KENNETH: He re-created us in the very image of Jesus
Who is exactly like and equal with God.
Now, what does that make us? We're born of love.
(Singing) I know my God has made the way for me.
I know my God has made the way for me.
ANNOUNCER: Welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory.
Join Kenneth and Gloria Copeland today from their prayer cabin in
Arkansas. Learn how faith in God is faith in His love.
Step into the flow of His love and enjoy His best for you.
KENNETH: Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Believer's
Voice of Victory broadcast--broadcast--
GLORIA: B-b-broadcast. KENNETH: --broadcast.
Well, all right. Hallelujah. We're here in southwest
Arkansas. Amen. I don't know, this place just does me
that way. (Laughs) GLORIA: It's a happy place. KENNETH: It
is a happy place, isn't it? And we're just--we just enjoy this
place so much, and we want to give you the opportunity to be a
part of it here and join us in the--in the things of God.
Father, we thank You today. GLORIA: Thank You, Lord.
KENNETH: We receive Your presence. We receive Your grace
and mercy. And, Father, help us. Help us get greater insight into
the fact that You are love-- GLORIA: Praise God. KENNETH:
--that trusting love is trusting You. And trusting You, we must
develop our trust in Your love, Your mercy, Your goodness, Your
kindness which endures forever. GLORIA: Praise God. KENNETH: And
we receive it today and revelation from heaven today
concerning it. GLORIA: Thank You, Lord. KENNETH: And we thank
You for it. In Jesus' name, amen. GLORIA: Amen. KENNETH: We
had--a couple of nights ago, we had about 4 1/2 inches of rain
here, and so every--the pond is overflowing. And they'll show
you pictures of the little brook. I know you've been able
to hear it while--these are not sound effects, folks. I mean,
we're out here, you know. GLORIA: This is the real thing.
KENNETH: Amen. The birds and everything. We have-- GLORIA:
This is the country. KENNETH: You remember the one person that
wrote us and said, "Your bird machine is too loud." GLORIA:
Where is our bird? Where is Word bird? KENNETH: Word bird?
GLORIA: Have you heard him? KENNETH: Just a little bit. I
haven't heard him-- GLORIA: Tim says he heard him. KENNETH:
--real loud. He wasn't as close as he was that time. Anyway, we
said, "That was not a machine. That was a bird." Amen. GLORIA:
Yeah. KENNETH: And you have to call him Word bird. Anyway...
GLORIA: That's right. KENNETH: This little brook, we sat down
here, and Gloria said, "You see that little stream right there?"
I said, "Yeah." She said, "That's just like the Holy
Spirit. You can sit here and watch it or you can go get in
it, but He's always flowing." GLORIA: Yeah. KENNETH: He's
always moving in a direction towards outpouring. He's always
moving a direction towards grace. He is always out--
GLORIA: Amen. KENNETH: --to bless and to empower. And the
way to get the biggest you can is to obey what He says. "Well,
I just--" Now, the moment you start to whining, you're not
trusting the love. GLORIA: That's right. KENNETH: "Yeah,
but what if--" Yeah, but what if God loves you? So you learn to
turn it around instead of "Yeah, but...what if?" I remember when
the Lord first told us to go to Tulsa, to Oral Roberts
University. I didn't know anything about the Word. I--oh,
I was so determined. I'll tell you, I was so in love with
Jesus, I wanted to do everything I could. But we had two little
children. And I said, "Gloria, if we--if we just take off and
go up there, we'll starve." She said, "Kenneth, we're starving
now. We might as well starve in the will of God as out." GLORIA:
Weren't we great deep? Weren't we-- KENNETH: Well, but
that--hey, that--I saw it when she said that. I saw what I was
doing. And later I began to realize, I didn't trust Him. I
thought I did. GLORIA: Or we just didn't know him. KENNETH:
But I didn't. I didn't trust Him. The Word says, "Lean not to
your own understanding." Well, that's what I was doing, "But
trust in the Lord with all your heart." Now, to do that, you're
going to have to believe His love, and you're going to have
to trust His love. That comes from developing it and renewing
your mind to the fact that He is love. GLORIA: He always has the
best plan, always has the best-- KENNETH: Always, always, always.
GLORIA: --not second best, but the best. KENNETH: He's not
trying to hurt you. He's trying to help you. GLORIA: Yes.
