Kenneth Copeland - Keep Yourself IN the Love of God
Kenneth Copeland: Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland. That's Greg Stephens. This is the people that love you and it's time for of the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. Come on, we've had a good time this week, haven't we? Love. I'm talking about the love of God. The gateway to success. It is the base of all godly prosperity for it is God's desire that His people prosper. Now, money is necessary, but it's the lowest form of prosperity. That we prosper, spirit, soul, body.
Greg Stephens: Mm-hmm.
— Financially, socially.
— Yeah.
— In every realm of human life that exists, that we be prosperous in all of those areas and places, that we prosper. Well, we were in Africa and I would say something about prosperity and the interpreter would say, "Better". And I'd say something more about great prosperity, "Better and better". They didn't have a word "prosperity" in their language. So you do better. Well, yeah, you do better. So you're doing better spiritually, you're doing better physically, and financially, mentally. What was it Jesus said? "Love the Lord your God"... He was asked, "What of the greatest commandments"?
— Commandment, right.
— "It's love the Lord you God with all your heart, all your soul," but he made an emphasis, now the scripture that he quoted didn't include the mind, but Jesus did.
— Right.
— He said, "And with all your mind". You think love thoughts, "And all your strength". What is your strength? That's your wealth, that's what you have, what you possess. That's your...
— That's my better.
— Yeah. That's your better.
— That's my better, better.
— Your better, better.
— Yeah.
— Where you can be an influence and everybody can be an influence somewhere, but you need to walk in love.
— Jesus knew we had to renew our mind to that. That's why he included mind in there.
— Absolutely. Ephesians 5.
— Yeah. That's good.
— "Be ye therefore followers of God as dear children and walk in love". That Greek word is M-I-M-E-T-E-S. We get our word mimic from that. We get our word imitate from that. If you read the Classic Amplified, it simply says, "Be ye therefore an imitator of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ has also loved us and has given himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God, a sweetsmelling savour". Can you really imitate God? Yes, you can. He's our instructor, so we imitate our instructor.
— He is love. On Tuesday I gave you that Hebrew word for love. The first time it is used, the root word is "hav" means to give. You cannot love and not give, it's not possible.
— That's right.
— Because giving is fundamental to loving. If you're stingy, I'm telling you, you're not loving. You're maybe loving yourself, but not the God kind of love.
— Now, Greg, Gloria Jean, for all the years just loved me unconditionally. Even I when I was grumping and griping around and worn out and grump and boo, she just... We've never had an argument. I had several, but she didn't.
— She didn't play along? She didn't participate?
— Well that I didn't any fun. No, but seriously. Now next April 13th, we've been married 60 years and there's... Her love, her unconditional love for me drew me in to the Lord. Now I was raised in Southern Baptist church, my family was a loving family and I'd heard the word born again. The church that Gloria's family went to, she'd never heard that phrase, and she had already been baptized in the Spirit, speaking with other tongues before she ever heard that. The way she did, she just said, "Lord, take my life and do something with it". Well, he certainly did.
— Right.
— But that kind of love...
— Well, it's the goodness of God that brings people to repentance.
— Yes it is.
— It was her goodness, she's showing the love of God for you. That goodness is what's causing you to repent.
— She's so good to me. Now, what in turn did that cause me to do? I can't find a way to give her ... I just want to give her everything I have, I've given her everything I have and I said, "Gloria, go to town and buy something". "Well, I"... Woman, come on. Look, I have this giving pull on the inside of me because it's the love of God.
— You're moved with compassion.
— I'm moved with compassion towards her.
— To do something. Yes.
— I just want to just buy things for her and just give her things.
— Well, I'll tell you why that is. Hearts that are grounded and rooted and love that God has for them, that will always live out of an expectation of his blessing.
— That's Ephesians 3.
— Ephesians 3:17-21, when you're rooted and grounded in that meaning, that's now part of your DNA.
— It is.
— My life source comes from where I'm rooted. I'm rooted in that. You always live an expectation of blessing and power and provision and the miraculous. This is why Jesus saw the miraculous.
— Now, when we closed yesterday, we were talking about pastoring and so forth, of course I've never been a pastor. I not call. I founded Eagle Mountain International Church at the Lord's instruction. I tried to pastor it a few days.
— Well, you're a prophet.
— I told them, I said, "Why don't you go home where I can get some sleep," of course they laughed at me, but a pastor can become so possessive.
— Oh, it's dangerous.
— Of his congregation it'll choke the congregation and it'll choke that church. Not really realizing, well, what's happening to it and people just start drifting away from it.
— It's dangerous.
— It's a danger.
— I heard this said, and I don't remember who said it so if it was you, thank you. They said, "The most dangerous thing in the entire universe is an insecure pastor".
— Oh.
— This is why you got to be rooted and grounded.
— Yes.
— In love. Because if you're insecure and you think the people are there for you and you're there for them type of thing, and you own them, then you're in trouble. The greatest revelation I had on it is we were losing them as fast as we gained them. For a period there it was like, "What have I going to do"?
