Kenneth Copeland - Let Thanksgiving Be in Your Heart
Hello, everybody. I'm Kenneth Copeland. Of course, this has been Thanksgiving week all week long. Yesterday was a big day all over this country, but to us believers, it's a big day everyday. A big day everyday to give thanks to our God and to his Son, Jesus Christ. Because of him, what am I giving thanks for? I'm not going to hell. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Woo! Let me read you this from the 13th chapter of the Book of Hebrews. "By him..." Who's him? "By Jesus who's the same yesterday, today, and forever" Right there in the 8th verse. "By him therefore..." By him. By Jesus. Because of Jesus. Through him. "By Jesus, therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually". Continually. "That is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name".
Not just giving thanks for the name because in Ephesians 3:14-20, this same great apostle wrote in the letter there that, "For this cause I bow my knee to the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. I bow my..." Hey, let's don't quote it. We're going to the Book of Hebrews right now or excuse me, Ephesians right now in Chapter 4. Well it's just right there on my Bible. It's on the same page. Ephesians 3:14. How many of you are partners? It's on the bottom of your letter, right? Ephesians 1:16-23. 3:14-20. "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom... I bow my knee to the Father of Jesus Christ of whom of the Father the whole family in heaven and earth is named". We are named after the Father because Jesus inherited his name from the Father. We are joint heirs with him. Woo! Give thanks unto God. Praise God.
Now, you come on down into this fourth chapter and he ends with the 20th verse. "Now unto him that is able..." Now, here's the greater works that Jesus talked about in the 14th chapter of John in the covenant meal, "The works that I do shall you do also. Greater works than these shall you do because I go to my Father and the Holy Spirit is coming and He'll live with you and in you forever". Now, here's the greater work. "Now unto him who is able to do... He is able by the Holy Spirit in us is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think..." Get ready to give glory and thanksgiving to God. "...according to the power that works in us".
Now, that should be on your mind all the time. Not the flu. Not some little handmade virus. God, I remember it, class. I remember it when polio was a killer and worse than that, those that did not die from it were crippled for life. My cousin had it and she had big scars right here on the side of her... Inside here, she had these huge scars so she could use her feet. Thank God she was never in braces. I was just a little boy and they thought I had the flu. That was it. It had all of the same symptoms as a cold or a flu. I was at home sick with it, whatever it was. Thank God for a mother that knew how to pray. So I was propped up in the bed. I was feeling a lot better and I had a lot of magazines right there that I had been reading because I was feeling good.
So I reached down there to get my magazines and I couldn't reach. I'm telling myself to get those magazines and I couldn't move. I could move my hands and I'm looking at the magazines. They're not any further away from me than that bowl of fruit, but I couldn't do anything about it. Man, I hollered, "Mother," and she came running in there. "What's the matter with you"? I said, "Mother, I can't bend over and get my magazines". Man, she hit her knees right beside that bed. She put her hands on me. Now, she wasn't baptized in the Spirit at that time, but I'm telling you she'd pray all night long and all day long in her natural. She just prayed and she did not move until I picked up those magazines. And I was all right. But thank God. Give thanks to God which taught people. Of course back in those days, there were people that knew and had learned how to do this different exercises that would get it out of it, but of course the medical people didn't have any faith in that and they didn't want to believe that. Later, they did. Later, they admitted we were wrong, but thank God they got a vaccine.
"Brother Copeland, thank God they have a vaccine for COVID". No, they don't. It's not tested. It's an experimental drug at this stage. Amen. But you can take Deuteronomy 28 where it says fever and all that and then you go to Galatians 3:13-14 and that's redeemed from the curse of the law. Praise God. Now, I want to read this from the Classic Amplified, Philippians Chapter 4 beginning with the 4th verse. I love it. "Rejoice in the Lord always". I can't hardly talk, but thank God. I rejoice. "Delight, gladden yourselves in him. Again, I say rejoice. Let all men know and perceive and recognize your unselfishness, your considerateness, your forbearing spirit. The Lord is near. He is coming soon".
Here's what I want you to get. Listen, listen, listen. "Do not fret". The King James says, "Don't be careful". "Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything". I'm going to show you something here, class. I'm going to... By the Holy Spirit, I will show you the power of thanksgiving. "Do not fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition, definite request with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God". Not fretting and prayers of, "God, what am I going to do"? No, put a smile on your painful face. I don't care what someone has diagnosed for your body or for your mind, your brain. I don't care. Why? Because I've rolled all that care, that anxiety over on God.
When I first learned how to do that, "Being content with transcends all understanding shall garrison, mount guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence is honorable and seemly. Whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there's any virtue, if there is any excellence, if there be anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things. Fix your mind on them and practice what you've learned, received, and heard and seen in me. You do them". Thank you, my dear. Ms. Paula Marie. Think on these things. Whatever you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you be, anybody, whatever you think about most of the time you will eventually become. Good or bad.
My dad would say, "Kenneth, if I could unzip your head, there wouldn't be anything but airplanes and motorcycles come out". I said, "Yes, sir". He's right. Did you know in World War I if you wanted to be a pilot, if you flew a motorcycle, you were up on top of the list? You were good for pilot training. Just before the war was over, man that owned a furniture company there in Fort Worth, his name was Wooten and he had a small twin, it was a Lockheed airplane. Well it was the same kind of airplane that Amelia Earhart flew. It was a Lockheed. It was either a Lockheed 10 or a Lockheed 12. I don't remember now. Anyway, he called and said... The war wasn't quite over, but they realized. They had shut down all civil aviation in the United States except civil air patrol and things like that. He said, "We've tested Mr. Wooten's airplane. We got it up going. Would you and your son like to go"?