KENNETH: He's not trying to put you down, He's trying to raise
you up. GLORIA: That's exactly right. KENNETH: Now, let's read
our Scripture there in I John today. And remember this: What
is it you need to be scriptural? GLORIA: Scriptures. KENNETH:
Scriptures. Ha-ha-ha-ha. Amen. Amen. I got that from Keith
Moore, praise God, who got it from Jesus. Now, I John 4:8, "He
that loveth not knoweth not God, for God--" TOGETHER: "--is
love." KENNETH: Now, Verse 15, "Whosoever shall confess that
Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God."
GLORIA: Praise God. KENNETH: Now, remember, God is love.
"Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God," who is
love, "God," who is love, "dwelleth in him, and he in
God," who is love. So "In the beginning, love created the
heavens and the earth." Amen. GLORIA: Look at-- KENNETH: Yeah.
And think about that garden. I mean, He created that garden out
of His love. It was the best He had. And He created this, and He
saw it was good, created that and saw it was good, created
man, and then he created his wife and saw that it was good.
And then it was--it was the--he didn't--there's nowhere in there
said he created cancer or created storms and--all that
came after man sinned. GLORIA: He didn't create sin either.
KENNETH: No, no, no, no, no. No. All that came after man's union
with Satan as a result of Satan's absolute hatred for man
and God. Now, let's look here. "We have known--" Verse 16, "We
have known and believed--" GLORIA: Yeah. KENNETH: "--the
love that God," who is love, "has to us. God is love; and he
that dwells in love," who is God, "dwelleth in God," who is
love, "and God," who is love, "in him." GLORIA: Yeah. KENNETH:
Now, I kept adding that in there. I want you to start doing
that so that you begin to have a higher reference for love. Don't
be going--don't take time to go back there. But don't be loving
your new car, loving your new clothes or loving pizza or
whatever else it is. Everybody just slings the word "love"
around like--but that's the reason you have really no regard
for the word "love." And we--you can carry on with that study.
That's simple. But, the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy and said,
"Tell them that are rich in this world not to be highminded," but
to "be ready to distribute--ready and willing to
distribute," to give, to sow, to help people. "For he gives us
all things--" Say, "All things." GLORIA: All things. KENNETH:
"--all things--" TOGETHER: "--richly to enjoy." KENNETH:
Now, how do you receive all things? Jesus said, "Seek ye
first the kingdom of God--" The kingdom of Who? GLORIA: God.
KENNETH: Who is love. GLORIA: Who is love. KENNETH: "Seek ye
first the kingdom of love, and all these things will be added
to you." See, that's what love does. Love adds to you. He
doesn't take away from you. Now, the devil's lied on God and
said, "Well, you--you know, He'll take away everything you
have." GLORIA: You know what he's always trying to get people
to do? We see it in the Scripture. "Curse God and die."
KENNETH: Yep. GLORIA: He told people in the Scripture,
"Curse--" or at least one person. KENNETH: That's what he
tried to do to Job. GLORIA: "Curse God and die." KENNETH:
That's his whole deal: Die. Die, die, die. GLORIA: Because he
talks bad about God. He talks like God's the problem instead
of-- KENNETH: Him. GLORIA: --he's the problem. KENNETH:
Well, he tries to divert your attention. GLORIA: Yeah, that's
right. KENNETH: And when you say--when you say things like,
"Well, it just scared me to death. Don't that thrill you to
death? Oh, don't you just love it," blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, and all you're doing is praising him. GLORIA: Mm.
KENNETH: Because he's the author of death. GLORIA: Not me.
KENNETH: He is the author of fear. I mean, that's
just--that's what you're doing. You're giving him place. Anyway,
let's-- GLORIA: Once you know better, you don't have to do
that. KENNETH: "We have known and believed the love that God
hath to us. God is love; he that dwells in love dwells in God,
and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect," or
perfected," that we may have boldness in the day of judgment:
because--" TOGETHER: "--as he is--" KENNETH: "--so are we in
this world." GLORIA: Glory to God. KENNETH: There is no fear
in love. GLORIA: No. KENNETH: Now, why don't--yeah, thank You,
Lord. Yeah, I'll do that. Glory to God. Thank You, Sir. Oh, two
places, Philippians 2, let's turn there, and
then--Philippians 2, and we'll look at Verse 5 there, and then
I Corinthians 2:16. Now, let's look at I Corinthians 2:16.