— Now you were pastoring in San Diego, right?
— San Diego, California and I'd been told all of time, "I don't know why you're going there, that's the preacher's graveyard. It's a hard place," and that's in my head because everybody been, "Hey, Brother Hagin, won't go to San Diego". That's what I was hearing all the time. See, that's a seed that was planted that would give me the opportunity to dust the dust off my feet and go on. That would've been out of the will of God. When I was there I realized my... Okay, I have a Wells Fargo bank account. There's one over here at Alliance and one up here in a little town called Rome. It I've never had the one call me up and say, "Now we noticed that you made a deposit in Rome," little town here in Texas has a bank. "Did we do something to offend you"? They don't care. they're a branch office of the same bank.
— Yeah, that's right.
— I had to come to the conclusion that these are not my sheep, they're the Lord's sheep. I am a branch office. That guy over there that graduated from Raymond across town is a branch office and I started encouraging people when he had special meetings, "Get over there". Mark Hankins came out to his church. I told everybody in our church, "Let's go, Mark Hankins is coming. We need to". I started and boy, it was hard on my flesh, I'm telling you, Brother Copeland, this was not easy. I began to notice it began to change things in me and I began to have a relationship with those pastors. Now, they're not my competition.
— No.
— SeaWorld and Disneyland was my competition, not them. It's true.
— That's right.
— I had people call it, "Pastor, we won't be there. We're going to Disneyland". Well, you couldn't have gone yesterday. You got to go on Sunday. Well, you know, and so I began to realize, then the next level for that, I began praying for all spiritual leadership like I did natural leadership. The next level of that is knowing that that Hebrew word for love has the root word give in it. I began to give. We began to give out of our tithe and offerings at our church to other ministries. I started Morris Cerullo was right there in San Diego. Well, he's a prophet so he's the prophet over my city. Well, I don't know if I agree with Morris Cerullo. I didn't care. I started sowing. Your ministry was another one. More people came to our church from references from Kenneth Copeland Ministries than anywhere else, than anywhere else.
— Well.
— I'd have people show up and say, "I found out about you from Kenneth Copeland Ministries". I would come to minister's conference and set there in the back and all, but people started coming. When? When I acted like my Father, when I started giving. That's love.
— Now, people that have no working knowledge of that and don't understand it, when I had it. Oh wait. I tried to figure out how to buy a bunch of radio stations because I was so interested in people learning the Word of Faith and so we could create a totally immersion situation with them. Of course that wasn't what the Lord directed. But then, so then I dreamed of having a network of radio stations, a network of TV... back before any of this ever happened. Then we became the Victory Network.
— Yeah, right.
— Yeah, right there.
— Right there.
— Victory Channel.
— Yeah.
— Victory Network on Dish and Direct and a lot of other things.
— Roku and everything else. Yeah. See, it was timing.
— Now, so there's no way, there's no possible way, that I could even consider charging the broadcasters for their time. That's the stupidest thing I could have possibly done because it would've violated the mandate that the Lord dropped in my heart and actually put on me years ago.
— But Brother Copeland that's bad business. You could be very wealthy if you charge that air time. You know that, right?
— No, it wouldn't have lasted overnight.
— You're absolutely right.
— It'd just crashed before it ever got started. The VictoryThon would've been a Victory flop.
— Right, well, you'd have been doing VictoryThons all the time to raise money and you don't have to do that for this because you're giving. When we are most like Abba, my Papa, my Father, I'm most like him when I'm giving.
— Yeah. Because that's what love does.
— What's your favorite holiday? Christmas. Why? What is it? It's giving.
— It is.
— My favorite thing is not when I'm opening. It's watching those kids open things.
— Oh yeah.
— That's my favorite part.
— Oh yeah.
— Because I want to see their face.
— And I start figuring out what I'm going to get Gloria. Yeah. Whoa.
— See, but see-
— Don't have enough money to get her what I want to get her.
— But you're already planning it. You're already planning this, you're already meditating on it. That's what our Father does. He is meditating, you're like Him. He's meditating on ways to bless you and do good to you. This is why you've got to act like Him and be like Him. Notice in our age, the epistles over and over and over these men write "beloved". "Beloved, I say unto you, beloved".
— Yeah. Over and over and over and over.
— They're reminding you... They say it all the time.
— And over again.
— I find that I say that too. Why do you always say that? "Hello, beloved". Because I'm reminding, I've renewed my mind to, I am the beloved of the Father.
— We were in Little Rock, Arkansas in a meeting there in an older country club and we had rented the ballroom area for a meeting there. It was a good meeting. There was so many things that just the Lord had said, "I want you to do this and I want you to do that over there and I want you to do that over there", and I thinking, "How are we ever... How we ever... I can't put it in my Partner Letter. What am I going to do here, Lord"? He just dropped it in my heart. I was standing backstage there and there was a pile of boxes and things, there were some boxes there that had metal chairs in them and so forth. They're just standing there and I just wrote it down on top of that box. He said, "Kenneth, don't seek ways to get the money in, seek way to get the Word out. The money will come". Now that's Love's way of doing it.
