Kenneth Copeland - Keep Speaking Your Thanksgiving
Hello everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Welcome to Thanksgiving week. Glory to God. Hey, we're a thankful people, and may I call your attention to the window behind me? You see that? That's real. Those flowers are in Gloria and my backyard. We finally got it! Hey, now we can change the seasons on this. I've been believing for this ever since I could think about it, and we finally have it, and this is the first, of course, broadcast it's ever been ready for, but now next year, see, this will give us time to shoot footage of the different seasons. Here, we have four different seasons and we'll be able to shoot footage. Next year, it'll be fall in that picture, but that's actually Eagle Mountain Lake. That's actually Gloria and my backyard. Glory to God. It's just so much fun to have something like that and if Jesus is your source, you can do cool things. Praise God.
Thank You, Lord. Father, we do give You thanks. It is this marvelous in our eyes, the wonderful things that You're so willing to do for people, if the people will allow it. It has always been Your will for Your people to be well, for Your people to prosper spirit, soul, and body financially, socially, every way all through life, and that life should be good. It should be a life filled with goodness and kindness and wellness and peace, shall owe nothing missing, nothing broken, and we give You thanksgiving and praise today that these things are true. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Glory to God. Brings tears to my eyes. I love Him so, and our golden text this Thanksgiving week will come from the Book of Ephesians. What a great little book. These books, these are letters as you know, and they should be read as a letter to you and you read this letter and it's, come on, it's just six chapters long, but it's six dynamite... This is a gospel letter, and it's written to just plain old people, and he had to tell born again, tongue talking people, "Quit lying, quit stealing," and there's some great, great scriptures in here. As I said, this will be our golden text. From the fourth chapter of the Book of Ephesians, and these are corrections and all kindness and love by the great apostle. When you go back up to... Well, let's start at the...
I look at the verse before it, well, yeah, but yeah, but yeah. Well, Lord, where do you want me to start? Praise God. Thank You, Jesus. That's good. Let's look at the 23rd verse. No, 22nd verse. That you put off, you put it off. You. When an instruction comes from the Bible, we as believers cannot put off onto God, what he's relegated to us because in each of these instructions, there's corresponding action to it because you can take the instruction, not do anything about it. I remember when Kellie was just a little girl, and I took her into her room and I opened the sliding doors, I opened her closet, and all of her stuff was just piled in there, and the doors... She had my hand. I said, "Kellie, now you will straighten this closet out. Now here, I'm God here. You understand? You will straighten this closet out". I can just feel it. She pulled her little hand out of my hand. She looked up at me and said, "Daddy, that's not my thought". I said, "It is now, girl. It is your thought.
Now you get busy," but you see that's a good illustration of that. It wasn't her thought. That was a polite way of saying, "I'm not going to do it," but all I could do was tell her to do it. Now, that's not a spanking offense. There were spanking offenses from time to time, but that of course wasn't it, and I couldn't keep straight face. The difference between Kellie and John, I'd say, "John, you're going to get spanking over this". Okay. That's about it. I could see this not doing any good. But now with Kellie, I said, "And Kellie, I'm going to spank you over there". "Now daddy, just wait a minute. Now, listen. You don't want to do something you're going to regret here". Corresponding action is required.
Now notice this, you put off concerning the former. Now, the conversation is actually in the Greek way of life, "your way of doing things, put off concerning the former life, the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lust and be renewed..." Now, he told the church at Rome, "Don't conform to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind". Now here, it's a little bit different. Be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Now, what does that mean? Go from this to this. The spirit of your mind. Yes, sir. Oh, tell me more. I love it and I enjoy it when He corrects me. Sometimes it's not all that fun, but yes it is. God already knows what's coming. And the spirit of your mind needs to be in that place where you say, "Okay, I have the victory and I don't don't care what's coming because I cast all that care over on my God". Thank God for first Peter Chapter five, casting the whole of my worries and cares over on Him for He cares for us. Amen. That you, you, you put off and you put on. You put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.
Look at it now, "where for you putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor for we are members one of another. Be angry and sin not. Let not the sun go down on your wrath, neither give place to the devil". Now, get this one. This is, and particularly you and the radio and television audience. This is a vital key to toiling, working for a living, working, the motive. The motive of your work must be love. "Well, I hate this job". Well, you have a job. Stop hating that job. Start saying with your mouth, "I love this job. Jesus is the reason I have this job and I'm very grateful and thank God for the better job that's on my way". On its way to me. Because He helped me get this one and the one I love is on the way. Until then, I love this one. Glory to God, I get to go to work today, and so many people are having to stay home. Sick, lost their job. I'm working. Glory to God.
Let me at them. Let him that stole steal no more. Look at this church, but rather let him or her labor working with his hands the thing, which is good that he may have to give to him, that is in need. That's why we work. That's the purpose of work in God's eyes. Because love gives. Love works to have to give. Because if you don't have anything, the first fundamentals of life, if you don't have anything, any physical goods, and you don't have anything to give. Well, kind of. You have a smile. You're healthy. So get up and go to work. "Reverend Copeland, I don't have a job". "Yes, you do. Your job is to be a witness". You get out of the house and you start witnessing. Look around the house and find something there. Hey, somebody could use this. I'll sow this. Oh, look at this. I could prepare something for someone. And just start giving and here it'll come. That you may have to give to Him that needs. Let you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you let, don't allow any corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth.
Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers. Praise edifying, build up, minister, grace to the hearer. What a gift. Instead of, I don't know, COVID something or other, I don't know. No, wait, no, no, no, wait a minute. Don't let anything come out of your mouth except something that will edify someone. It'll build them up. You need being built up. That's that's good. That's fine, but you build someone else up. The giving. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace to the hearers, come right over to the fifth chapter and the fourth verse, "neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather the giving of thanks". You can replace all of that. All of this mess with the giving of thanks. Thank You, Jesus.
I remember, oh, this was many years ago and my being raised in a Southern Baptist home, I understood some of these things that this Baptist preacher was saying to me, and he knew that Gloria and I had had been baptized in the spirit. He knew that. But he was rather kind to me because he wanted me to fly him places when he needed, and I did that, and I took him to a west Texas town where there was a church split in this Baptist church and he's moderating. They were split right down the middle. This bunch sitting over here, pretty good size church. I would say in there that evening, probably 450, 500 people. And of course, everybody wasn't there and not everybody's that fouled up. They don't want any part of that, and here they were on the other side and they're fussing. There's usually one knot head and he's the fusser. He's got the rest of them all stirred up.
So the pastor would come up with this and he'd... Well, and then how, and he'd just stand up and holler, and I was looking at the way the congregation of the building is made, and I'm just sitting back over here out of the way, just off the platform there, and I thought, I could go out back there the way we came in and go over there and sit down next to him and threaten him and just tell him, "If you don't shut up, I'm going to take you outside and spank you. Just hush and sit down. I don't want to fly home in the middle of the night". At about that time, it happened. I don't remember the exact words. "You sit down and you shut your mouth," and it was over. One guy started all of that and he was the little demon. He wasn't the demon, but the demon that split that church was in him. Once he sat down and shut up, everybody else, well, sure, it was absolutely amazing.
Now that same man, very successful pastor, and he's in heaven now. I'm going to have fond memories of him. He said to Gloria and me, he was discussing all of these different things, and he said, "We know you Pentecostals do this, but we don't just go around saying, 'Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus,' all the time". Well, I wasn't going to argue with him and I'm thinking, why not? Bless his heart, but what did Jesus say? What does the Bible say? And I can paraphrase it like this. If you have thanksgiving in your heart, it's going to come out of your mouth. For whatever you're in your heart in abundance, the mouth speaks.
"Well, Brother Copeland. I just have a praise in my heart. I just don't lift my hands in public and I just quietly thank God". Well, sweet thing. That is a lie. You don't have much praise in your heart. It's kind of... Well, somebody says, "Well, I kind of do". How do you kind of do anything? "Well, it's kind of like..." Well, is it like it or not? Jesus had a word for that. Let your word be, yes and no. All the rest of it's junk or comes from evil. And that's true. So, are you thankful or not? Kind of. You praise? No. You could just tell the truth and start from there. Put away lying. You just sit there and lied about it. You're not thankful, you're teed off at God. He didn't do just what you wanted Him to do. I'm just not speaking to you right now. Well, tell Him that. Yeah. Just go straight, just go "Lord, I don't feel like talking to You right now. I'm pretty put out. It looked like to me that You should have done this and You didn't, but I know You're always right. You can never miss it".
Well, I could start now. I've been doing this a long time. I don't know how long I could go and tell Him about times that I had learned better than that, and I had a lot of pain in my body one time, in Treeport, right there in the church that Carolyn Savelle was raised in and discussing it with medical doctors, they said it was true that I had a blood clot in my groin. The thing hurt so bad. I'd get off of the platform and it would hurt me terribly. I'd step out on the platform, the anointing would come, and the pain wasn't there. I just laid down across the bed. You've heard me say this, but this is when I found it out. Lord, I missed it.
See, He didn't miss it. Everything we ever prayed, we didn't inform Him of anything. It was just things we needed to pray, and He has already told us to seek, ask, and knock. He already knew it. But then we have a part in this. And on the earth, our part comes first. He's in heaven. We do our part in heaven acts. Well, in the prayer of agreement. Any two of you on earth shall touch anything that they ask. Then it will be done of my Father, which is in heaven. Whatever you bind on earth, then is bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth, then is loosed in heaven. Any two of you, two or three of you gather together in my name, there am I in the midst. Why? Carry out the agreement. But these conditions must be met. Hallelujah. Glory to God. With this praise, you put the praise in your mouth rather than all this griping and carrying on, but no, if it's that way, put the praise in your mouth now. And we're out of time, boys and girls, and Jeremy, let me tell you something, son. Mimi and I miss you and you need to come see us. You understand that? But in the meantime, fix the end of this, all right?