Kenneth Copeland - Help for an Anxious Mind
— Hello everybody, I'm Kenneth Copeland. This is The Believer's Voice of Victory Broadcast. And this is my grandson, Jeremy Pearsons, and this is the best thing that ever happened to him: this is Sarah Pearsons. Because I know Gloria is the best thing that ever happened to me.
— Arkansas girls.
— Yes, both of them. Glory to God. Father, we thank You. We love You so much. With all of our hearts, all of our soul, all of our minds and all of our strength, we love our Lord God. We love our neighbor as ourself, fulfilling all the law and the prophets. And then in the night, the meal that changed heaven and earth forever. Lord Jesus, in that moment, You said in John 13:34: "I give You a new commandment that You love one another as I have loved You. All men will know that You're my disciples by the way You love one another," and we thank You for that. In Jesus' name.
— Amen. Thank You.
— That is a commandment.
— Amen.
— Is is not a strong suggestion, it is a commandment. It covers all of the other commandments because love does no ill to his neighbor. Love covers all of the commandments with one, but it is a commandment. We must do that at all times. That is the wisdom of God. And when that is your primary thought all the time, "What would love do? What would love say"? Then the wisdom of God can flow like a river.
— So good.
— Glory to God.
— Amen.
— Because it is our commandment.
— Yeah.
— Now that brings us to this. Open your Bibles to the 12th chapter of First Corinthians, and notice how it begins. He's teaching... And you especially need to read chapter 11 to even get into this. Because over here in chapter 11, he goes through what the Lord told him and taught him about receiving communion. And you have to come down through here, "For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world". Now, concerning spiritual gifts, notice gifts is in italics here, but not in later places in this chapter. "Brethren, I would not have you ignorant". Okay, then we just won't be ignorant about this. "Now, these are manifestations of the spirit of love. It's the Spirit of God. You know that you were Gentiles carried away under these dumb idols, even as you were led, wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed and that no man can say, 'Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.' Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are diversities of administrations," or ministries, "but the same Lord. There are diversities of operation, but it is the same God which worketh all in all, but the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit thereby. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom". Oh, Jesus! Glory to God. These are so precious, but notice what's right up on top: "A word of God's wisdom". And that concerns God's knowledge of the future. It concerns His wisdom concerning nations. It concerns His wisdom concerning the church. Now, I remember very well what Spirit of God said to your dad, "I want my church back and I want the gifts of the Spirit right up front, right up for everybody to see". There have been, there are people that have put them in the back room. "Well, you don't want to offend anybody, right"? Well, if that's going to offend anybody, let them get offended. Just get out of here. If that's all it takes to offend you. Be that big a baby. Amen. But it's the word of wisdom. And then, of course, comes the word of knowledge. Now, in the ministry in which I'm called, the word of knowledge has been manifested more than... In fact, it was working in me when I didn't know what it was. I remember in a prayer group we were in one time, at a very large prayer group, east in Pennsylvania. Big, it's like preaching to a church, but it was in this woman's home. And she said now, and Gloria and I both were there, she said, "Now Brother Copeland, we're just going to come up and sit in the hot seat. And you just lay your hands on them and pray for people". I said, "Okay". Well, as I would begin to pray, I just prayed the prayer and people would say, "How did you know to pray for that"? I didn't, but God did. That was a word of knowledge about that person's life and so forth. Someone asked my father in the faith, Oral Roberts about these gifts. They said, "Which is the best gift". He said, "The one you need at the time". Now, that's the wisdom of God.
— Yeah, that's good.
— And instead of trying to perform, that'll get you into real trouble. But I wanted to notice here that the word of wisdom is right at the top of the list, and all of these others are manifestations of God through ministries and not always someone called into the fivefold ministry. And one man I'm thinking about right now that Brother Hagin knew well, and he stood up in a meeting that Brother Hagin was having there and he just gave forth this word from God. And of course these, these are divided up so you can study them each. You can study the working of miracles and the gift of healing. You can study those one at a time, but they flow together. Particularly in vision form. But he just... I mean, the wisdom of God concerning things in the church and things flowed. And after the service, he told Brother Hagin, he said, "I've never done that before in my life". And he never did do it again. But that needed to be said at that moment. That's a good God, isn't he?