We'll look at that first. And "For who hath known the mind of
the Lord--" Now, listen, very familiar scripture, but,
ha-ha-ha, we're looking at the love of God here. Amen? "For who
hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we
have the mind of Christ." Translate the word "Christ,"
"the Anointed One and His anointing." We have the same
anointing available for our minds as Jesus has for His and
what He had while He was in the earth. Now, that's the love of
God. But, let's go over here to Philippians 2, and let's find
out what the mind of Christ is. "Let this mind be in you, which
was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Now, wait a
minute. He said, "Let this mind--" That's the mind of
Christ, Gloria. That's the way Jesus thought. That's the way He
thinks now. He didn't think it was robbing or taking away from
God and--to be called equal with God. But now, what about us? How
can we think like that? I mean, you're not taking away from the
deity-- GLORIA: No. KENNETH: --and the majesty of God. To be
called equal with God? GLORIA: Think about it, though. That's
why we had to be born again. KENNETH: Well, yeah, that--yeah,
you took the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly
what--because He re-created us-- GLORIA: That's right. KENNETH:
--in the very image of Jesus, Who is exactly like and equal
with God. Now, what does that make us? We're born of love.
GLORIA: Love, born of God. God is love. KENNETH: One more step.
God is love, so are we. GLORIA: That's right. KENNETH: We're not
just born--I mean, we're just not filled with His love, we're
born of that love. Our spirit man is as much love as Jesus is
because He said this: "God loves us as much as He does Him." And
right before He went to the cross, He prayed that, "God,
reveal to the world You love them as much as You do Me."
Well, then we were born of the Spirit, born of the Word, born
of the Spirit of love, born of the Word of love, re-created
into the likeness of love. I'm talking about the inner man.
GLORIA: Praise God. KENNETH: But now, inside your born-again
spirit is the fruit of the spirit. That's not the fruit of
the Holy Spirit, that's the fruit of your reborn spirit.
GLORIA: It's in there. KENNETH: It's in there because He's in
there. And it--of course, it's--it's a fruit of the Spirit
of God. GLORIA: You know, this--as you know, this area up
here used to be peach orchards, and my granddaddy's peach
orchards. And all that--those peaches were so delicious. There
was nothing wrong with those peaches. But somebody had to go
pick those peaches to partake of them. And that's the way it is
with the fruit of the Spirit. It's born in us. It's in there.
Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness,
faithfulness, gentleness is part of the new-born human spirit.
But we've got to yield to that fruit to walk in it. KENNETH:
For it to grow. GLORIA: Yeah. KENNETH: It has to grow and
come--and become dominant in your thinking. GLORIA: That's
right. We yield to love, we yield to faith. Whoo.
Hallelujah. KENNETH: You want to finish this? You're taking the
words right out of my mouth! I love it! GLORIA: I like it. Now
go ahead. KENNETH: I love it, because this is--that's the way
the--those are supernatural--that's the way the
Spirit of God moves supernaturally. I was one time
with Jerry Savelle. He came from one city, I came from another.
And--and they said, "We want both of you to preach today,
which one's going to go first?" "I don't know." And so the guy
said, "Brother Copeland, why don't you go first?" I said,
"Okay." Jerry went to his room, I went to mine. We hadn't talked
to one another in months. We got in there that night, and I--no,
wait a minute, I had it backwards. He said, "Brother
Savelle, you go first, and Brother Copeland, you follow
him." I said, "Okay." And I had this very notebook right here.
This was about--oh, this was probably 30 years ago. I had my
notebook sitting right here, and I had the--I had the message
outlined there, "Faith in the Name of Jesus, Part 2," because
that's what the Lord told me to pick. GLORIA: Mm-hmm. KENNETH:
Well, I'm sitting there like this, and I'm sitting next to
the man that was the head of the Full Gospel Business Men's
chapter there, for whom we were speaking. I said--and he--Jerry
walked up there, and he starts preaching on "Faith in the Name
of Jesus." I said, "You want to see a miracle?" He said, "Yeah."
I said, "Okay, watch." I said, "I never said anything to Jerry
about this." And he preached-- GLORIA: You both heard from God.
KENNETH: Gloria, he preached right down to where I was going
to start, and he read the scripture. He said, "You know, I
believe that's--I'm going to finish this point right here,
and that's--and I'm going to turn it over to Brother
Copeland." It was just a-- GLORIA: Led by the Spirit.
KENNETH: --supernatural move of the Spirit. And that's what--I
want you to learn this. People miss the supernatural looking
for the spectacular. These things are supernatural. The
Spirit of God is moving in you. And if--the more you speak about
love, the more you talk about God being love, the more you
confess it with your mouth, the more you practice it, fear gets
flushed out of there, and love, joy, peace, long-suffering, or
patience, gentleness, goodness, amen-- GLORIA: That's good.
