Listening Across Generations

((music playing)) I'm not move what I feel. ((music playing)) I don't live by what I [singing] see because my God ((music playing)) has made a way [singing] for me. ((music playing)) >> Hello everyone and welcome to the Believer's Voice of Victory broadcast. ((music playing)) I'm Courtney Copeland, Kenneth and Gloria Copeland's granddaughter, and I am joined today by Greg Stevens.

Hello. >> A dear friend of this ministry of my grandfathers, and you are helping teach at our Kenneth Copeland Bible College. Can you tell everyone about the Bible college real quick? >> Well, it's wonderful, first of all, but I teach primarily Old and New Testament, and I teach about covenants, and you know how your grandfather feels about covenants, but I teach people to learn to begin to identify who they are in Christ. that this book is absolute truth and these are not random stories that there's a thread that goes all the way through Genesis, all the way through Revelation and it's about his love for us and um so it's a great honor to do that and people come and they learn about some of them are called into ministry and some people aren't.

They just want to learn more about the Bible and that's okay too. >> Well, I feel honored and special that you are here today teaching with us. Thank you. Today we're going to be talking about generations. We've been talking about it all week. If you haven't had a chance to watch Monday through Wednesday, go back and watch it back at kcm.org or on our YouTube channel.

I'm so excited. Today, we're going to be diving into something that I think sometimes people want to avoid. >> Okay. >> Especially in our faith group >> camp. >> Yes. >> That I'm so proud to be in. >> I am too. Absolutely. Sometimes throwing the word faith on a piece of tape and sticking it against a wound doesn't work.

Faith without works is dead, right? >> And your actions have to follow your thoughts. And so today we're going to be talking about avoiding toxicity and how to keep our thoughts pure. How to encounter people around us. Maybe it's family. Maybe it's the generation behind us that we're trying to raise up. how we're going to do that by keeping pure thoughts, communicating in a way that's pure and not toxic. >> One of the things that Jesus did throughout scripture, he came here.

Well, first of all, when God made everything, your your grandfather always goes, "Let's go to Genesis 1." When God made everything, he spoke it into existence. Light be and all the other things he spoke on this day, on that day. On day six, he didn't speak. He got up and he made man.

He for he formed and fashioned man and then breathed into him. And then when we broke it everything that he created, Adam did. He broke everything. When we did, he didn't just leave it that way. He got up again off his throne and came and become one of us.

Everything Jesus does in scriptures is fulfilling or reconciling or fixing something that we broke. And if you realize that about Jesus, when he comes into my life, he didn't come into my life so that I would stop doing XYZ and now start doing these things. That's the way religion teaches.

He came and he really transformed my life. The scripture says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed." One of the things we've done is we've tried to conform people into I'll use us. The faith camp, this is how you conform into this. And it wasn't it's not about conformity.

It's about transforming allowing faith to actually come from us and transform us. It's it's our faith u that he gave us. It it wasn't my faith to begin with. Um so we're talking about um generations. Joel 1:3 says, "Tell your children about it and let your children tell their children and their children to the next generation."

So Jesus is restoring things. So, one of the things that I like is found over in John chapter 4. In John chapter 4, Jesus has an encounter with a woman of Samaria. Now, big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal because Samaria and Israel are split. I'm doing a little Bible college history here.

They're split because they had the great divorce. One of David's was David's grandson. Third generation here, blew everything up. And because of it, the northern kingdom split. They become Israel. The southern kingdom, Judah and Benjamin stayed themselves. And Samaria is formed. And so the Jews won't even go through Samaria.

And Jesus purposely walks through Samaria. And he has this encounter with this woman. This is why the good Samaritan and all of these things. He has this encounter with this woman. And it's in John chapter 4. Um, and he's hungry and he's thirsty and uh she he asked her for a drink of water and she goes, "You don't have anything to draw water with."

And then she says, "You're a Jew and I'm a Gentile." Or, "I'm a Samaritan. You're a Jew. I'm a Samaritan." She's actually a Samaritan Jew. Um, we don't have anything to do with each other. So, she played the race card on him right there. She played the religion card on him.

You worship in Jerusalem and we worship on this mountain. But see this toxic relationship between brothers and sisters, Samaritans and Judah had developed to the point that they won't even walk through each other's territory by the the time that happened in David's time and it has gone so long that it's impacting the life of of Jesus.

So he finally says, "You've been married five times and the guy you're living with now is not your husband." Right now, I don't know what you've been taught when you heard that. When preachers would preach that, we'd say, "Well, it's because she was at the well at that time of day.

She's a person of of bad reputation and and the other women wouldn't have anything to do with her and that's why she had." There's no proof of that because if you go back and you study I'm a nerd when it comes to the Bible. I study weird things.

