Kenneth Copeland - The Power Strength of Faith
Let's begin in James, the book of James chapter two, the Lord has instructed me to talk about strength. Strength is, in one way or the other is on everybody's mind, even whether you realize it or not, strength, but if you do not understand spiritual things and if you're a stranger to the covenants of promise, the different kinds of strength and different kinds of weaknesses can make or break you, particularly if you don't know the difference. Now, we know, let me just come on down there. I'm gonna wind up down there anyways, gather up my goods, I just need to get down here, where I can talk to you.
Now, let's get right down in the basics of strength. We know from Bible study and Bible revelation that you are a spirit. You don't have a spirit, you are a spirit, the human spirit now, right already we're out in no man's land for people that don't know the Bible, because it's just, this kind of, just put it in a sack and shake it all up and it's just all about spirit, and soul and who knows what. This spirit man, the spirit being is the real person. This physical body is only temporary.
Now, God created all living things, all living things. Even the grass, James, has to be fed. He has provided food for all living things, but he won't feed you, that's not his job. So the spirit has to be fed, Matthew 4:4 what'd Jesus say, man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. That's spiritual food. So the spirit person needs to eat good food, religious food won't get it, No, religion, I mean you can be very, very religious and not even be born again. And this spirit man, the inner being needs to be fed good food.
It makes a difference where you go to church, makes a real difference where you go to church and how you're fed. Amen, but I don't care how good the pastor is. He can't force feed you, you can sit there and text all morning long, not get a thing. Somebody said, did you see that? What? I didn't see anything, well, he didn't eat anything. So spirit food, you feed on the Word of God and it produces a power strength called faith. Faith, oh dear Lord, Faith, the same spiritual force that created all things is especially important to us that God used his words and his faith to create all matter, all material part of this universe. Amen, that's spiritual force.
But now think about it, that when you use it, what happens, well, use your faith and you're using your faith and you're using your faith and you're using your faith. Well, you better feed it. Now, I really fouled up in the early years of this ministry not understanding that. And the Lord really took me to task for that. I would get on the platform and the anointing of God would come on me, Amen. And while I'm there in that place of anointing I would see things in the Spirit we need to be doing. I thought, no, I saw things that needed to be done, I didn't know whether we were supposed to do it or not. And without thinking, I'd say, you know we're going to do that.
Well, now I've said it publicly and I have to do it and I wasn't even called to do it. And finally, the Lord just sat me down one day and he said, you are mistaking the anointing for strength. He said, that's not strength, it's power. He said, now keep your mouth shut on the platform and wait and pray to see whether I want you to do that or not. Man, I tell you I was overloading everybody and doing stuff wasn't even supposed to do? Because I didn't understand the strength. So, now there is mental strength or the strength of the soul, the mind the will, the emotions, the intellect, the intellect. Now, you're born again and filled with the Spirit of God, Speaking with other tongues like Gloria and me, scriptural illiterates didn't know one book from the other one.
Amen, now I must learn something, I must renew my mind. "Jesus said, why take ye the thought, saying," He just opened the door for us there. You take a thought by saying it. You have a thought and you don't say it it'll die unborn. Amen, but now you cannot grow in spiritual strength feeding on spiritual candy. Well, you don't do anything, all you ever do is just go to church and sing and kind of dance around and have a great time. Now, I'm not putting that down, but somebody's gonna have to give you the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby some way or another, it's gotta happen some way.
Did you know that going to church is not serving God? That's not serving God, unless you're doing something at church that serves God. Oh, that's a different thing. Now, it's amazing to me, how many times people come to church and just expect the pastor just do everything. Yeah, wonder why he did that, wonder how come he said that, I don't know... You're not hearing a thing anybody's saying. some of them, you just get their milk hot and they'll cry, you know? But anyway, I won't go there yet. So, we're talking about strength and the things that govern strength. So, now you come to this physical body, the same laws and rules apply, it has to be fed correctly.
Did it ever dawn on you that God put those food laws in there for a reason? Not to just, for you to just glaze over and say, well, we're in the New Testament, we can eat anything we want to, yeah, and it'll kill you in the New Testament, just the same as it would in the Old. Most people just don't pay attention to it. Just eat whatever passes in front of you and then no exercise. Now, I have every right in the world to preach this, 'cause God got on me and you know what my job is, He gets on me and I get on you. Amen, Brother Copeland you're stepping on my toes, We'll move your feet.