— Yeah. Brother Hagin would say that he had found that praying in other tongues, what did he call? It was the gateway...
— The gateway to the supernatural.
— To the supernatural, to the manifestations of the spirit.
— Yes.
— I'm reminded of something Jesus said here in the book of Luke, chapter 12. And man, this is powerful if you take it as a whole. I wish we had the time to look at every one of these verses, but He said some things in these verses that you and I have both heard and I would dare say anybody that's been in the church for longer than 10 or 15 minutes has heard. I mean, listen to some of this. He said in verse six, "Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins"? I mean, we've heard this talked about before. "Not one of them is forgotten before God, but the very hairs of your head are all numbered". There's some powerful truth in that. He said, "Do not fear, therefore, you are of more value than many sparrows". So there is an answer to how to get rid of fears is find out how much you're worth in the eyes of God. Verse eight. "Also, I say to you," you've heard this, "whoever confesses me before men, him the Son of man will also confess before the angels of God". Alters all over the world for hundreds and thousands of years, I guess since this was said, have been filled by people responding to these words right here. If you'd confess Jesus before men, he'd confess you before God. But I want you to notice what He said in the verses, just on the heels of that, He said, "Whoever denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God". Now, notice verse 10, "Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of man, it'll be forgiven him. But to him who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven". He's talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
— Now, listen to verse 11. "When they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry".
— Worry.
— Thought.
— Is that what your King James says? "Don't take the thought".
— Yeah,
— Don't worry. Well, don't worry about what? Don't worry about what you're going to answer or what you should say. Verse 12, "For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour," right then.
— What you owe to say.
— Right in that moment.
— Yeah.
— I don't know if we've connected these dots the way we should have. Jesus is beginning to introduce these gifts. This is a gift, right here.
— Yeah, that's it. That's it right there.
— He is saying, "Hey, don't worry".
— Well, that's a manifestation... In His ministry, He brought forth in manifestation seven of those nine. The two that were not there were tongues and interpretation of tongues. That was the replacement as the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. That was the replacement of what happened at the Tower of Babel when the languages were confused. Well, we got it back. We can speak in the language of men and angels. If we walk in love... The commandment of love is behind all this. Now, do you like the fact that I'm not baldheaded?
— Ah? Yeah.
— Do you like the fact that my hair is still dark brown and not gray?
— Good looking man.
— Now, it says right here, "Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered". A long time ago, I just started claiming my original count. I say it every day. And I began to speak to my hair. It started turning gray. There's no gray left in it. I was a little bit around the edges there. But then, as a testimony to what He dealt with me on about Genesis 6:3, to go on to 120 years if He doesn't come back before that. And I agreed to do it. I just went before the Lord, I said, "Okay, the Bible talks about older men having gray hair". I said, "If you want a gray-haired, baldheaded old prophet, then that's fine. But you said to me that you wanted this because you wanted the Word of Faith to be taught all the way through". So I said, "In the name of Jesus, I claim the original count. In the name of Jesus, I speak to my hair and I command you to be no more gray," and just kept speaking to it and speaking to it, and speaking to it till the gray was gone. Now, what is the significance of Jesus telling us that the Father knows the numbers of the hairs on our head? I actually read a commentary about this, that there's something in this original language that doesn't just mean that He knows how many there are. It means you could take one and He could tell you what number it was.
— Yes, that's right.
— Why? Love.
— Yes.
— Love that makes no rational... That leaves the head going, "Uh? What? All but the Spirit". He's going, "He loves me this much? This much"?
— Now think about that. Why would I even think that? Let me show you why I think that, why that even occurred to me in the first place. "Have faith in God, for verily I say unto you, 'Whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he says.'" Now, that's what brought that to my mind. I have what I say. We've talked about that yesterday. This is such a vital scripture.
— Now let's connect these dots to what we're talking about here. You can have what you say when you say what He told you to say.
— Yes, that's it.
— You can have what you say.... Well, He told you what to say, "Say this to the mountain". So when you say what He said to say, you can have it. Now, look at what Jesus just said in Luke 12, "Don't worry about what you're going to say".
— That's it.