If you go back and you study Isaac and his bride, when that guy found her, she went to the well at the exact same time this lady went. So you're telling me that Isaac's wife is bad? No, you don't. That's man's tradition that became toxic. So when he says this to her, well, she's there at the heat of the day.

We don't know when this happened. It might have happened in February. It might have happened like this month. It might have happened in January. There could have been snow on the ground in Samaria when that happened. So, it's not about the heat of the day. It's not about how many times she's been married.

She lives in a town that's a city, a refuge city where if you committed manslaughter, you could run there. Perhaps one of her husbands did that. Maybe that's how she got there. It says the guy you're living with now is not your husband. Well, how do we know that's not her brother she's living with?

How do we know she's not living with her uncle? But do you see what religious thinking um and prejudice put into that? And all those years we've taught that. See, this is proof that you shouldn't be shacking up. That scripture doesn't say anything about that. Jesus so transformed her and restored her that they walked back to the city and he stayed with her, stayed there for two days.

She ends up evangelizing the entire town over that relationship that she met this guy at the well. The disciples were even shocked that he was talking to him. So the point that I want to make is is don't allow tradition of some preacher over generations to tell you that this woman is bad because that's not what that was saying.

It just Jesus was just giving the facts of of what was happening. And so, um, I think that we've done that a lot in a lot of the things, um, about her reputation and about Jesus reputation and what he's so so about. We can't allow pride and arrogance, um, to get, we can't be that guy.

I'm going to say it this way, we can't be that guy with the picket sign and the bullhorn, you know, out at some rally um, protesting something because I don't see Jesus doing that. I don't see that in our lives, but that's what we get portrayed as as being judgmental.

And so we've we've allowed toxic thoughts and toxic words to get into our mind. And toxic is defined as anything that can cause harm or death. I don't want to say anything from the pulpit that would cause harm to anybody, you know, that's listening to me in church.

And so I've identified that it begins with thoughts. a really good friend of mine. He's dead now, but he was a good friend of mine. His name was Irving Roth. And Irving survived the Holocaust. He was a young boy. He was nine years old when he was taken to Awitz.

And he got off the train and he realized one day that everything changed. He had put this yellow star on his jacket. And he said, "Words became slogans and slogans became a movement." and the movement killed my parents and put me in Ashawitz. And I think that's what we've got to be careful about because toxic words can become a slogan can become a movement.

And that's what I so appreciate about your grandparents and this ministry is they've taught us that our words do matter. A lot of people suffer in their faith because they believed something that wasn't true. There was a lady in my church and she was really skinny but she saw herself as overweight and she she struggled with bulimia and and anorexia and I had never been trained in Bible school or anything on any of that.

I had never been trained on anything with mental illness because that's not of faith when these are real struggles with people and I didn't know how to handle it. And so when I began to realize that my thoughts can be toxic and my words can be toxic which will bring toxic relationships and it's nothing to do with faith.

It's the choices that I'm making based upon I'm thinking incorrectly. And I think that's something that we need to address that that um he addressed that woman's condition. He didn't call her bad at any moment when she played the race card on him, the religion card on him, or anything.

He restored her. And I've got to learn that um not to be offended with my own children, not to be um upset when they say something of shock value. Now, where's the line when I'm dealing with them? when when those things are happening, when I see things in their life that I don't like, I don't like, I've got to get my thought life right and I've got to realize that I train them up in the way they should go and when they're old, they shall not depart from it.

And that becomes my confession. But God didn't give me Courtney, he didn't give you the word. He didn't give me the word to beat somebody up with it. And I think that's one of the things that we've done wrong in some ways. We become religious and almost ferocitical if we if you want want me to say it where we take the word and we try to beat people up with it.

I don't beat beat people up with it. I beat the devil up with it. I can take it into my own life, but if I don't do it correctly, I'll become a toxic believer. And that's one of the worst things I think that very judgmental. Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You clean the outside of the cup and you leave the inside filthy, dirty."

He called them a brood of vipers. He called them graves with dead men's bones. And I don't want him to call me that. I don't want him to look at me like that. I want to represent him correctly. And so, I'm beginning to re-evaluate in my own life how to represent Jesus to people around the world.

I want them to see him and me when I don't know they're even looking at me or that my children to think that about me. Not that dad was judgmental or dad was this res religious zealot. I want them to actually meet him. And the only way they're going to most of the people in the world are ever going to meet him is by watching you and by looking at you.

