Kenneth Copeland - Developing a Gratitude Attitude
KENNETH: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Believers Voice of Victory broadcast. Father, thank you today. We receive revelation from heaven concerning this life of faith and we ask you to help us today as we go to your word and as we develop a life of thanksgiving and gratitude. Developing an attitude of gratitude. And we thank you for it today and we praise you in Jesus name. Amen.
GLORIA: Amen.
KENNETH: Glory to God. We're Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. Let me remind you today to download the free study notes. downloads on the notes, on the subject of prosperity alone. I've never asked for a count of the others, about ones that we've done together and the ones that I've done, so forth. But this is vital stuff. This is strong. Because we expect you to use these. And I was noticing a video clip of one of our partners and she was talking about the fact that, excuse me. She applied for a job that she absolutely knew nothing about. No training, no background for it. Nothing. And she just depended on the spirit of God, so she went to her notes on prosperity and she had them in a book. Just had this whole stack of them. And she went through the scriptures and went through the scripture and went down there and got that job. And really, really good job, very important job in her area, with the local police department, and just an outstanding position. now she's become an important part of the police department there. And there the downloads were. The outlines. All the scriptures and comments and so forth that were made.
GLORIA: She did exactly the right thing. Now, in past history, people haven't always had downloads available. But she got faith. She got the downloads, the easy thing that generations before us didn't have. And she studied them. Now we, Ken and I did that, but we had to dig a little deeper.
KENNETH: Do you remember, I know you do...
GLORIA: Because we were pretty much-
KENNETH: Brother Hagen had this, he called it the blue book. And all it was was a blue file folder, with the bend over tabs. Mimeographed pages. You kids don't even know what a mimeograph is. It's a very sloppy way of printing stuff. But it worked anyway. And we would call that today our downloads. So there it was and we listened to the tapes and there it was, we could study it. And when I first began, those were my preaching outlines until I learned how to do it for myself, praise God. Amen. All right.
GLORIA: And we got by, didn't we?
KENNETH: Yeah, we did. I'll tell you how to become very, very strong and very, very healthy, and very, very wealthy. Find out exactly what God wants you to do and do it for 50 years without deviating. I guarantee you you'll have a big house, too. Praise God. Amen and everything else. It is a desire of your heart, Glory to God.
GLORIA: I'd like for you to show the little house Ken and I started out...
KENNETH: No, you don't want...
GLORIA: Well, it's impossible or I wouldn't bring it up. Started out in in Tulsa.
KENNETH: Oh my goodness.
GLORIA: I've told this before, you've probably heard me. But it was a time when we went to Tulsa, Ken was going to study at ORU and go see Brother Roberts meetings. So we got serious about the word, because we didn't have any money.
KENNETH: She didn't want to move into it.
GLORIA: We got really serious.
KENNETH: She didn't unpack for about three days.
GLORIA: That's right. Maybe a week.
KENNETH: Paper was peeling off the walls.
GLORIA: Oh, it was bad.
KENNETH: It was pitiful.
GLORIA: But the most humiliating thing was we didn't even have a bed. We had to rent a rollaway bed.
KENNETH: Let's get into, you know. Thank you, lord.
GLORIA: But you don't know how many people out there are sleeping on a rollaway bed. This is important.
KENNETH: Thanksgiving and praise will get you off of it. Okay. Let us go to our golden text for this study on developing a gratitude, a life of gratitude and thanksgiving. From Romans chapter one, verse 21. "Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened".
GLORIA: Their foolish heart was darkened.
KENNETH: You get over on a foolish heart, a darkened heart is full of fear. It says they knew God. They knew God. But they didn't have their hearts and minds on him. They were not thankful at all. And they're moving on the griping, complaining. "I don't have enough. I don't have anything". And they obviously were getting exactly what they said. Now, Gloria... Let's go ahead and read Philippians 4:6 once more. "Be careful for nothing. But in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God".
KENNETH: Yesterday I read from the classic amplified. Don't be anxious or fret about anything. About anything. Nothing. Anything.
GLORIA: It seems to me that one of the translations says continue.
KENNETH: Well, yeah. That's the classic amplified. You continue.
GLORIA: Don't quit. Don't give up. Don't let the devil talk you out of it.
KENNETH: And by thanksgiving and praise, you're continuing to let your wants be made known to God.
GLORIA: Don't let go of your faith.
