Kenneth Copeland - Thanksgiving Is a Lifestyle
Father, we thank You for a day of Thanksgiving. One day out of 365 days that we give You thanksgiving, we give You praise. We give You honor. We know You. We know You in the Spirit and we thank You. And we understand more about you every day we live because of this covenant book, covenants of blood. And thank God the blood of Jesus is on heavenly mercy seat of God right now. And that blood, all of His blood is there and it cries out for us and makes intercession for us. The blood cries before the throne. I thank You and I praise You for it. Worship and praise and thanksgiving. And we give praise and thanksgiving to and for, the magnificent, wonderful... The name, not a name, the name that's above every name that's named heaven earth and under the earth. In all realms of existence, either now or later, everyone will bow their knee. And confess that Jesus Christ, the anointed one from Nazareth is Lord. Every knee, COVID 19 has to bow its knee to the name. Cancer has to bow its knee to the name, that name. The only name under heaven, given unto men, given unto people as a weapon of power against the enemies of God in the enemies of us, that are ours in the Spirit. And we praise You, Father. And thank You in that name of Jesus. Amen.
Oh, give Him glory. Give Him thanksgiving and glory today. And those of you that are around the table or those of you somewhere in the world, not even in the United States, it's a day of Thanksgiving to God. Well, what do I have to give thanks for? You're breathing. Yeah. But my lungs are not working too good. I rebuke you COVID 19 in the name of Jesus. You're a synthetic virus created by men to kill and you will shut your mouth and get down out of there. The lungs of the believer breathe the breath of God. Breathe God down into your lungs. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah. Brother Copeland, that's a strong indictment. Synthetic virus. I'm not smart enough to have come up with that. The doctor in New York city that treated President Donald Trump and had him well within hours. Of course he had to stay in quarantine and all that. Had him feeling good in just a little while.
I personally saw a discussion. He was in New York city, talking to the rabbinical leadership in Jerusalem and I quote him. So, don't take my word for it. It is a synthetic virus engineered to do what it does. Have you ever heard of fentanyl? It's synthetic heroin created to be cheap and get a greater high, but it will kill you so quick. You can overdose over it almost just by smelling of it. It is a murderous thing. Synthetic. That means somebody made it. That's what he called this virus. Somebody made it to kill. But, I remember what the 61st verse of the curse of the law, in the 28th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, "Every sickness and every disease not written in this book of the law is part of the curse". COVID 19, 14, 20, whatever it is, is under part of the curse. And we are redeemed from the curse of the law. Glory to God! now to that, we can give thanks. Glory to God.
And like Gloria, I can just see her at Healing School. If you do what's right in the natural and you do what's right in the supernatural, you can live in divine health. I have checked negative for COVID five times because of certain places I went, I had to be checked, in and out, in and out and then back at Christmas time, so my children could get close to us. She and I either one checked positive and we had people in the house with us just right there breathing on us. And that virus said, "Ooh". Amen. Glory be to God. Thank You Jesus. And in the moment, we'll see why that took place. And yeah. Could I say more? Okay. Yes. Ephesians is our golden text, but let's go over it now to the 107th Psalm. Are you there? Get your Bible. Look at that. Put the potatoes down and go in the other room and get your Bible. No, I know there's a lot of you have your Bible right there on the table. In this 107th Psalm, "Oh, give thanks".
Now, are you reading with me? Oh, give thanks unto the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. I say so. Glory to God. Give thanks unto the Lord. He is good. His mercy, his 'hesed' endures forever. These are blood words. Now, here's the result. The 17th verse, "Fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. They're tested, tried, sick. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he saves them out of distresses". Listen, "He sent his Word and healed them". His Word is Jesus.
So, how do you get him from COVID? You get your Bible. Shut that television off. You could quote the news. They're going to tell you how many people died. Forget that. Get your Bible. Turn on the Victory Channel darling. Amen. And start getting fixed when you go. Oh, I'm thinking back. Just flashed across my mind. I had the flu. This is back in the early days. I haven't had the flu long. Anyway, I've had symptoms, but just don't take them. I was just hurting all. You know you just... Your hair hurts, everything hurts. We had stopped at the cleaners and I said, "Gloria, you have to go in and get the clothes. I don't even know whether I can drive home or not. You may have to drive home". My Bible was right there. I had it open to first Peter 2:24, "Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness. By whose stripes you were healed". I said, "Lord". I just picked my Bible up and I said, "Lord, I choose to believe this".
That's the way faith works. It's a choice. I learned that from Brother Hagin and Brother Roberts. I choose to believe this. By your stripes I was healed 2,000 years ago. By faith now, I receive it into my body. I'm healed from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet. And then, I just put my Bible back over there and just sat there and prayed in the Spirit. In a few minutes, Gloria came out and I thought, "Yeah, I feel well enough to drive". She got back in the car and I said, "Sweetheart, I'm going to go ahead and drive home. I'm feeling good". She said, "Okay". But, she's that close to me. She never got sick with it at all. We're faith people. We don't say I'm taking the flu. No. We say, "Thank God, I'll never have the flu".
