Sensitivity to God by Kenneth CopelandPosted by admin on May 29th, 2009

I am astounded to watch a reserved section of an auditorium full of preachers and VIPs. Many times, everybody in the congregation is dancing before the Lord and worshipping God, while the ministers and leaders have big frowns on their faces wondering what is going on. In this critical hour in history, we must be more sensitive than that. As shepherds, we have to be sensitive to God and be an example to the sheep.

Most people are not as harsh as the Pharisees, but are still insensitive to the Holy Spirit. Even though the Pharisees left immediately, the rest of them were still watching Jesus to accuse Him. No one in the crowd was healed but the man with the withered arm. Nobody.

Why do you suppose that entire synagogue full of people was insensitive enough to grieve the Holy Spirit? Because their ministers were insensitive to God, and they followed their shepherds into strife, criticism and insensitivity.

As ministers of the gospel, it does not matter how long we have been preaching, how closely we walk in the Word or how deep our prayer life is. All that we have done isn’t enough. We are not close enough and we have not become sensitive enough. We must reach for more. We cannot become satisfied with what we have done.

We must enlarge our hearts and reach out to God. We must bathe ourselves deeply in the sensitiveness of the Holy Spirit. It’s time to think about one another instead of just ourselves. When we do, all of that sensitivity of heart will begin to grow in our congregations.

Let’s reach higher than our differences in the Body of Christ. Let’s be more sensitive to God and to the needs of others. Reach out to one another. Look for opportunities to help your brother. Look for ways to be of service to others. Seek ways to help. Be willing to give the Word of God to those who do not have as much revelation knowledge as you have been blessed with.

Kenneth Copeland

Vessel of God by Kenneth CopelandPosted by admin on May 21st, 2009

Another situation happened almost exactly the same way. I was ministering the Word of God and the power of God was so heavy you could almost cut it with a knife. I was just about to begin to minister in the gifts of the Spirit. God was ready to pull the cork on the devil and drive him out of there.

Right at that crucial moment, a dear woman sitting second row center got up and walked out of the auditorium. In a few minutes she came back with a carton full of cokes, hot dogs, hamburgers, and popcorn. I did not mind her having a picnic, but she could have brought her food basket with her.

The point was that it disrupted the congregation from being brought to a sensitive place in God. She was not thinking about anyone but herself. She was not sensitive to the people that needed Jesus and salvation. She was not sensitive to the fact that God Almighty was at work in that place.

She was not sensitive to me. A spiritual law was at work. Jesus said, “If you receive the one whom I send, you receive me. And if you receive me, you receive the One Who sent me.” Receiving a minister of the gospel, as an anointed vessel of God, with the same respect and the same honor that you would give Jesus, releases great power and anointing to heal and deliver.

Many times, God will tell me that I have to tell someone that I was sent and anointed by God. That is not bragging; it is faith. God uses men and women who are operating in faith. Jesus operated in the power of God because He operated in faith. He said, “I have come not to do my will, but the will of My Father Who sent me.” Jesus was doing the will of God in the synagogue. The Pharisees were so insensitive that they didn’t even know it.

First of all, they were insensitive to who was in their midst. They were insensitive not only to Jesus, but to the fact that the Spirit of the living God was in operation there. They were insensitive to the man who needed healing. As soon as he was healed the Pharisees left. They didn’t even wait for the last “amen!” They didn’t take the time to congratulate him for receiving a miracle from God.

You will find this attitude all the way through the ministry of Jesus. There was an insensitive crowd around Him almost all the time. He could do no mighty works in His own home town because they did not believe what He preached. They did not care that He came to bring deliverance to the blind, to bind up the brokenhearted, and to heal.

There was the woman who had been bowed over for eighteen years. Healing was her covenant right as a daughter of Abraham. Yet the Pharisees were so insensitive, they never ministered to her. As often as she came to services, they were more interested in their traditions than in her need.