KENNETH: Isn't it good? It starts growing up in there.
Faithfulness. GLORIA: Faith works by love. KENNETH: Amen.
And, oh--and God is good, and His mercy endures forever.
GLORIA: Praise God. KENNETH: And what happens? You get to where
you're the same way. You get to where, instead of launching back
at people, something rises up in you and you say, "Nope, nope,
nope. Now wait a minute. Now, what does that--what difference
does that make to me? Have I got any part of this, or am I just
judging those folks?" Particularly watching news
broadcasts and stuff like that. And the Lord said to me more
than once, He said, "I can't trust you with a news broadcast.
Until you quit, I'm going to quit. I'm going to command you
stop watching it." So I did for a while. I just quit watching it
and totally immersed myself in the Word of God. You can get
news before it happens if you know how to listen. And then the
Lord said, "Okay now, but you watch your mouth." I get mad at
them for what they're talking about, you know. Anyway, you
can't get mad at the news broadcast and develop the fruit
of the Spirit. No. You develop your flesh when you're doing
that. That's the difference. Why? "Let this mind--" GLORIA:
Yeah. KENNETH: "--be in you." For instance, let's go over to I
Corinthians 13, the great love chapter. GLORIA: Mm-hmm.
KENNETH: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels,
and have not love--" Now, you notice the King James
translation translates "agape" as "charity." And I wonder
why--why would they translate that like that? Of course, they
were translated hundreds of years ago. And I thought, "Why
do that? Why didn't they just say, 'Love'?" And one day it
just--it came as a revelation to me. They were trying to get this
across, because back there then, charity was a big deal. You had
to be a charitable person. And to be part of a charitable
organization was to help people that absolutely could not help
themselves. And, "I don't want any charity." Yeah, you do. They
were talking about the giving love and nature of God. GLORIA:
Yeah, that's right. KENNETH: And they used a word that we don't
use anymore. But if you go back and look up that word "charity"
in old English-- GLORIA: I'm trying to--I'm seeing something
if I can get it out. It's--it's the reason it's called charity
is because charity--when you give to charity, you don't
expect anything back from that charity. KENNETH: Oh, that's
good, yeah. GLORIA: And that's the way giving love is. KENNETH:
Yeah. GLORIA: You walk in that giving love, even if somebody's
not walking in love with you. KENNETH: That's right. GLORIA:
And you're blessed, and you're free. KENNETH: Look what he said
here, "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and
have not the love of God, I'm become as a sounding brass, or a
tinkling cymbal." Now, he just talked about the nine
manifestations of the Holy Spirit and the way He worked.
Now you come over here and you just--you just tear the gifts of
the Spirit here, the ministry gifts of the Holy Ghost, the
power gifts of the Spirit, you just tear them apart with not
having any love. GLORIA: Yeah. KENNETH: So you come on down
through these--we won't take time to read all that. But now
look at the 4th verse, "The love of God suffers long." Now,
remember, Jesus said--or the Holy Spirit said, in
Philippians, "Let this mind be in you, which was in Christ
Jesus: Who thought it not robbery to be called equal with
God." That's the mind of Christ thinking that way. Now, you've
been re-created when you made Jesus Lord. Your spirit man was
totally re-created, not just forgiven, but born again, born
of the Spirit. So now, let's get back to this and let's touch on
this very carefully now. "The love of God suffers long and is
kind." Stop right there. Glory to God. Then so am I. I'm adding
my faith to this. See what I'm doing? GLORIA: Mm-hmm. KENNETH:
And in order to add-- GLORIA: You're receiving it. KENNETH:
Yeah. In order to do that, I have to confess it with my
mouth. That's what faith in God does. So that's what faith in
love does, because faith in God is faith in love is faith in
God. "Love of God envies not--" GLORIA: No jealousy. KENNETH:
"--doesn't vaunt itself, is not puffed up." Neither am I. "Doth
not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil--" Then, glory to God, neither do
I. "--rejoices not in iniquity--" neither do I "--but
rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things. The love of God never
fails," and neither do I, when I walk in love-- GLORIA: That's
right. KENNETH: --and walk in His commandments. Glory to God.
Because I have no fear. And without fear, I have faith in
God and in His love. GLORIA: Praise God. KENNETH: We're out
of time. Gloria and I'll be back in just a moment.
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