Kenneth Copeland - Claim Your Benefits to Activate Powerful Faith
Living in the shadow of the cross. The Lord said this to me just as this meeting was starting this week, "Living in the shadow of the cross is to live up to that sacrifice every day, as if Jesus died for me yesterday". Yesterday. And to him, David, it was yesterday because a day to Him is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day because He's always now, He's always now. But think about that and just have in the shadow of that cross and the bright light of the resurrection. This is especially real when you're believing God for healing. And when you're believing God for finances. Thank you, Lord Jesus. "Living in the shadow of the cross", say it, "Living in the shadow of the cross is to live up to that sacrifice every day as if Jesus died for me yesterday". Love did that for me.
I love it, don't you? I love Him today. Thank you, Lord Jesus, praise God. I want you to open your Bibles tonight to the 103rd Psalm. And, this is one that I've that I pray for my partners. This is one that I pray and confess over my own life and Gloria and all over this ministry, glory to God. "Bless the Lord, O my soul. All that is within me, bless His Holy name". "Bless the Lord my soul and forget not all His benefits". Forget not all His benefits. Now look at it. "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies who satisfies your mouth with good".
Now let's stop here just a moment. I understand that the root word and the Hebrew language for things is word and for word is things because words created all things. And so I have always said that like this, "He satisfies my mouth with good words, the Word of God, so that my youth is renewed like the eagles". Now you need to be saying that every day, "my youth is renewed like the eagles today", don't wait until you're 65, 70, 80 years old before you start saying that. No. Praise God. Just to just say it today, "My youth is renewed like the eagles, glory to God". That's one of my benefits. Say it, "that's one of my benefits". I have benefits. I was, number years ago, a man I knew quite well said to me, "Brother Copeland, I'm not, my finances are not doing well and it seems to me that God is not, I don't know. He's just not, it's just not working out".
Well, all the time he's saying this, I'm listening to the Lord on the inside of me to see how to answer him. And, that was amazing what heard I heard come up in, and particularly now that I'm speaking in Detroit tonight. The Lord said, "ask him if General Motors owes him anything". Well, I knew him and of course I knew they didn't. I said, "Lloyd, does General Motors owe you anything"? "No". He looked at me kind of strange. And I said, "are you tithing"? "Well, you know Brother Copeland, I just had to shut down, my finances are so bad". I said, "are you giving him any offerings"? He said, "Brother Copeland, no". And the Lord said, "tell him I don't owe him anything either". I said, "well, the only people that General Motors owes is those people that work for them, those people that have invested in them, or those people that are heirs to the money". I said, "you work for Jesus". "Well, no". I said, "well, you're not investing in Him". "No". I said, "but Lloyd you are an heir". And it hit him. He said, "I am an heir".
Well, it's not time to stop tithing. No it isn't. It's not time to stop sowing offerings. You are an heir but you're not in the ministry. You're not, quote, "working for Him", but you sure need to be working with Him. You need to be witnessing. You need to be talking to people. I said, "Lloyd you're a good businessman". And you did the, you've made a lot of money in your life, but you need to be talking to other business people and telling them how that's worked in your life. You need to be doing that. And then, the Lord said this as I began to study this and think about it. Think about it your benefits. We have benefits. We have certain benefits in the kingdom of God. Do you know those benefits? Well, look at this right here. One of our benefits is He's forgiven all of our new equities. Have you claimed that? Have you put a claim on that benefit?
Praise God, I'm talking to you now. This has to do with your finances. "And heals all our diseases, that's part of our benefit. He's redeemed our lives from destruction and crowns us with loving kindness and tender mercies", or covenant "Hesed". Have you claimed that? Have you made your claim? Do your responsibilities? See, all of these things have not only to do with our spiritual lives, but on the other hand our spiritual lives affect everything we do in the natural. Dealing with money and dealing with our financial prosperity. It's very unique. You can't give by yourself. You can't give to yourself. You can't sell by yourself. You can't buy by yourself.
So other people are involved in our financial lives and they may be pushing against you, but that, their unbelief should have nothing to do with your faith. And it's not their fault. Well, it's the devil's fault, is it? Not unless he has something to work with, our benefits. Lay hold of the benefits of God, Lay hold of our holy benefits financially, glory to God. What are they? Well, we're blessed going in and then we're blessed to coming out and then we're blessed in the city and we're blessed in the field, glory to God. We're are the blessed? We're not blessed because we're rich. No, we're rich because we're blessed. We're not blessed because we're healed. No, we're healed because we're blessed. Thank you, Lord Jesus. So Father, we thank you tonight. Oh, yes sir. Yeah. Thank you Lord.
Yeah, I'm not quite done with that yet. You can have hang ups and problems. Here's the thing you have to remember. Things that look small and insignificant to us can a lot of the time be very large in the Spirit and in the mind of God, and things that look big to us can really be something that we're hung up on something that's very simple to God. I remember Brother Hagin in El Paso, Texas during the 1950s. He was teaching and he, there, back. Those of you that missed these times, I wasn't there in the fifties, but I was later when we all had our tape machines all around them. I mean, they were, you couldn't hardly walk around some of them finally, during those seminars, finally, they set a table back up there where are you could all put your tape recorders And you can plug in and get those tapes. And that was happening in El Paso. The platform was just tape machines all over the place.
