KIMBERLY STUMP: Sometimes the things the Lord tells
you just don't make sense. They just don't. But
if you move in faith, God meets you there.
(Singing) I know my God has made the way for me.
I know my God has made the way for me.
KENNETH: Hello, everybody. We're Kenneth and Gloria
Copeland. Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory
broadcast. Happy Thanksgiving Day. GLORIA: Yes, amen.
KENNETH: Praise God. GLORIA: Hallelujah. KENNETH:
Thanksgiving Day. GLORIA: Thanksgiving Day. KENNETH:
You know, I heard Keith Moore say this. The Lord--he was
in an extended time of prayer on some things. And the Lord said
to him, among other things, "Develop a grateful attitude."
GLORIA: Yes, amen. KENNETH: "Develop being grateful to God."
GLORIA: That strengthens your faith. KENNETH: Oh, my goodness.
Thanksgiving rarely-- GLORIA: And griping and complaining does
just the opposite. KENNETH: Oh, Gloria, did you have to say
that? (Laughs) Yeah. Oh, my goodness. GLORIA: Yes, I had to
say that. KENNETH: Yeah, amen. Now, we're going to show you
something later on in the broadcast. I really want you to
watch this. It doesn't make any difference what the
circumstances looked like. And it--there's no such thing as
being too far gone-- GLORIA: That's right. That's right.
KENNETH: --as long as you're still breathing on this earth.
When you do things God's way, good things the love way--
GLORIA: Yes, amen. KENNETH: --you get His results. And love
makes a way for the blessing to come into your life. GLORIA:
Amen. KENNETH: Praise God. This is something to be thankful
about. Whether you feel thankful or not, develop a grateful
thanksgiving lifestyle. GLORIA: Yes, amen.
KENNETH: Open your Bibles with me tonight. Let's go to I
John 4. The book of I John, as I said earlier in the
week, set aside several weeks and--I read
the book of I John every day for several months. And I'm
going to do it again here in just a few days. It is one of
the most eye-opening books. And there are--there are things in
it that really don't come to the surface until you renew your
mind to the fact that God is love, and love heals. (Audience
Agrees) Love prospers. (Audience Agrees) Love has never--love has
only made one person poor, only one, only one, and His name is
Jesus. He became poor with our poverty because He took the
curse of poverty. The curse is threefold; spiritual death,
sickness, poverty and debt. The redemption is threefold.
Ha-ha-ha. Salvation, healing, and He is our Melchizedek. "Now,
what does that mean, Brother Copeland?" Melchizedek is the
one that was anointed of God to receive Abraham's tithe. And by
receiving that tithe, covenant connected Abraham to God, and
Melchizedek, who was Shem--Melchizedek called Abraham
possessor of heaven and earth. And he was holding the bread and
the wine in his hand when he said it. Covenant blood
and--whoa, ho-ho-ho-ho-ho. Hallelujah. Oh, I wish I could
get over into that. I may get into a little of it anyway.
Amen. (Audience "Amens") That's what love does. Love doesn't
leave you in a lurch. Love figures out some way to get your
deliverance to you. I mean, if you can't receive it one way,
He'll figure out some way to get it to you another way. (Audience
Agrees) There's at least seven different ways in the New
Testament to get healing to you. AUDIENCE: Praise God. KENNETH:
Amen. AUDIENCE: Amen. KENNETH: Hallelujah. Now, religion comes
along and said, "Yeah, He doesn't want you to have any of
that." And then brainwashed Christians, all messed up. They
treat God like He doesn't love anybody. That's one--one of the
reasons it's impossible to please God without faith is
because, without faith, He can't connect to you. And if He can't
connect to you without faith, you can't get to His grace.
AUDIENCE: That's right. KENNETH: "It is by faith, so that it
might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all
the seed," and He wants everybody in that grace!
(Audience "Amens") I kept asking Him, I said, "I--I need a
working definition of grace." I know I've looked up the word,
"undeserved favor," and that's good. That's wonderful. But
there was just something that, I don't know, I just--I just
wasn't satisfied by that, I mean, over a long period of
time. And I--He'd answer me a little here and there and show
me illustrations, you know, of His grace and His favor. And, of
course, you can't listen to Jerry Savelle very long without
finding something about grace and favor. Amen? (Audience
Agrees) Yes. Glory. So--ha-ha, one day, not all that long ago,
I just asked Him again just like I had. You know, it--I--it
seemed to me like I had just been pestering Him for years.
And all of a sudden, He decided to answer me. (Laughter) And I
was just sitting there, you know, and I said, "Lord, give me
a definition of grace." He said, "It is My overwhelming desire to
treat you as if sin had never happened." AUDIENCE: Amen.
KENNETH: Yeah! Now, can you see that's what love does? AUDIENCE:
Yes. KENNETH: Love is not looking for a way to keep you
from getting it. He's looking for a way to get you to get it
because He loves you. AUDIENCE: Yes. KENNETH: He loves you more
than He loved His life. Amen. (Audience "Amens") And you
remember the commercial with all the little green people? They
got green trucks and green uniforms and they clean up
everything? You remember that? Do you remember that? (Audience
Agrees) Okay, I just wondered if I was getting through you here.
(Laughter) And I'm sitting here and, you know, that commercial
came on. Gloria and I were just sitting there together and it
came on there, "Like it never even happened." I said, "Gloria,
that's grace. That's grace, like it never even happened." Grace,
grace laid our sins on Jesus. Grace, grace moved and shed His
blood. Grace went to hell so we don't have to go, where we can
live our life like it never even happened! (Cheers & Applause)
And when you do sin, repent! Don't spend weeks and weeks and
weeks feeling sorry for yourself. Just come right
straight to God and say, "Sir, I did it again. Forgive me.