Of course he said yes and I thought, "I'm going to get to get up in an airplane". He put me up in the front seat and I guess it's because my eyes were glazed over, but he said, "Don't you touch anything". We walked out of the tarmac there in Abilene, Texas at the municipal airport. I had my dad by the hand. I was eight years old, elementary school, either eight or nine, but anyway, between eight and nine, I guess. We were walking away from that airplane. I had him by the hand. I stopped and turned around and looked at that little Lockheed. I said, "Daddy, I'm going to do that". He said, "What"? I said, "I'm going to fly airplanes". He said, "You can do that, boy," and walked away. What I thought about the most and I mean I thought about that all the time. I drew airplanes all over my book covers, just every kind of airplane I could think of. I dreamed about airplanes and I wanted a motorcycle so bad.
Now, the ministry has a fleet of airplanes and I have one, two, three motorcycles. I am a happy camper. I thought about that. I learned many years later that my flying was a calling, that I was going to be held responsible for introducing the use of airplanes to ministries that didn't believe they could have a new car, much less an airplane. Then I learned how to use one when I was chosen to fly co-pilot on Brother Roberts' ministry's airplane. Finest airplane I'd ever been up close to. 4000 horsepower. Get my hands on that thing. Anyway, but I thought about it all the time. Unless I was preoccupied, that was on my mind all the time, particularly the airplane. I don't remember ever drawing a motorcycle, but I did the airplanes. Eventually, I soloed in 1959 and I took little lessons here and there and the other place. In fact, I was looking at that logbook yesterday and some other things I was looking for in there. I went back and looked at all of these hour after hour and then solo, first super solo, first cross-country solo, all in that first little logbook about that thick.
Then later came all the rest of the logbooks. I thought about it more than anything else. When we think about, which I do now, I think about praising and thanking God all the time unless I'm preoccupied, but what I do as an occupation is a praise and thanksgiving to God. These things I learned so embedded in me from Oral Roberts and Kenneth E. Hagin. Brother Hagin would say if you praise long enough, the Spirit of worship will come. Once the Spirit of worship comes, the glory will follow. In that glory come the miracles and outstanding activity of God. So to praise him and now, let's go back over there to the Book of Ephesians because I want to bring this ... it is so telling here. In the 4th chapter, the 29th verse, "Let no corrupt communication precede out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers".
Then you come right straight over into the 5th chapter and the 4th verse. "Neither filthiness nor foolish talking, foolish talking or jesting," nasty, stupid jokes going around saying just dumb things all the time because Jesus called those idle words. Inoperative, no faith. There's nothing wrong with humor because merry heart does good like a medicine. That's the reason Jesse Duplantis, I don't care what he's saying, I don't care what he's saying, he'll say, "Write this down". You'll say, "Okay". Now, what am I saying? You think, "I don't know". I said that in front of him one day. He said, "No, what am I saying"? I said, "Jesse, I don't have any idea". He and Sherri and I, we plug at one another all the time. He'd say, "Yeah, but it's right". I'd say, "Yeah, but it's good". He was a very... He was an entertainer, played all kinds of instruments, but he was a sad young man. His early life was very sad, very poor, but he said he began to preach and funny things started coming out of his mouth. He tried to stop it, but he couldn't. It was a merry heart and he learned that. "Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient, not fit, but rather the giving of thanks".
Let thanksgiving be in your heart and mouth all the time, the giving of thanks. Oh, God. Thank You, Jesus. In all things rejoice. In all things give thanks. Now, people have... Because they didn't understand it. Well give thanks for that broken arm because God probably did it to prove He could heal it. I heard a dear brother... I knew him. This was back in the Full Gospel Businessman's days, back in the days when the man came up to me and was talking about brother... See, Gloria and I were scriptural illiterates when we came into the thing. When we got both born again, we didn't know anything about the Word, neither of us. I told her, I said, "Did you notice that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John tell the same story"? She said, "Isn't that wonderful"? TL Osborn said, "Copeland, you're born free". We didn't have any religion to unlearn. Anyway, it was always a joy to us and we looked on the joy side of everything. Brother Roberts, Granville Oral Roberts, GO Roberts, I miss him.
Anyway, he would start his meetings with that Stuart Hamblen song. "God is a good God". That was his favorite song. It was his theme song. Richard Roberts sang it for him when he was old enough to do that. Richard, great voice. I mean he wanted to be an entertainer just like I did and he was running from God. Anyway, then he went to Oral Roberts University and you know the story. So God is a good God. You can't copyright a title. You can copyright the lyrics. There's another song by that same title. "God is a good God, yes He is He's a good God". This man came up to me and said, "I wish he wouldn't say that". God is a good God. I said, "You want him to say God is a bad God"? "No, but he'll give people the wrong idea about God". Well he preached out of the old covenant God and then later, another man said, "God will break your leg just to prove He can heal it". I was in the service when he said it and it just stunned me. He's a good God. He's worthy of our praise and our thanksgiving. Let's just close out today praising and worshiping God.
We raise our praise and thanksgiving to You, Sir. We thank You and praise and worship You this week and over all the rest of the weeks of the year. We just praise and worship You and thank You in the sweet, precious, marvelous name of Jesus who shed His blood for our life. We praise You and thank You for it. In that great, marvelous name, Jesus. Amen. Been a good week, hadn't it? Thank You, Jesus. Come on, son. Praise God.