Kenneth Copeland — Honor Makes a Difference
I will be the first to admit that I was not always
this devoted and committed.
Back in the late ’50s I was running from the
Church. I planned never to attend one again. Then,
just to please my father, I attended a meeting of the
Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. What a joy it
was to hear testimonies of men who affirmed that
God was in their businesses. Before that time, we
never heard such men stand up and talk about God.
If they prayed, they were hiding in their prayer closet
somewhere so no one would know about it. None
of them ever wanted to say anything about God out
in the open.
This event was like a breath of fresh, clean air. It
caught my attention. A group of Christian businessmen
got my attention that night. My dad was part of
the chapter in Fort Worth, Texas. One of the first men
I heard speak was Lester Sumrall. The minute I heard
him I knew I was in the presence of a real man a
man of God.
When I walked into that room, those men started
hugging me. I had never seen anything like it! I was
being treated like I was somebody. That got my attention.
The Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship had
gotten the attention of businessmen all over the world
who woke up to the importance of honor and integrity
in business and dealing with others because of
the organizations influence in their own lives.
At this point in my life I had spent a lot of time in
the entertainment business. I would much rather have
been John Wayne than Kenneth Copeland. I also liked
to lie. When someone asked me a question, I would lie
just to see if I could get them to believe it. I said ugly
things, too, just to see people cringe. It was terrible.
My wife said to me one time: “I’m never going out
in public with you again as long as I live. You’ve got
the nastiest mouth I’ve ever heard.” And she was right.
I was foulmouthed, and I lied habitually. It was a
game I played. I knew it was wrong, but there was a
spirit dogging me. Then I came to the Lord.
The very first thing God did was clean up my
speech. He took the profanity and the lying out of my
mouth the night I got saved. That was a night I will
never forget.
The devil tried to tell me, Oh man, you’re just on
some kind of emotional kick.
I was and I’m still on one! I knew my experience
with the Lord was real because something had
changed within me. There was peace on the inside of
me, and I had no desire to lie or curse.
What was working in me? God’s honor.
All of a sudden I had a desire to be honorable. I
didn’t want to lie or be foulmouthed. Today, I have a
new desire a new spirit within me.
As you develop the honor of God in your life, it
begins to work in your heart, in your marriage, in
your business, in your career. The hard decisions
are already made once you decide to live and walk by
faith a life walk. You do your part, God does His part.
The devil does his part and runs!
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Kenneth Copeland — Honor Is Important in Business
There is a man I want to tell you about. His story
will help you see just how important it is to have
honor in business—important in ways you may not
have imagined.
This fellow was about 20 years old and had a
good job. He came from a family that had very little
money. He was the youngest child, and there was a
lot of difficulty in his household. He worked his regular
job all day, and at night fixed cars to sell. Gradually, he
began making money.
He finally saved enough so he could buy a
better type of car to restore and sell. He began to
make a bit more money. He was good at his work,
a gifted businessman.
His folks attended a Baptist church in Fort Worth.
There was a meeting at church, and he decided to
go. At the end of the service when the invitation was
given, the conviction of the Holy Ghost came on him
as he stood there. He had a tight grip on the seat in
front of him, trying to resist responding to the
wooing of the Lord.
The Spirit of God was all over him, and he was
trying to keep from going forward and receiving Jesus
as his Savior and Lord. A man in the church came
over, put his arm around the young man and told him
he loved him. He encouraged him to go forward. In
fact, that man walked with him down the aisle.
Before that week was up, the same man who had
led him to the altar to accept Jesus beat him out of
all of his profit on a car. It wasn’t a mistake. He just
skinned that young man in a deal—on purpose. The
older man should have known better. Any Christian
ought to know that you don’t get a man saved
on Saturday night, then cheat him on Tuesday.
That’s wrong.
The young man had a temper. He was angry, so
he rebelled against the Lord. He said he never would
go back to church again. And he didn’t.
He became very successful in the car business,
and eventually had a business that was nationwide.
Then he went into the airplane business, and I started
flying for him. He and I became close friends.