Now, see these things are spiritual laws, intellectual laws and physical laws and they work. Like I said, every living thing requires nourishment. Now, this physical body, here, again this little clock doesn't weigh anything. But if I do this long enough and I don't eat, it'll eventually exhaust me, just that. If I continue to do little mundane things all the time all the time, well, I don't have time to pray. Why don't you have time to pray? I don't know, I just don't have time, it just doesn't work out. I'll be late to work. What? Get up earlier. Brother Copeland, I hold to that 127th Psalm, It is vain for me to rise up early and... No, Hey, finish the verse. Eating the bread of sorrows, that's the same word translated grief. Toiling, worrying about money, worrying about why? Because you don't have any financial strength.
Now, what did God say to Joshua? "Meditate in my Word day and night, you will observe, you will see how to do, what's written therein and you will make your way prosperous". The Classic Amplified said, "You will deal wisely in the affairs of life". If you're dealing wisely in the affairs of life you don't make anywhere near as many mistakes and foul stuff up that somebody has to fix. Amen, say well, what am I gonna do now? Just relax and enter into his... rest. What do you need when your strength is low? It needs some rest.
Young man that was with us years ago, one of the funniest man I ever knew in my life and one of the finest musicians I ever knew in my life, this guy was a master on the guitar. And he was just more than funny, I mean, it just hurt you this guy was so funny and we went overseas and we were going through customs. Well, he's got his guitar case and they opened up his guitar case and it was full of Twinkies. And they said, what are you doing with Twinkies? He said, I thought you probably didn't have any over here, so I brought mine, whole guitar case full of Twinkies. Now, if you're living on mental Twinkies spend very little time in the Word, a lot of time, well, I'm working on my mind, What are you doing? I'm doing crossword puzzles.
I don't think I need to say any more about that, but you can see where I'm going with this. The mental strength that comes up, so what are we talking about? The intellect, the mind, the soul of man, this, I'm talking about real soul food here, okay. Bible soul food, the mind, the will and the emotions, the feeding of the the mind, intellectually feeding on the Word, spending time, not just reading all of the other that you can, take some time and meditate on it. Spend some personal time with the Lord Jesus. And as you do meditate on what he has said there, like he told Joshua, what are you saying here to me?
Let's talk about this a while and just visit with him about this, show me how to do this. Maybe you don't know how to study. If you learned how to study in school you probably don't know how to study the Word of God. And if you bummed your way through school and just got by, you don't know how to study it at all. Ask me how I know, so I asked the Lord, I said, Lord, teach me how to study. And I thought, maybe this might take awhile, but ah, man I just, just seemed like, just in a few days I was just overboard in it, just feeding on it, wound up with a whole stack of Bibles on my desk. Well, don't you got them all in your phone. I know they're in my phone but there's something about looking in those Bibles and turning to the different references and digging it out for yourself.
Amen, I do use my phone as a concordance, I've got the big concordance and sometimes I just have to go back to that big Young's Analytical Concordance and satisfy myself that this phone knew what he was talking about. And just start, just take a little straight edge and just start coming down those verses and all those verses about this one subject. And Oh yeah, now I wonder how the New Living said that. And then you go over there and then you've got the Names of God Bible and just marvelous. What are you doing? I'm feeding my spirit and renewing my mind. What does an intellectual food of the Word of God? What does it produce? Willpower. Don't miss, don't miss, take that. The power of the will is amazing, just absolutely amazing.
And let me demonstrate it to you. I am gonna go to James chapter one here I think some of these days, but look in the 20th chapter of John's Gospel. Verse 24, "Thomas one of the 12 called the Twin was not with them when Jesus came, the other disciples therefore said unto him, we've seen the Lord, but he said unto them except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe". Now, that was an act of his will, an act of his will. And it got him in trouble. Jesus straightened him out, "He said to Thomas, reach here your finger and behold my hands, reach here your hand thrust into my side and be not faithless," say faithless.
Now, see what happens to the will when there's no faith, it'll get you in trouble. I will not, I will to, "but believing Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord, my God Jesus said unto him, Thomas, because you seen me, you have believed, blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe," so we're talking about willpower.