— Verse 12, "for the Holy Spirit will teach you".
— Yeah.
— He will literally put words in your mouth.
— That's right.
— Now, we have a Heavenly Father and we've got an enemy. They are both working to do the same thing. They are both working to get their words in your mouth. And what Jesus said here in verse 11 of chapter 12, Luke 12, "Do not worry about what you're going to say". This is what will stop the working of the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, is being anxious and worried over it. There is no way, let's use the example that that Pawpaw just gave about making this confession over something concerning your body, the hairs of your head. You cannot worry about losing your hair and try to declare by faith that you're keeping it at the same time. They're working against each other.
— That's right.
— Well, we talked about this last week.
— Yeah.
— That the answer for an anxious mind is a thankful heart.
— That's it.
— And so, why is that? Because thanksgiving is that language of faith coming up out of you and it displaces that fear and that anxiety and that worry.
— Say that again. What...
— The answer to an anxious mind is a thankful heart.
— Yes.
— And I do this with my children, even. I'll notice some form of, it seems like a moment that they're starting to take anxious thought, that's what Jesus was talking about when He said, "Do not worry, do not take a thought or do not take an anxious thought". Doesn't mean you never think about anything. It means you don't take the anxious ones. So what Philippians tells us in chapter four about "being anxious for nothing, but with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving make your request known to God". And instead of taking anxiety, instead of taking the... I hear people talk about how anxious they are all the time. I hear talk about anxiety almost every day.
— Worry, stress, every word that you can think of to describe it.
— Well, the television will teach you to do that, yes.
— Yeah.
— Particularly if you're watching the news. 2019, 2020, you could have done the news broadcast because it was all about COVID and how it's killing people. And Christian people got in there and watched that, and watched that. Well, you can talk yourself to death. "I know I'm going to get that. I just know I'm going to get it, everybody down there's got it. They all have it. I know I'm going to get it. I know I'm going to get it. I know I'm going... That's it, right there. I've got it". You can talk yourself to death.
— I'll do that with my kids. I'll tell them when they start to have those anxious thoughts or it's coming to them, I'll say, "What do we do instead"? Because in that moment, feelings try to take over. But I'll say, "Just start opening up your mouth and giving Him praise. Open up your mouth and say something you're thankful for. What are you thankful for"? And Jessie will say, "I'm thankful for my mommy," or, "I'm thankful for my daddy". I say, "Say it again". "I'm thankful for my brothers". "Okay, what else"? "I'm thankful for Gunner," that's our dog. "I'm thankful for this, I'm thankful for that". And pretty soon, there's no more anxious thought. That's there's no more anxiety. And that is the answer for it.
— Remember, Jesus also said, "Why take ye thought, saying..." If the thought comes, don't say it. It'll die stillborn.
— So good.
— But then you just say, "I'm not touching that with my thought. And my mind is my mind and devil, you can't make me say that. I'm not going to say that".
— Amen.
— But you can turn that around. I take this thought and say it. I go to the Word, I take His thought and say it. When that disc exploded in my back with such pain in 2004. It knocked me in the floor Sunday morning after Southwest. It knocked me in the floor of my shower and I screamed before I realized what I was doing. I couldn't get out of the shower. I crawled out of the shower. Anyway, after spending some time in Florida with Dr. Colbert, and Dr. Weeter, I was working with him and they were working on me and I came back home, got out in the backyard. I think I told this before, but we're repeating. I had two heating pads on my left leg turned up as high as I could get to counteract that pain. And I thought about that. I don't take the pain saying. Now, wait a minute. It is in your mind. Pain is of the mind. When they're going to do surgery, what do they do? They put you out of your mind so there's no pain. The pain is a wonderful thing to let you know that that's hot, and so I began to say that. "I don't take the pain, saying... I do not take the pain, saying... I don't take it. That pain is not my pain. He bore my pain". Isaiah 53, King James says "sorrow and grief". That's not what the Hebrews said. "He bore our sicknesses and He carried our pains". So I don't take the pain, saying... Well, I kept doing that until I don't have any pain today, but I had to say it. I had to take those word and the wisdom of those words: "I don't take that pain, saying..." And we're out of time, glory to God. Thank You, Jesus, praise God.