Kenneth Copeland - The Power of Thanksgiving
It's Thanksgiving week in the United States of America. And this tradition in this nation, goes back to its very beginning days. And it's a heritage that... Not like... Unlike any other nation. To have a day of giving thanks to God, for the greatness and the beauty of this country, which has turned into a pig feast. Just a chance to eat more than you're supposed to, a day to eat nothing but pie. Just forget the rest of it. And then, when you get through, you're nearly sick, you've eaten so much. A lot of us are not going to eat any supper. And then you go, "Yeah, maybe just a little bit". And go in there and get all the leftovers out, and do it again. Instead of giving thanks, you're trying to kill yourself. "Well, I can go on a diet Monday". Yeah, right.
How has that worked out for you in the past? You don't go on a diet Monday, you just take the 15 pounds you gained, and get bigger britches. Don't be laughing at that. I know. It's not anything I haven't already done. No more. True Thanksgiving... is a lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. It's not a one day thing. It's time to give thanks to God today. It's a time to give Him praise today. Not just on Thursday, once a year. That won't get it done. Every day. Every day. Check yourself. What's the last thing you pray, if you pray, when you put your head on the pillow at night? And what's the first thing you do and say, when you get up the next morning?
The last thing. I pray the words of Jesus. I love the Lord, my God. The way you gave commandments, sir. I love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, all my soul, and all my mind. And with all my heart, I love my neighbor. I love the people, whomever they are, as my neighbor. And I give You thanks, of what You said at that last Covenant Meal, hours before You were crucified, talking to Your now 11 disciples. See, He had to get Judas out of that room. He had to get that unbelief and that death out of that room. He had get him out of here, and then He could say certain things to them. He said, "A New Commandment I have given you. To love one another, even as I have loved you. And by this, all people will know that you are my disciples, by the way, you love one another".
What does love do? It gives. And especially gives thanks. Read all those different places, Jesus, looking up to heaven, gave thanks to the Father, and then handed these little loaves and fish to His disciples. And the miracle happened. He already said, "You're going to feed them". They thought, "What? There's too many people". But He said, "No, you're going to feed them". So, in heaven, it's recorded that Jesus prayed, and His disciples fed thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Why? He gave thanks. It's all the way through Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Jesus, the giver of thanks. Now, we'll go Ephesians 4, which is as you know, our golden text now for this week of Thanksgiving.
Now, these are instructions. And now, let's go to the first verse. "I therefore the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you, that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering or patience". That's one of the fruit of the spirit, right? "Forbearing one another in love". Isn't that precious? Forbearing one another in love. Put up with one another. We're in this together. We're a church family. This is us. They needed a lot of teaching. These are Gentile people. Before they knew God, they didn't care what they did. They didn't have any reason to care. Just do anything that feels good.
Well, we've got a lot of heathen people in this country, and everywhere else in the world doing the same thing. But that's our job. Somebody has to tell them. Somebody must live it to the point somebody says, "You beat all I ever saw. I've called you everything but a dead sardine, and you just stand there and smile. What is it with you"? "You really want to know? His name is Jesus". And when I came in contact with Him, and I accepted Him as my savior, His love came in me. And may I show you something that He prayed? In the 17th chapter of John, just before He went to the cross, that God loves you just as much as He does Jesus. And Jesus prayed that the love that the Father has for Him might be in us also; and that's why. And I'm thankful for it. And that person will say, "Thank you". So see, this is... And this is Thanksgiving week. No. This is one week out of 50 some odd, however many it is. Amen. But we're thankful 365 days a year. And allow it to be dominant in our lives, the giving of thanks. Amen.
And so, and He comes up, "There is one body and one spirit, even as you are called in one hope of your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, Father of all". And he just starts out telling them who they are. "God loves you. And you ought to love one another. And I got all of this. Now sit down and listen, because I'm going to tell you some stuff you need to stop, and you need to start". "And he started having the understanding, darkened being alienated from the life of God through ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart. Who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness or looseness. To work all uncleanliness and greediness you've not so learned". You didn't learn that from Jesus. "If so, be that you've heard Him, and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus".
How'd they get that? They were one of the first to be baptized in the Spirit of God. All they knew anything about was the baptism of John. So what did they have? They had a handful of Baptists there, that needed to get full of the Holy Ghost. That's right. "And that you put on the new man, wherefore you put away lying". And so forth and so on. "Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather let him labor, working with his hands, the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needs. 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". Now, come over as we did yesterday, to the fifth chapter, and now, let's start then now from the first verse. "Be ye therefore". Here's all of this.