KENNETH: And as you continue and praise, you know what happens to you? The joy of the Lord. Now, the dark side has no joy. But the joy of the lord is just strength, as you and I were talking last night. The joy of the lord is the strength. If you're weak, if you're physically weak, you're low on joy. Now, joy works when everything else is just falling apart. So when you begin to praise, count it all joy, James said. When you fall into temptations, testings, and trials. You count it joy. So how do you do that? Well, this is another opportunity to praise God. It's another opportunity to prove that faith works. It's another opportunity to give him praise, praise God right in the middle of this whole mess, Glory to God.
GLORIA: Amen.
KENNETH: Just praise him. And be grateful for what you have. "But Brother Copeland, I don't have anything". Well, I think it's time for you to become grateful. So you will have things.
GLORIA: Amen.
KENNETH: Now, I want to go over here.
GLORIA: Can I tell them what we had in Tulsa?
KENNETH: No. Let's go over to...
GLORIA: They're probably much better off than we were.
KENNETH: No doubt about it. Deuteronomy 28. I want you to turn there and look at this. Verse 43. Now, I want to... Do you know that most Christian people, the majority of Christian people, you would ask them, "Are you redeemed"? "Oh yes, Glory to God". From what? "I don't know, sin"? That's really, you can wind up saying that. The truth is the bible says we have been redeemed from the curse of the law.
GLORIA: Oh, praise God.
KENNETH: And it deals with sin. But it also being redeemed from the curse, we have inherited the blessing of Abraham. Now, I want you to look. This is over in the curse. "All your trees of fruit in your land shall the locusts consume. The stranger that is within the shall get up above thee very high and thou shall come down very low. He will lend to thee and you will not lend to him". Can you see where debt is a curse? Born again, Holy Ghost baptized, prosperity believing Christians ought to be out of debt, Glory to God. Amen. And in a position tells you to give something, you don't have to go ask the bank if you can sow it. Praise God, it belongs to you. Amen.
KENNETH: Now notice this, "Moreover, all these curses shall come upon thee and shall pursue thee and overtake the till you're destroyed. Because you harken not, because you didn't listen to the voice of the lord God to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee. And these curses shall be upon thee for a sign and a wonder upon thy seed forever because, here it is, you served not the lord thy God with joyfulness and gladness of heart", wouldn't that be a heart of thanksgiving? A heart of gladness for the abundance of all things.
GLORIA: Praise God.
KENNETH: Now someone said, "Yeah, but I don't have all things". Yeah, you do. Yes you do. In Christ Jesus, you do. You have a very bold statement in the bible. My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches and Glory by Christ Jesus, hallelujah. Now, whether or not you've received it, that's another issue. That's a faith issue here. But you get over becoming grateful.
GLORIA: Yes, amen.
KENNETH: And when I saw that and the lord began to talk to me, we were in an area a number of years ago, not too many years ago, of we had some financial issues and I went before the lord. With the first chapter of the book of Isaiah. If you be willing and obedient, you eat the good of the land. He said, "You don't qualify for that". I said, "Okay". He said, "You've been obedient where daily television is concerned, but you were not willing". Well, he was right. The problem was I never did correct it. And I was so exhausted and so tired that when we heard those words to go on a daily broadcast and I thought, "Well, I'll ask my spiritual father Oral Roberts, he's done it, what he says about it". He said, "Kenneth, the only thing I can tell you, it is so daily".
KENNETH: Well, that wasn't what I wanted to hear. But I didn't do what I'm preaching to you now. We were very successful on the weekly broadcast and I was very grateful for that. But instead of being grateful for that and saying, "Well, father, you know the kind of condition that I'm in. But if it's what you want, I give you praise for it and I can do all things with Christ who strengthens me. Praise God. I can do these things". No, I didn't do that. We were in Australia when the lord said that to us. Man, I was sitting up there in that 747 and I begged and argued and pleaded all 13 hours from Sydney to Los Angeles. And I griped and complained and begged, and...
GLORIA: And I rode with him. Thank God.
KENNETH: But instead of repenting of that, instead of praising God, here I got into this. And I didn't want to do it and I said I didn't want to do it, and I just... The only time I'd smile is right before they turned that camera on. And he said, "You haven't had a good thing to say about daily television all this time". I said, "Well, I'll tell you what, sir. I love daily television. I love it, Glory to God. I love it". I didn't feel any better than I did before.
GLORIA: Changed your attitude.
KENNETH: But the first broadcast I did after I said that, and I'll tell you what, I love it, man. I enjoy it. The first broadcast I did, and I said it on the air, "I love doing daily television". And the anointing of God and the joy of the lord hit me and I got up and danced around the table. Some of you may have seen that broadcast. I danced around the table. Because hey, I love this. And it wasn't a burden anymore. And it stopped this. So I began to insert it in other scriptures.