Please?" (Laughter) And don't say something else that's
stupid. AUDIENCE: Amen. KENNETH: Amen. Don't start in, "Now, it
looks like I'm--after I'm 80 years old, I'll have better
sense to do something." Oh, shut up. (Laughter) Amen. That's just
your guilt talking. There is no condemnation to those who are in
Christ Jesus--(Audience Agrees)--but you have to walk
after the Spirit and not after the flesh. (Audience Agrees) You
go right straight to I John and you pick that book up and
you--let's open it there. Open it to I John. Well, you already
opened it to I John, didn't you? Well, back up to the first
chapter. Verse 7, "If we walk in the light, as he is in the
light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have
no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sins, he is faithful and just," or
righteous, "to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness." AUDIENCE: Thank the Lord. KENNETH: Now, if
you're cleansed from all unrighteousness, what's left?
AUDIENCE: Righteousness. KENNETH: Righteousness.
Hallelujah! That's where love wants you. (Audience Agrees)
"Yeah, but I'm just so sorry I did it." Well, you still got it.
You haven't repented of that. "Oh, I repent of it." No, you
haven't repented until you receive, by faith, your
forgiveness--(Audience Agrees)--and acknowledge it. I
don't care how you feel about it. I know you feel like a rat,
but if you'll learn how to walk by faith, you can kill that
feeling. Amen. "Oh, Brother Copeland, you--the first thing
you know, they'll just all be sinning and confessing, and
sinning and confessing." So? That's better than sinning and
not confessing and sinning and not confessing. (Laughter) No
born-again--no born-again child of God is looking for a way to
sin and get away with it. You--that--that's just not in
you anymore. You'll learn that in I John if you spend some time
reading and studying. That--you're looking for a way
to get out from under it, to break its--break its authority
and power in your life. (Audience "Amens") Well, if you
really, really--if we really, really knew, its power and
authority has already been broken in our lives. You'd be
surprised how weak that thing is because its strength is in the
flesh. But your power is in the Spirit. (Audience "Amens") Amen.
Now, ha-ha, let's walk through this. Remember now--let's go
over and read our text first before we do this. We can get
this on our minds. In the 8th verse of I John 4, "He that
loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." Then come down to
the 16th verse, "We have known and believed the love that God
hath to us," known and believed it. Now, it's one thing--it's
one thing to mentally accept it, but it's another thing to trust
it. You learn to trust that love. Notice what he said here
now. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us.
God is love; he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in
him. Herein is our love made perfect," or developed, "that we
may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so
are we in this world. There is no fear in love." Well, of
course not. God is love. There's no fear in Him, and He's in us.
"Perfected love casteth out fear." Don't you remember the
scripture says, "Stir up the gift that is within us"? He "has
not given us a spirit of fear; but of power and of--" AUDIENCE:
"--love--" KENNETH: "--love and of a--" AUDIENCE: "--sound
mind." KENNETH: "--sound mind." And you stir up the gift of God,
which is love, what happens? It flushes that fear out of there
because the more you stir it up and the more you feed that love,
glory to God, and the tide starts rising in there, it gets
to the place where there's no room left for fear anymore. It's
gone. Now, I want to talk to you about this a little bit.
Fear--you can have--people do this all the time. People manage
fear. People do it all the time. I mean, saved or unsaved, people
manage fear. You can have a guy, for instance, that rides big
nasty bulls, horrible, big, ugly, mean bulls, in a rodeo.
And now they wear helmets and everything else. It used to be
you didn't have nothing but your head--(Audience Agrees)--or
maybe your hat, if it stayed on your head long enough, or maybe
your head come off with the hat on it. (Laughter) He has no fear
of that animal. But then he goes and gets in his truck, and he's
driving to the next rodeo, and he's sitting there worried sick
about his finances, his children, his wife, and
everything else. Fear is there. He managed it where that bull is
concerned, and he has not learned to manage it where his
own business affairs are concerned, you understand? Worry
is fear dependent. It's fear based. So fear--now, if you're
born again--if you're not born again, your spirit is producing
fear. There's a fountain of fear in your un-born-again spirit.
Now, once you get born again, "Old things passed away; and
behold, all things are become new." And now there is no
fountain of fear on the inside of you. You have a fountain of
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, kindness,
or the fruit of the Spirit. You have a fountain of faith in
there. But you continue to feed fear in there, it'll get in your
spirit. And you may be going along, somebody would ask you,
"You got fear in you right now?" "No. What are you talking about?
I have no fear," when actually you do. It's resident in you
because you fed it in there. And if you violate the law of love,
fear is there immediately because that's what it feeds on.
Because when you violate the law of love, huh, perfected love
casts it out. But the moment that you decide to violate that
law and step off that love line, then fear is right there. You
start worrying about stuff and that kind of thing. Now, instead
of managing fear, when you are determined to walk in the
commandment of love and you put that up first place in your
life, not by your feelings, but the simple fact that the
commander in chief has commanded us to do it. And we are soldiers
in the army of the Lord. AUDIENCE: Amen. KENNETH: Amen.
Hallelujah. (Audience Agrees) So once you come to that place and
you really realize who you are, and you begin to not only know,
but believe that love, you trust that love. "He loves me.
He loves me. He's not trying to hurt me. He's
doing everything He can to get me to listen to
Him, where I can stay out of trouble." (Audience "Amens")
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