KENNETH: You know, I can see why so many things that the Lord, um, directed us to do in this ministry and in my own personal life back years and years ago, particularly when I began to preach prosperity. Well, Jesus said that would happen. You receive a hundred fold in this life with persecutions. And he's talking about that, that you had given for his sake in the gospels and, and so forth. And, uh, he instructed me many years ago, like, well, forty five, forty eight years ago, he said, don't ever read about yourself in print ever again. Good or bad. You let your staff know not to ever bring you anything in print about yourself. And he said, you can't get it off your mind, but you don't have to get it off your mind if it's not in your mind. Right. And so, uh, and then he said the good is worse than the bad, cause you don't try to get it off your mind. And the first thing you know, you start believing your own reports, you know, and that's no good. So, and Dr. Jackson, there's been crisis after crisis that I never had any, uh, didn't partake of it at all.
DR. JACKSON: Amen. Amen. Amen.
KENNETH: I didn't know about it! They're talking about me and writing newspaper articles. I don't read newspapers anymore. And this goes all the way back to, ORU in 1967. Fasting, um, just unimportant things. Oh, I was a newspaper Guy. Had to read that thing through and through. And so I thought, well, I'm going to fast my newspaper for a week. I've never read one through yet. I don't, I have no use for them at all. And they just, that was a habit that was just removed in one week's time. We were talking about yesterday, the, the, the times of, uh, like, um, Dr. Leaf was talking about two sessions of three weeks, get rid of any habit or create any habit. Now that one took, seven days and it was gone. Glory to God. And I can see it so, the precious spirit of God doing his very utmost to keep you alive. He's got a 120 on his mind and he wants every child of God to make it the whole way, healthy and strong and never be sick the whole route. Glory to God. Glory to God. He has prevented it. He has defeated sickness. He's defeated disease. I think I told Caroline about this, uh, once before, but it tickled me so. It was a, uh, a Chinese doctor talking to my dad. I got so tickled. He said, "Healing very easy. Take head off, put on shelf, get well, put your head back".
DR. JACKSON: That is so true. They're labeling. And what you're describing is in terms of the labeling yourself, either too good or too bad based on the report is a huge deal and can affect your immune system. So we see labeling in children. ADHD is an epidemic. You know, I don't believe that ADHD even really exists. It's a, you know, we have a lot of bright kids that are hyperactive, that have a lot of energy and when we dumb them down and give them medications, stimulants, and put them in a corner and then label them.
And so I was one of those kids, by the way, I was labeled with ADHD and my mom said, well, we're not going to give them any medication, instead what going to do is we're going to make you work out, so exercise to help you, we're going to stop the sugars and we're going to separate your focus just in the right amount. Have you listened to some music and study and have two or three things going at once. You have just the right focus. And that's all we had to do. And it helped me through my entire career, through my, my training right now, 17 years in practice, 10,000 surgeries and a 100,000 patients in that time.
And I listen to music in the operating. I play Christian music in the OR. I'll play Christian rock, Christian rap, classic Christian, doesn't matter as long as it's, it's praising and God's name and the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have that going all the time, which creates really good discussion by the way. When people come OR, you know, anesthesiologist and others come in the OR, then they'll ask about the music and then we'll, we'll, we'll talk about the Lord in there too. But that labeling, because we label ourselves and put ourselves in a box. And so when you have a chronic disease process, like ADHD for instance, the kids, they grow up with that label, that stamp on them and there's a shame with that...
KENNETH: Take a moment and explain that for people that don't know.
DR. JACKSON: So ADHD is a hyperactive anxiety disorder. And what happens is it's basically a constellation of symptoms that, that usually kids have where their, they've got a lot of anxiety, a lot of energy, and oftentimes the parent or the caregiver can really feel that and they have to work harder to kind of get those kids in a place where they're productive in school because the school, the grades drop cause they don't have focus. sleeping is a problem. Um, so there are mood issues because they're not sleeping well. And I think it's a product of, of our society today. And how little time, oftentimes, we pay to our children. And there was a time in the past where the entire community took care of, of your child. And I was one of those, I mean, we didn't live in a great community, but my next door neighbor, my mom, you know, divorced when they were, when I was 5 years old, single mom raised me and my next-door neighbor, Earl, he would step up to the plate. If I needed to get a spanking, he'd spank me and then she spanked me.
KENNETH: Yeah, I've been there, Doc.
DR. JACKSON: But it was a community effort and as a result, even though, even though I had a lot of energy, it was directed and there were people that would take that energy and work you out and exercise, run outside and watch the diet. And so when you have that stamp, that label as a child in whatever area it is. Uh, you know, here's the diagnosis of an emotional disorder, here's the diagnosis of a specific phobia. Those are all just symptoms of usually fear avoidance. And so the way to deal with that is obviously to renew your mind with God's word and you know, what does he say about you regardless of what comes into your 5 senses. And when you do that, you desensitize yourself because you realize, hey, I'm a winner. You know, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, which strengthens me. I have the peace of God that passes all understanding. And if I say that, just like you said in a prior episode over and over again, I will believe that and my body then will react accordingly and I won't have the high blood pressure and all the other issues.
KENNETH: You know, I've heard people say, you know, I just can't, I just can't believe that. And the first step of believing is a decision. I will believe this.
DR. JACKSON: Yes sir.
KENNETH: But people that say that all the time and use it as a matter of conversation and use it in in slang, can you believe what they said? I cannot believe that. And just say it all the time, over and over and over. Now you're going to have to go through the process and desensitize your spirit to that whole thing is that I am a believer. I'm not a doubter. I believe what I choose to believe, and I can believe anything, I decided to believe it. I am a believer and I'm the boss over my believer. Glory to God. I believe what I'm pleased to believe and I pleased to believe the word of God. Amen. Yes sir.
So the decision is first in everything in life. I had to decide. I knew it wasn't that I didn't know that exercise was beneficial. I didn't want to do it and I wasn't gonna do it. And I said I wasn't gonna do it and I paid a heavy price for it. But the Lord encouraged me to some length. And there's, when it comes to when he says, you've gone as far as you can go, you gonna have to get your house in order. Uh, oh. Getting the house in order time came and I had to, it just took step, by, step, by step. He began to talk to me about daily television. And I won't go into the, the whole story, but when the Lord first said this to me, we were in Australia and, and back many years ago. And during those times, I'm preaching this almost even days a week someplace. I was so exhausted and so tired, trying to control my diet, my weight with diet instead of the exercise and here I'm in trouble this whole time.
Well, he started talking to us to go on daily to television. I didn't want to do it. And I argued with him and argued with him and argued with him and I finally became obedient, but I didn't become willing. And, and finally he said to me, uh, I said, you know, you, "You are willing and obedient, you eat the good of the land". He said, "Yeah, but you don't qualify". And he reminded me of that and I did not serve the Lord my God with joyfulness and gladness of heart for the abundance of all things. I despised it. But I began to say it. I love daily television. And if I'm telling you within two days I fell in love with it. I love it. I want to do it. I want to just do it and do it and do it. Praise God. Amen. Amen.