Do you remember the blind man whom the religious leaders brought up before the council and said, “This man is a sinner” (John 9:24). They pestered him about Jesus until he became tired of it. He said, “What if I tell you again, will that make you believe? I was blind and now I can see. Is there some crime in being healed?”

You would think so, when you are around people who have no sensitivity in their hearts. They may be full of pity, and maybe even a little sympathy, but pity and sympathy are human emotions. I’m talking about having a heart sensitive to God, and sensitive enough to other people to meet their needs.

A sensitive heart is one that has the compassion of God moving in it. Jesus was moved by compassion, not just sympathy. What are you moved by?

An insensitive person will leave a church service in the middle of an invitation to the lost or walk out in the middle of the ministry to the sick. They think, Well, I’m tired. I have to get the children to school in the morning. It doesn’t matter that there are people with serious needs being ministered to by the Spirit of God. Some of them are life and death matters. Insensitive people are moved by their selfish desires.

When two believers come together, their power and strength in the spiritual realm is not doubled. The presence of other believers multiplies our faith to the tenth power. One can put a thousand to flight; two can put ten thousand to flight.

That means when someone leaves during the ministry to the oppressed, there are at least nine thousand demons that are unhindered because one other believer stops adding his faith. Someone that remained in the service will have to take up that selfish person’s part.

Kenneth Copeland

The Flow of God’s Compassion by Kenneth CopelandPosted by admin on May 13th, 2009

I started to walk away thinking, There are several hundred people here to minister to; I don’t have time to preach to her until I get faith to rise up in her heart. For a moment I just prayed in the spirit. As I prayed, grief and anger rose up on the inside of me.

This response came up from way down in my spirit. The Spirit of God was in control. I grabbed her face with both my hands. In a firm voice I said, “Don’t you say no to me. I am here in the name of Almighty God as His prophet to set you free.” She looked up at me and batted her eyes a few times. It startled me as much as it did her. I began to cry from the very depths of my being. The flow of God’s compassion through me broke the power of that evil spirit and she received from God.

That should give you some indication of what was inside Jesus that day in the synagogue. He was grieved because the hardness of their hearts quenched the Anointing of God. The word translated hardness means “insensitiveness.” It is translated in other scriptures as “blindness.” The Pharisees were insensitive to God.

When we read this, it is easy to imagine a group of hardened people who were angry enough to kill. But it doesn’t take the insensitivity of a hardened criminal to quench the Holy Spirit. He is easily grieved.

We look at these Pharisees and they look bad to us. The situation was openly hard, but not all insensitivity looks that bad. An act of insensitivity can be something that really seems insignificant.

I remember a particular instance when I was ministering in a prayer service and God was moving tremendously. The power of God was so strong that twice it drained the battery in the wireless microphone I was wearing!

When I reached the rear of the congregation, suddenly the anointing stopped. It was just as though the Spirit of God withdrew from the situation. Did you notice that our scriptural example says, “The Pharisees went forth and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him.” Jesus and His disciples withdrew.

Why did Jesus just get up and walk off? Surely the man with the withered hand was not the only one who needed deliverance. Why did Jesus withdraw? Because without the Anointing of God He couldn’t do anything. And if He couldn’t, I certainly can’t.

It’s my nature to try it anyway. I want people healed and delivered so badly that I want to continue praying. However, it is useless when the Spirit is grieved. Without Him nothing can be done. Just like Jesus withdrew that day from the synagogue, He withdrew while I was ministering.

We had grieved the Spirit of God. We find out in the third, fourth and fifth chapters of the book of Ephesians that corrupt communication, strife and stealing grieve the Holy Spirit. I found out that day that insensitivity of heart also grieves Him. I said, “Lord, what has happened here? Whatever it is, I repent now. Tell me what it is.”