And I know it's challenging in this culture because we're invaded with toxic thoughts and toxic words and [snorts] toxic ideas. [sighs] How do I translate that to a younger generation when I want them to understand that the words I'm saying to you, they're truth, but maybe I'm not saying it the same way you say it. >> Well, like we talked about yesterday, empathy is important. the ability to empathize and sympathy and empathy are two different things.

And I had Patrick Norris taught me once and he he's going to be on the broadcast too soon, but he taught me and my husband, we were in a therapy session and he said he was like, "Gra, you need to work on your empathy muscle a little bit.

I'm putting my husband on blast here, but he won't mind." And he said, "Gra, you need to work on your empathy muscle." And he said, "I'm super sympathetic." And Patrick was like, "Yeah, there's a difference." And he said, "The difference is when someone's in a ditch, how they got there is irre ir irrelevant.

Kind of like the woman at the well. How she got in that position doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if she fell in or the person that you're seeing in the ditch fell in by accident. It wasn't their fault. Maybe they jumped in head first. They're in a ditch and they're saying, "I need help."

And that could be really hard for them to say. Even to come to you as a child and say, "I need help." could be really difficult to say. Empathy gets in the ditch with them until help comes. It doesn't try to fix it. >> That's the good Samaritan. >> That's the good Samaritan. >> He got off the horse and and took care of the guy. >> Mhm.

Sympathy says, "Oh man, I'm really sorry. Maybe you shouldn't have walked so close to the ditch. Here's a sandwich." And keeps going on their way. And I think that with our children and and the way that we handle these situations, we have to learn how to just sit.

Now, something that's really important that Patrick also talked to us about is having empathy doesn't necessarily condone a behavior. >> And that's something that I want parents to hear, too. We're not just saying, you know, now that your kids are adults, you don't have to have boundaries >> in order to get them to want to talk to you.

We're not saying throw out all the truth that's inside of you just so that you can have a dysfunctional relationship with your child, but hey, they're [clears throat] talking to you. Agree. You know, there's a balance between giving your adult children space to have a conver or anyone, a friend, a co-orker, giving them space to talk to you.

Boundaries are not meant to keep people out. They're meant to keep what's inside protected. >> Beautiful. >> And so setting up boundaries with your children. Like, and I'm I keep referencing children because we're talking about generations, but really this is like adult relationships in general. having the space to have an honest conversation cuz we're not we're telling people right now on the show, stop beating people over the head with the Bible.

But it doesn't mean that you can get beat over the head either and just take it, right? >> We're not asking you to just, >> you know, say I give up. I'm not going to try and and have an honest conversation with you anymore because your feelings are going to get hurt, right? >> There's a balance. >> No, you speak the truth in love. >> Yeah. >> I learned I heard this all growing up as I was a kid.

I don't know if they kept did away with it by the time you were little. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me or harm me. Well, that was a lie. >> Sometimes it's absolute lie. Words can stay with you for a lifetime. >> You know, something that's said by somebody you respected when you were young can stick with you.

Like that woman who was the anorexic. She believed a lie that her own mother or father, I don't remember which one now, told her when she was young. And that's the way she saw her. A wise person will heal with their words. That's what Jesus did. He went around restoring and healing all that were sick and oppressed.

Um when when the sword is thrust, words are spoken to me or over me around me or somebody else, I can always say to the father, "Protect my heart. Protect me from what was just said." Because Satan comes to steal the word. Well, I can I can also discard words.

Every idol word that's spoken by myself or others, I've learned to cast those down. Lord, that was a foolish thing that I said and my spirit just convicted of me. Thank you, Holy Spirit. I cast that word down and I I I call that null and void what I just said over my own life or whatever said over my workplace or or whatever.

That was a stupid thing to say. And you're not the God of stupid, you know. And just be that simple, that repentive, that quick to to your point with empathy. with empathy. I won't allow everything that was said about me to define me anymore. You know, and those are those are dealing that's how you deal with toxic words.

You take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, the scripture says. And so I never knew how to do that. And finally one day, somebody showed me how to do that. So a thought comes um that I always do that, I always screw that up, I always fail at that.

No, I turned that around and I and I say the opposite of that. And I began to confess that over myself over and over and over. I had to get a view of God not as God but as my father. And so even to this day, I call him father.

I rarely say the word God. I'll say my father or when I pray I'll pray about my father or I'll say your heavenly father even to my my kids because I'm renewing my mind. And I'm taking the thought captive that he's not some arbitrary god in the sky.

He's my father and my father loves me and my father cares about me. And I think that's what a lot of people need to do. And when they have these toxic thoughts and these toxic words, they hear them come out of their own mouth is to take the thoughts captive.

Rename it. You know, David did that. David, they he defeats the Philistines. They come and they set their idols and their gods back up in the valley. And he goes to God and he says, "Shall I go after him?" And God said, "No, don't go after him this time.