My mother and father lived just two doors down
from him. He liked my parents and would sometimes
eat with us. Mama would feed him and preach to him
and just love him. She would say, “I’m telling you right
now, I’m going to pray you into the kingdom of God.”
He would just smile.
She prayed for him just as she prayed for me—all
the time. She treated him as if he were her own son,
and he just ate it up. But she could not get him inside
the church door. Why? Because of a dishonorable
Christian businessman.
Years later, after I had entered the ministry I had
the opportunity to pray with him. He stayed with it
for a few days, then went right back to the way he had
been. Afterward, he stayed on my mind and heart a
lot. I was praying about his situation once while I was
in a meeting and I thought to myself, I’m going to call
him as soon as I get back to town.
When I got home and called him, a lady
answered. When I asked if I could speak to him, she
said, “He died day before yesterday.”
You can imagine how I felt. I thought, I missed him.
Although I rolled the grief and pain over on the Lord,
something in my spirit would not let it end that way.
I went to the funeral, and the man’s son asked me
to say a few words about his father. So I did. I told the
people exactly what had happened in this man’s life,
what had caused him to be the way he was.
After the funeral when we were gathered at the
memorial park, a woman walked up to me and said,
“Kenneth, I need to tell you something.” I want you
to see God’s faithfulness and honor from what she
told me.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Kenneth Copeland — Honor Demands Judgment and Discipline
For if we would judge ourselves, we should not
be judged (1 Corinthians 11:31).
Honor demands that we judge ourselves. Many in
the Body of Christ are not doing this. Many Christians
are waiting for someone else to do the judging. They
live with the attitude, “When I get caught, I’ll repent!”
There comes a time when each of us needs to
judge himself. This scripture says if we will judge
ourselves, judgment will not come on us.
Gloria and I are married in the three basic worlds
of existence: spirit, soul and body. We are working at
and learning about our threefold marriage. She and
I are a solid front, especially before our children. Our
children have always known that if they come against
one of us, they will have to deal with both of us.
We have always stood firm before our children. If
I told them, “I’m going to spank you if you do that
one more time,” and they did it one more time, then
the spanking began. Gloria has always supported
my decisions and I have supported hers. We have
never lied to our children. It is dishonorable to lie to a
child—to tell him you are going to do something and
then not do it.
It is also dishonorable to spank a child for every
little thing he does wrong. Punishment should be
suited to the offense.
When I was growing up, a spanking was a major
event in our house, a serious incident. We would carry
on and on about it. It was a big deal. My father had to
travel in his work and when he came home and took
charge of the situation, it was a serious occasion. But
it was not done dishonorably. We would talk about
what I had done and why I was being punished. We
would sit down and discuss the wrongdoing and the
consequences, then I got what was coming.
Our son John came in one day and asked his mother,
“Mama, do they send five-year-old boys to jail?”
When your child asks a question like that, you
know immediately something is wrong. It turned
out that he had set the grass on fire. An entire vacant
lot was burned. Fire trucks and flashing lights were
everywhere. It scared the daylights out of him! He
was worried about what was going to happen
when I got home.
“Do we have to tell Daddy?” he wanted to know.
“Yes,” his mother assured him, “we have to tell
your daddy.”
I think he would rather have gone to jail.
When I got home Gloria said, “John has something
to tell you.” He came in and told me what he
had done. I guess he figured I was going to unload on
him right there, just bend him out of shape. Instead
we sat down and had a family discussion.
I said, “John, I was present one time when they
dragged two little charred bodies out of an old garage
and put them in body bags. That’s all those little boys’
daddy had left. I want you to know right now that I’m
not going to go through life without you. I’m not willing.
And you won’t ever forget this.”
We talked and talked and talked. Then I did
several things to reinforce the point I was trying to
make—that’s been over 20 years ago and he hasn’t
forgotten it yet!
The Bible does not say spare the rod and spoil the
child. This is the secular interpretation of Proverbs
13:24 which actually says, “He that spareth his rod
hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth
him betimes.”