KENNETH: You remember over in the book of Exodus where he said, "You shall serve the lord your God and the angel will bless your bread and water and I'll take sickness from the midst of you and the length of your days, I'll fulfill"? So I just wrote it right in there. "And you will serve the lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart, and your anger will bless your bread and water, and I'll take sickness form the midst of you and fulfill your 120 years". Isn't that better? Isn't that a lot better?
KENNETH: Well, by not being thankful and not having a grateful heart, I was aggravating the problem that I was having that came in my back. I was aggravating that. And it was causing me trouble and agitating it. After doing broadcasts with Dr. Avery Jackson, neurosurgeon, and he's talking about when you're not thankful, and so did Caroline Leaf and her study of the brain. If you're not thankful, you actually damage your brain. You create brain damage and affect your own DNA. Well, you're certainly going to affect everybody around you, because nobody wants to be around a person like that. But even when you're momentarily all that up and all that kind of thing, but you're in pain at the same time, and that chronic pain is working on you, well I was aggravating that.
GLORIA: It tends to shorten your fuse.
KENNETH: Yeah. And your life.
GLORIA: And your life.
KENNETH: It'll shorten your life. Now, let's go to Psalm 207. The 107th psalm. This, and I was reading these, and going through looking at the praise and worship scriptures. And the lord showed me something here that I'd never seen before. Now look at verse one and two. "Oh, give thanks unto the lord, for he is good". Now if you don't have anything else to praise for, you can praise God for that. He is good.
GLORIA: He is good.
KENNETH: And he's good all the time. He is never bad. He's never hurt anybody. He loves you so much. That's the reason he put all this just verse after verse after verse after verse, praise God. Praise God. Oh, that men would praise the lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men, for he satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. Glory to God. Hey, isn't that good? And he just kept putting that all over the bible. So if we get in that, we get healthy. And as you praise and create an attitude of gratitude and thanksgiving, you get over on the light side instead of the dark side.
GLORIA: That's right.
KENNETH: Like Gloria said, you just do it all the time. And by doing so, you're continuing to make your wants known to God. In other words, I have need of something. So I go to the scripture, I find it promises it to me. And I believe I receive it. That settles it. I want to thank you for it. I just want to thank you and glorify your name.
GLORIA: Amen.
KENNETH: I had a situation. It didn't seem like it was a bad thing. It was just a callous from a pair of workout shoes that didn't fit. And that thing got right under my little toe on my right foot and just, no. No, no, no, no.
GLORIA: Did you say, "That's my toe"?
KENNETH: And this thing has been there for several years. And I just stood on the word of God and just believed God and just kept confessing it and praising God and thanking him for it. And just thanking him for it and thanking him for it. And I had another one here on my thumb that came on there because of a certain flight simulator that I was having to train in all the time and put a big old callous on my thumb. And I just recently noticed. I noticed this one had gone off of my thumb about six months ago. Just gone. Been there for years. Years. Y-E-A-R-S. Years. And I noticed in just the last few days, that one on my right foot, I got up and went into the bathroom without my right house shoe on, because I'd get up in the middle of the night, I'd just put the right one on and go on in there on that tile floor. And I noticed, hey, that thing didn't hurt anywhere near like it used to. So I just walked around yesterday without that shoe on and it didn't hurt my right foot. Glory to God. Continue praising. Continue worshiping. Come on. Come on, give him praise. Just worship him and praise him and thank him for it, hallelujah. I noticed this...
GLORIA: You know, I've been thinking recently about this fact. When you begin to, in financial things or if you need a car or whatever, something like that, you've got to have money to get it. Or somebody to give it to you. And we always, we've said because we sell the scripture not to borrow money, and we didn't have any money, it was a little tight squeeze there. But you know what, when we stood on that, and of course, we're tithers and sowers, we got cars. We got... And then we graduated on up. Airplanes. And then jets. Houses. You know, faith will get you anything. If it's faith. Real faith comes from putting your eyes on the word, getting it down in your heart, letting it live there where it talks to you and acting on it. And if you got real faith, you can receive anything from the lord that's good.
KENNETH: Long as you're grateful. Long as you have a grateful, praising heart.
GLORIA: If you were not believing, you wouldn't have a grateful heart. You'd just gripe and bellyache and carry on. I've been believing for this thing for so many years... That is not grateful.
KENNETH: No. That goes over on the dark side. And we're out of time.
GLORIA: Really?
KENNETH: Where did it? Tim, are you sure?