And so he turned around and jumped back up on the platform. And just as he did, he looked down and he was about to land, right, put his foot right in the top of somebody's new recorder and he's missed. And he hit the floor and knocked his elbow out of joint. Anyway, he finished that evening and laying hands on the sick and so forth. Well, he really messed that elbow up. He went to the hospital and they had to, a doctor had to put him under and put all of those muscles back together and just tore it up, red, just really messed it up and put his arm in a sling. And the next day he was just, recovering and there in the hospital was going to go home then the next day. And it's just the next afternoon his wife, Aretha had just left the room and the door was ajar about six or eight inches.
And you know, a hospital, the hard floors and so forth. He could hear somebody coming, and then he could tell they were coming in his room and he just turned around and looked. And when he looked at the door, there was a pair of Roman sandals and a robe that came down to just a little above his feet. And he looked up and it was Jesus, an open vision. He said, every hair on his head stuck straight out and He walked over, got the chair that Oretha had been sitting in at the foot of his bed and pulled it up right there by Him and sat down and began to talk to him. He talked to him for an over an hour and a half about the prophet's ministry. Now, see this didn't sound like it meant too much to Brother Hagin. But listen to this. He said, "you got in trouble". He said, "I anointed you and called you into the ministry of the prophet". And he said, "you've been calling yourself a teacher and a prophet. You're not a teacher and a prophet. You're a prophet and a teacher".
Well, why is that such a big deal? Because that's the proper order. Apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor and teacher. He started out as a teacher and Jesus promoted him to prophet. Now see, that didn't seem like there's all that much to Brother Hagin. But when you think about it, it really is because teaching is so much fun. I mean that teaching anointing that, and the teaching anointing is still there. But when you're teaching with a prophetic anointing, it comes up to a higher level. And so he had, and he said this himself, he said, "I had come to the place where I had forgotten about the prophet's ministry". He said, "I enjoyed teaching show much that I was not yielding to the prophet's ministry at all". Why? He had the teaching ministry on his mind and was calling himself a teacher in a prophet instead of a prophet and teacher.
And he said, you've gotta add a line just enough that I couldn't protect you on that. And of course, one thing about it that doctor told him, he said, "now that's so messed up. You'll never be able to do this". And so, and the cast got so loose that he went back over there a little early, and the doctor said, "oh yeah, we can take that off". But now he said, "I want you to know now doesn't just, don't stretch that". And here's another thing. Here's another thing. Thank you, Lord for reminding me that I forgot that. Jesus told me, he said, "I'm not opposed to my children going to doctors. But when you go to the doctor, invite me in". He said, "I will speed up the healing. I will speed up the recovery to the place where it will be amazing to the doctors".
And he said, "now". He said, "I could touch this and heal it completely, but I'm not gonna do it". But he said, "I'll take care of it for you". And he said, "it will heal much faster than the doctors say". I've seen it happen over and over the doctors remark this is absolutely amazing. But you need to invite Jesus into that place. Invite Him into that hospital room, invite Him in when they're examining you have Him on your heart and on your mind talking to Him in the Spirit all the time. Amen. So he got up and he said, "oh yeah, Reverend, we can take that off". He said, "this is amazing how fast this has recovered". And he said, then he took that cast off. And he said, "now, don't feel too bad about it if you can't do this". Brother Hagin said, "oh, you mean this"? That is amazing! Amen.
Now, why is this so important where our finances are concerned? Examine yourself, take some time to think about it and pray about it. What is the last thing that the Lord instructed you to do and you haven't done it. Doesn't have to be in the area of money. What is the last thing you remember the Lord telling you to do? Oh, no. There's that 20 pounds. I was so disobedient in that area the Lord kept telling me, I want you to start walking and don't quit. I want you to do that. And I'd walk a few days and I was tired and it was painful to me and I finally quit and just got where I just didn't do it at all. Well, He didn't hound me about it. And in 2004 a disc ruptured in my back and just caused me as pain that's beyond anything I had ever experienced before. And then one of the first things I thought of was, I thought if I had been walking all these years that would not have happened, but now see that didn't seem all that important to me back in those days, it was vitally important to my health.
But thank God I received my healing, did not have surgery. And I'm healed, praise God, that old nasty, ugly pain has gone and it hung around a long time, but I'm pain free praise God. He kept telling me to exercise and I wouldn't do it. And it cost me. I know it cost me other things that I don't know what they are, but I know it did, because it was outright disobedience, but it doesn't have to be that big and serious it can be something like, why haven't you witnessed to that to your next door neighbor like I've been pressing you to do? Maybe you'd better take care of that. It's those little foxes that mount up over a period of time. And there are little things that you did and said where there was no repentance and it just a little grains of stuff. Keep building up and building up. So what do you do? Plead the blood! That's what you do, praise God.
Oh God. I'm guilty. I plead the blood. I claim my benefits. I receive them, I take them. Thank you, Jesus. I believe, I will. I take it. I have it. I praise you and thank you for it. And I forgive if I have ought against any. Father, we thank you tonight for the Word of the Living God. We claim our benefits tonight. Yes, thank God. We invest in the kingdom of God. We tithe into the kingdom of God. We invest into our church. We invest into ministries and tonight we are going to invest in this ministry, reveal to the people, Lord Jesus by your Holy Spirit, reveal to them what their part of the expenses of this Victory Campaign are. Reveal to them what is their place. Now that every bill is paid we thank you, Father, that this outstanding offering tonight, will go into outreaches and go into the things that this ministry is doing. And particularly in the area of television and the investments that we, big investments that we're making on the network right now, and things that we are planning right now that is just massive, glory to God. And we praise you for it. And I lay claim to the benefits, to the sower and the tither, the tither and the sower the tithing rights that are so powerful because you rebuke the devour for the tither. And we thank you, Father. We praise you in Jesus' Name. Amen.