The rod is not just a stick. It is any type of honorable
correction. The Bible also says, “Withhold not correction
from the child: for if thou beatest [spank, not
abuse] him with the rod, he shall not die” (Proverbs
23:13). It is an honorable thing to teach our children
and to discipline them according to the Word of God.
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
Kenneth Copeland — Honor Carries Authority
And God blessed them, and God said unto
them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish
the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over every living thing that
moveth upon the earth (Genesis 1:28).
In Genesis 1, God created the heavens and the
earth. He created Adam and gave him a will of his
own. God gave him His faith and His life. He created
Adam to think His thoughts after Him. God breathed
into him the breath of life, and Adam became a living
soul. His mind and emotions came alive (Genesis 2:7).
Where would Adam have gotten any thoughts if
not from God?
He had God’s mind and God’s thoughts in him.
Then God honored him. The glory of God covered
him. He crowned him (Psalm 8:5). Who wears a
crown? A king—one in authority.
God delegated to man authority over all the earth,
and it filled Satan with envy and jealousy. He wanted
the authority God had given to man so he set out to
steal from Adam what God had rightfully bestowed
on him. You know the story, how Satan tempted
mankind into disobeying God. By doing so, man lost
to Satan what God had given to him. He lost glory. He
lost the honor. He lost the power to enforce authority
and dominion.
Satan was Lucifer, the anointed cherub, before he
fell from heaven (Ezekiel 28:14). He had been honored
with command over all of heaven’s praise and
glorious music. He was an archangel who had
command over at least one-third of the heavenly
host (Revelation 12:3-4, 9). But he wanted more;
and God had given what he wanted to man.
When Satan made his move to rob Adam, instead
of standing firm and obeying God, Adam went along
with his wife. To do that, he had to bow his knee to
Satan. It was a dishonorable act.
Adam dishonored the authority and dominion
God had given him. By doing so, he took off the crown
God had honored him with and placed it on the head
of Satan and bowed down before him. Later, Satan
said to Jesus: “See all these nations and their glory? I
will give them to You if You will bow down before
me. They have been given to me. They are mine, and I
can give them to whomever I will” (Luke 4:5-7).
Where did Satan get that authority and dominion?
From Adam. How was Adam able to do that? Because
they were his to give. They had been given to him by
God Himself. God had honored him.
It was a dishonorable act on the part of man. He
really did not own the earth enough to give it away,
but authority had been delegated to him. And God
honored his decision. God did not back down from
His Word to Adam. He would not be dishonorable
and demand that the crown of authority and dominion
He had given to man be returned.
Today, because of what man has done with his
God-given authority and dominion, God has had to
continue to honor certain things where Satan is concerned.
Why? Because God is not dishonorable.
God took an honorless, evil, lawbreaking, truthtwisting
being and defeated him on man’s level—and
He did it honorably. He did it without breaking the
law of heaven or of earth. He did it without breaking
His Word.
He confirmed it on Resurrection Day when
Jesus said: “All power has been given to Me, both in
heaven and on earth. Therefore, you go into all the
earth, and in My Name cast out the devil. Lay hands
on the sick, and they shall recover.” (See Matthew
28:18; Mark 16:15, 17-18.)
Once Jesus had redeemed the crown from Satan,
He immediately used it to crown His Church—the
Body of Christ. He crowned us with honor, glory and
dominion.
In Ephesians 6:13 we are told to take on the full
armor of God. What is the Lord doing? He is delegating
authority, endowing us with the honor that comes
from God only.
The honor that only God can give is dominion and
authority in the realm of the spirit. How did He convey
that honor upon us? How did He bestow upon
His Body, the Church, dominion and authority in the
realm of the spirit?
Think about what God has given us the authority
to do, to receive and to put under our feet. He has given
us authority in His Word. He is no respecter of persons
(Acts 10:34). That means that the promises God has
made in His Word, He has made to each of us.
He has given us authority over our physical
body and over the curse of the law. We are redeemed
from the curse. We have been endowed with power
and authority over Satan and his demons. We are
honored with the very clothing of war that Jesus
wore when He defeated all the enemies of hell—the
full armor of God.