I began pleading my case as fast as I could. “Lord, look at all these people in such need. You said without You we can do nothing.” It reminded me of my daughter Kellie. When she would be disobedient and I would start to spank her she turned into a regular “motor mouth”! “Daddy, wait a minute now, Daddy, wait a minute. I don’t want you to do something that you will regret. Can’t we work this out? Daddy, can’t we pray about it first?” She would talk me right out of it before I could spank her! It wouldn’t be long before she had me feeling guilty because I was reprimanding her!

This was the way I was talking to the Lord. He said, Look back there at that book table. This particular auditorium did not have a foyer. My staff had set up the book tables inside the auditorium. I have given absolute, strict orders in our meetings that the book tables be shut down when anyone is ministering or any time the Spirit of God is moving.

The workers had covers pulled over the book tables to indicate that they were closed. Someone had lifted up the covers and picked out some books expecting to be waited on. My employees were not about to wait on them. If they did, they would go home without a job! That is a quick way to become unemployed at Kenneth Copeland Ministries. They know better than to compete with the Spirit of God.

Two of those people were angry because nobody would take their money. How insensitive can a person get? At first, I became angry because their insensitivity grieved the Holy Spirit and arrested the anointing. It departed just like Jesus departed the synagogue. I repented and reprimanded the congregation. In no uncertain terms, they wanted the anointing back and became serious with God in a hurry. The anointing came back but not to the intensity that it was before.

Kenneth Copeland

Insensitivity to God by Kenneth CopelandPosted by admin on May 6th, 2009

The third chapter of Mark speaks of a time when Jesus and His disciples went into the synagogue. There, the Pharisees watched and waited, trying to accuse Him of some violation of their traditions.

Mark 3:1 says, “And he entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. And they watched him, whether he would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse him. And he saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth.” One translation says, “stand in the middle.” Jesus brought him right out in the middle to be seen, knowing that everyone there wanted to accuse Him.

And he saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. And when He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, he saith the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him. But Jesus withdrew himself with His disciples to the sea (Mark 3:4-7).

When Jesus questioned the Pharisees according to the will and purpose of God, they didn’t say anything. He looked on them with anger because of their hardness of heart, or insensitivity.

They were insensitive to who was in their midst, not realizing that it was God. They, of all people, should have known the scriptures. Jesus fit every Messianic prophecy in the Word of God. But they had made traditions from the Word and worshipped their traditions more than God.

Don’t look down on them. We have all done the same thing. We have had a “form of godliness, but denying the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). The reason is insensitivity—not being sensitive to the Spirit of God nor to the depth of the price that God Almighty paid so that we can worship Him. This kind of attitude angered Jesus.

Thank God, His anger is but for a moment. We have preached it as though it was forever and the mercy of God was but for a moment. I have determined that I will preach, “His mercy endureth forever” (1 Chronicles 16:34). The Bible says, “His mercy is new every morning” (Lamentations 3:23).

Jesus was angry because the Spirit of God was grieved. I have experienced that grief in my own ministry. It has happened a few times while I was ministering in a prayer line as God’s Spirit was moving. Suddenly, a grieving of the Holy Spirit that cannot be adequately explained in words came up inside me. It was the heaviest grief that I have ever sensed. To minister effectively, one must have the Anointing of God. I need the power of God.

Therefore, I must yield myself totally to the Holy Spirit. My spirit molds together with the Holy Spirit. When I am a yielded vessel to the Spirit of God, I see through His eyes and hear through His ears. My emotions are one with His. I am moved and directed as He is moved. When He is grieved I am grieved and His anointing lifts. When that happens, I am as helpless as a bird without wings. I cannot minister without the Anointing of God.

When God’s anointing stops flowing, that grief becomes like fire down on the inside of my innermost being. I want to know what has caused it. A holy anger comes over me. The first few times that happened I felt condemned for feeling that way.

In one of my meetings, I started to lay my hands on a young woman and she began shaking her head. She cried, “No. No. No!” When I laid my hands on her, nothing happened.

Kenneth Copeland