By the time I got home, I felt like having something to eat. I said, "Gloria, I'm going to eat supper". And she said, "Okay". And I went to sleep. Felt great. Got up the next morning, not a symptom. Yeah. But this is COVID 19. I don't care if it's a bubonic plague. It has to bow it's knee to the knees. And the Word. The covenant of God. Again, I just keep preaching this teaching and I'll hound you with it. This is Holy Bible. I used to have a copy of the Shooters Bible. Every everything about guns, everything about gun powder, everything that had anything, history of guns. That's not a Holy Bible. This is holy because it's the record of two major covenants. I threw my pen in the floor. Blood covenants. It is God's holy Word. He sent his blood backed word. And it healed them. That's what this is. That's the reason mine looks like that. I only mark the good stuff. Oh, Jesus. Thank You, Lord.
Now, let's go back over here then to the book of Ephesians, once more. This little book of Ephesians, some Bible scholars and rightly so, have said that the entire gospel of Jesus Christ is in these six chapters. And, it is. Everything from the rank and file of the devil, from the bottom up, and everything concerning the prayer armor of God. Praying, always... Praying, always in the Spirit. Well, you can't do that. You can't pray always in the Spirit without ceasing and all that without praying in the Spirit of God. We have to be praying in the Spirit, in other tongues. Because, as the apostle said in first Corinthians, the 12, 13th, 14th verses, and the 14th whole chapter concerning tongues.
Now, that means it's important. It's not a side issue at all. But he said, verily you give thanks well. Remember that? Just sitting at the table, praying over the food. And you pray in tongues. Verily you give thanks well. That's a good way to give thanks. But, if nobody else there praise in tongues, they don't have any idea what you're talking about. That's the reason at every meal when Gloria and I sit down and, and whomever else is present at the table. At every meal, glory to God... Oh, we pray and we thank God for this food and the blessing of the Lord. It's sanctified and made fit to eat, by thanksgiving and prayer.
We thank God for our partners all over, all over the world, wherever they are, whomever they are, what nation they're in, whatever language they speak. Glory to God, we just praise You and thank You for our partners. And we thank You for the blessing of the Lord on this nation. She's in a lot of trouble right now, but it's nothing You don't know how to fix. Not anything, You don't know how to fix her. And we thank You there are those that of course walk in love and live in my love. And they will walk in that place that I called the straight and narrow. And narrow is the gate, narrow is the love gate. Few that find it. Wide is the way to destruction. Of course, it is. But that love line, as we talked about from the book of Ephesians fifth chapter, imitate God and walk in love as children imitate their parents. Well, thank God my parents walked in love. I could imitate them. They were pretty rough on me from time to time and they needed to be. Amen.
Because, they were quite sure that I was not going to hell even how hard I tried. And then, one day in October, 1961, I met the most beautiful woman and I'd ever seen in my life. And before the day was up, I was head over heels in love with her. And I did have sense enough to get her phone number. That was in Little Rock, Arkansas, you know the story and her love for me. She just loved me and still just does. I asked her to marry me on the first date. She said, "Okay". And just went in the house. Later, she said, "What have I done? I don't even know this guy. Oh, well, I'll get out of it later". Well, last April, we were married 59 years and she's not out of it yet. And we are still so much in love. We've never even fussed and it's her fault. She wouldn't fuss back. She taught me how to love. She taught me to be thankful.
I remember one time I was all grumpy and tired. We had just come back from, from Australia, or wherever it was. I really was really exhausted and I just threw my napkin down on the table and grumpy around there. When I turned around, she had walked around behind me. She caught me by the lapel of my Hawaii shirt with this little tear. She was smiling and looked up in my face and she said, "I'm going to be a blessing to you some way". I said, "You're a blessing. You're a blessing to me now". Changed my entire life because love never fails. Thank You Jesus.
Now then, back to the book of Ephesians again. We're talking about the power of thanksgiving. Jesus said, "A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things. For, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks". Whatever is in here in abundance, particularly in moments of shock, moments of fear, sudden moments of pain. Whatever's in there in abundance is going to come out. A friend of mine, very, very close friend of mine, that I had the privilege of leading to the Lord. No, excuse me, this was another situation. We had our little twin Cessna in for engine overhaul. That other situation wasn't worth telling, but not anyway. The tip tanks, the fuel tanks on it were just this high. I walked in the hanger.
One of the mechanics was walking around the airplane and he looked up and that tip of that tank hit him right there. He looked up and saw me and he said, "Oh, preacher, forgive me". I said, "Now, come on, man. Don't let me cramp your style". I said, "But, Jesus said, when he was on earth, "Out of the abundance of your heart your mouth speaks". Now we know what's in you and abundance". Oh, I should not have said that. I did pray for him. But out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And we are out of time. Give thanks Jeremy.