— That's how He operates.
— That's how He operates.
— There's a little tiny book, it's a page and a half in my Kenneth Copeland Bible. This is the book of Jude.
— Yes.
— In the book of Jude in one chapter, verse 21, "Keep yourselves in the love of God".
— Yes. Praying...
— Yeah. "Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. Keep yourselves in the love of God looking for that hesed".
— Yes.
— That's what it says.
— Keep yourself there.
— Keep yourself. If you're a fish, stay in the water because this is going to be beneficial to you to stay where you're supposed to be and that's exactly what we have to do. I heard you say all the time, "If your prayers aren't working or if this isn't working, check your love life".
— Check your love life.
— That's what he's talking about right there. Keep yourself, in those silent moments, I'm keeping my myself in that love. I'm keeping myself in that atmosphere of giving.
— Now let's look at the 20th and 21st verse, I believe they're together.
— Sure.
— "But you"...
— Beloved.
— "Beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith". Why is that your most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost? It's your most holy faith because when you're praying in tongues, you can't get over into unbelief. It's holy faith when you move over into that.
— Yeah.
— "On your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, comma, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life". Keep yourself, beloved, keep yourself in that love and pray in the Spirit a lot. Keep yourself in that love.
— Right. You go on through verse 17 and he says it again. "But beloved, remember the words". This is where Sarah, you put yourself in remembrance of the words that he's spoken to you. You remember the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. So there, remember what they said about him. That's your love example.
— Yes, yes.
— Now you be an imitator of that. Keep your yourself in that memory of the way He operates, the way He does things...
— Yes.
— And pray in the Spirit. I guarantee you, they heard Jesus pray in the Spirit. I really do. There was a time when they said, "Even the devils are subject to us in your name," and it says, "And Jesus rejoiced in Spirit".
— Well, think what he did at the tomb of Lazarus. He groaned...
— Yes.
— In the Spirit.
— Yes.
— He said, "I know you always hear me". He groaned in the Spirit. "I know you always hear me".
— So this is our example. Even the fruit of the Spirit, they all hang on love. They all hang on one hanger and all the other hangers are hanging on that one hanger
— But there in the 13th chapter it says that.
— Yeah.
— It starts off saying, "Even though I speak in the tongue of men and angels and have not love, I'm nothing but a lot of noise".
— That's right.
— "Even though I offer my body to be burned or sacrifice my body profits me nothing". But then turn that around. What if I speak in the tongues of men and angels and have love? I've looked towards that at times when I didn't know what to say, turn there and look at it and say, "Father, I walk in love. I do my utmost to walk in love and to stay lovely in the name of Jesus. With your help I'm doing this and now, right now, I don't know what to say to the devil, but you do".
— Yeah.
— "I'm going to speak in the Spirit and in your name, by the love of God, I'm going to speak to him and you know what must be said," and then just get with the program.
— Right.
— And not stop until I get a release.
— And I'm doing it in faith.
— Yes.
— Yeah. Absolutely. Brother Copeland, the love chapter in Corinthians used to condemn me and I renewed my mind by doing it this way. May I read it real quick?
— Share, please.
— We're short on time. First Corinthians 13, verse 4-8, I'm going to read it out of the Amplified. What I did was, since God is love, my Father is love, I replaced it. I took love out and I said it this way. "Your heavenly Father endures long and is patient and is kind. He's never envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display himself haughtily".
— Oh, that's good.
— "Your heavenly Father is not conceited arrogant or inflated". Now I'm like Him supposed, to be like Him.
— That's right.
— "Your heavenly Father's not conceited, arrogant, or inflated with pride. He is not rude and unmannerly, does not act unbecomingly. Your heavenly Father does not insist on His own rights or His own way".
— Oh, I like that. I like that.
— "You heavenly Father is not self-seeking".
— I like that.
— "He's not touchy or fretful or resentful. Your heavenly Father does not rejoice at injustice or unrighteousness". I'm skipping over these. "Your heavenly Father bears up under all things and everything that comes. He's ever ready to believe the best of every person. Your heavenly Father's hopes are fadeless under all circumstances. He endures everything without weakening. Your heavenly Father never fails". I began to renew my mind to that...
— Yes, glory...
— That that's who I am.
— Yes, glory to God.
— Amen. Praise God.
— Now Jesus prayed that prayer in John 17. He said, "I have kept them in your name". I want to close with this. We know that from the book of Proverbs, it says, "The name of the Lord is a high tower and the righteous run into it". My cross reference says "a loft above". He keeps us inside his name. We're inside the name of God and He is love. We're out of time for this Friday.
— Praise the Lord.
— Thank You, Jesus. Come on, Jeremy. Help us here, son.