Now that we straighten all that out. "Be ye therefore followers". The Greek word is M-I-M-E-T-E-S. We get our word imitate or mimic from that. And if you read the Classic Amplified, it says, "Be ye therefore imitators of God". "As dear children imitate their parents, and walk in love". An imitator of God. And walk in love. "Brother Copeland, how could I ever imitate God"? I didn't say that. Imitate Jesus, God manifested in the flesh. And begin to talk like Him. Put His words in your mouth, and His thoughts in your mind. A Thanksgiving thought. Rather than this ridiculous, evil thought that's trying to push its way. The devil's trying, he's trying to push the thanks in the Thanksgiving, out of your heart, and out of your mind. Don't let him do it. And just say this, "My mind is my mind. I think whatever I decide to think. I say whatever I decide to say. Therefore my mind, according to the scripture is the mind of Christ.
So the anointing on His mind when He was in the earth is available to me while I'm in the earth. I do not think strong, bad thoughts. I do not. According to the scripture I cast those thoughts and reasonings down. I refuse to touch them in my thought life. I imprison them every thought, and I don't let it out. I choose to think Thanksgiving thoughts. I choose to thank healing thoughts, love thoughts, forever God thoughts. This is God's mind provided me through two Covenants of Blood. The blood of animals. Then the blood of men. Then the blood of God. And that blood belongs to me". And I think His thoughts after Him. Jesus said, "Why take ye the thought, saying, 'No, you're not getting out.'" A thought unspoken, dies stillborn. It gets out your mouth, I can't get it back. I said it. And some of those thoughts live a lifetime in the person to whom you said them. A hateful thought. Spoken out the mouth. A vengeful, revenge thought spoken.
And you know, that person doesn't think about it anymore. But the person that was on the receiving end of that, it just stays there. It stays there. It stays there. Back in the early days of this ministry, a man walked up to me with a big smile on his face, just looked so nice. No, he said, "Brother, I've never heard anyone rape the scriptures like you did like that in my life". And just turned around and walked off. Well, he gave me a piece of his mind. Well, I wish he'd have kept that piece to himself. Well, and it just... Well, first of all, it... Well, number one, it hurt. Number two, it made me mad. Now, I didn't have any better sense than getting mad about it. But then the Lord said something to me, and taught me something that changed my life, and changed this ministry forever. I was brooding over that.
And now, I want to make something very clear. I've only heard one time, what I consider to be the audible voice of God. And it was late one night, flying over this property. And I was alone; I was in the airplane by myself. "And coming to you from the Revival Capital of the World". I looked down at my audio panel to make sure that I hadn't flipped the low frequency button down on regular radio, which I never do. I'm not entertained when I fly. I flew professionally for years. I don't mess with it. I'm flying, it's business. Keep from sticking that thing up like a dart somewhere. You don't do that. But there have been times that it almost was, and this was one of them. "Kenneth". "Yes, sir"? "I love you. But I don't like you very much". "Lord. What"? Excuse me.
Then He said, "Under the current conditions, I can't expand your ministry any further". I said, "Why, Lord"? He said, "Well, you're too high-tempered. Somebody says something like that to you". And He was right, that guy made me mad. And He said, "If you'll do this, then I can expand your ministry. Number one. Don't ever again read in newspaper form, in book form, anything written about you in print, good or bad. You instruct your staff to never bring anything about you in print, good or bad". I said, "Yeah". Now He said, "If you read the bad stuff, it just keeps going over and over and over. And you think about it, and you think about it. And ones you had wish you had said, and you didn't say it, and all that". And He said, "You just brood over it, and it just chews on you and eats on you". But He said, "Don't read the good either, that's even worse". "'Because,' he said, 'somebody's bragging on you. And then you don't want to get rid of that'".
And He said, "'Actually, in the Spirit, you're a nobody. And you were a nobody until you finally obeyed your mother'". Or he didn't put that, I stuck that in. But Hallelujah. And, so I did that, and all of the bum stuff. Now, see, I'm right here in my own hometown. I finished high school here. And there's a lot of nasty stuff that came out in the religious part of the newspaper here. I never did read it. And I've never had to forgive, or not forgive. I didn't know anything about it. And went through crisis after crisis, and never knew it. Come on. This is the key to it. If someone has written you an ugly letter. "Oh God, forgive them. Thank You, Jesus". And the next letter you get from that person say, "God bless him". Maybe they repented. Well, maybe they didn't. Next time you see them in person, you'll find out. Until then, don't read their letters anymore. Hallelujah. Well, anyway. And we're talking out a life of Thanksgiving.
Now let's go over here to the book of Romans. Oh my, my, my, my. Mm. Mm. This first chapter of the book of Romans, it is a legal document. In that 15th verse. "So as much as in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are in Rome also. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. It is the power of God under salvation to everyone that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek". Songs have been written on that verse. "I'm not ashamed of the gospel". Yeah. Glory to God. Yes. I'm not ashamed of it. "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall live by faith". And that is me and my family.
"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteous of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness, because they cause that which may be known of God is manifest in them. Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them, for God hath shewed it unto them, for the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power in Godhead, so that they are without excuse because 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". They were not thankful. They had no gratitude to Him. We have thankful hearts, and we're out of time. Come out, Jeremy here, son. Come on. Hallelujah. Thankful and grateful heart.