When you hear the rustling and the the brushes, the then go after him, know that I went before you." And so he renamed the valley to the place and Jerry Sevelto on this wonderful the place of my breakthrough. This is now the place of my breakthrough. This is the place of my fa failure.

It was the place of my failure before, but it's not the place of my failure anymore. This has now become the place of my breakthrough. And we've learned to use our faith to to take those words down. Say who he says you are. Say the results you want over your children.

Say the results you want over your marriage and over your wife. Say the Maybe it starts here, Courtney. Say the words you want over yourself, over yourself. Learn to say it to yourself. I know your grandfather has told me this many times. He has things written on his mirror that he says every day when he gets up and he and he begins.

So if he's still doing that at 89 >> n then maybe this is something we'll do the rest of our lives where we take those thoughts and those words into captivity. It's hard to talk about this and not picture, you know, the example that my grandfather's given so many times where he explains this by having you count in your head to 10.

And Greg, count in your head to 10. Now, stop and say your name. >> Greg. >> You can't continue counting because your mind had to stop to your mouth. And that's exactly what he's doing when he's reading those sticky notes on his mirror. He's not doing it just to check it off a box of things I need to do today.

It's because the devil the devil never stops fighting. He never stops trying to penetrate our mind with those things. And so it's important that we stop the thoughts with our words. It is the only way. He's been my grandfather's been on a kick right now about managing the thought life.

You have to manage your thought life with words. You cannot manage thoughts with thoughts. >> And that is exactly what we're saying. It's like if you struggle with your mental health or you struggle with your identity or you struggle with your relationships with your kids, change your thought life with your words. >> Absolutely.

Because your thoughts um are either going to bring you life or death. I mean, there's no in between ground. Um know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord. They're good for a good end and a good purpose. There God doesn't think bad things about you.

I mean that's what the devil does. He does he comes and condemns us. He comes and condemns oursel uh our our own selves. We condemn our own selves by listening to him. See I never found Courtney anywhere in the Bible where people were scared of the devil. Every time he spoke to Eve and he spoke to others, they weren't afraid of him.

Jesus wasn't afraid of him when he spoke to him u on the mount of temptation. It's he comes to you like a friend like a little he plants a little thought a little idea a little suggestion and then you give it life by speaking it and by keep thinking it and thinking it and thinking it.

Quit believing the lie. That's what I want to encourage people today. Don't believe the lie that that person said about you. Don't believe the lies you've said about yourself. Don't believe the lies that have been spoken over your children. Don't believe what you see with your children. God is not finished with your family yet.

You have to quit believing the lie. Just because they say that the I am this or I am that. You've got to learn that I am I am. In other words, he's who he says he is. I am that I am is who he told Moses and I'm in him.

And that means I will be whatever I will be. That's what it literally means in the Hebrew. And so to put a whole bow on this thing, uh the moment a positive thought hits your mind, say it, don't delay it. you know, as you teach on that, the importance of that, you know, we're talking about generations this week.

So much of it really does start in the home. >> Parents, dads, dads, let me just talk to you for a second. The way that you talk to your daughters will form the man that she looks after when she grows up to find her partner. Think about that for a second.

Moms, the way that you talk to your sons, you are forming the way that they will grow up and look for a wife. So, please just do it with the guide of the Holy Spirit. In this book, building relationships that last, which is our product for this week, my grandmother says, "If you fail to teach your children what God's word says is moral or immoral, the world will do it for you."

And so as we talk about these thoughts, toxic thoughts, if you don't flood your children with positive thoughts, positive words of affirmation, the world's going to do it for you. And this book, the 10day spiritual action plan for building relationships that last. I want to recommend that if you're struggling in this generational conversation that we're having, you're hearing this and it feels hard, I want to recommend that you order this book.

We have two versions of it now. One that's completely digital, one that's physical CDs. I know that people still love CDs and DVDs. Go to kcm.org to order this product. >> Courtney, the moment a positive thought hits my mind, say it. Don't delay it. Speak it. Get yourself used to saying positive things about yourself and your children. >> God's truth should be the basis for our worldview.

He is our source and he is the source of all truth. When you're facing a hard situation and need answers, turn to God and line up your faith with his word. If you need prayer, Kenneth Copeland Ministries has a prayer line that you can call. We have licensed prayer ministers on staff who are trained in the word of God.

When you call, they will pray the word in faith with you. I want to say thank you to our partners for helping make our prayer lines available in all of our offices around the world. This is one of the ways we get the word of God out to meet the needs of the people.

Thank you for joining us today and we'll be back tomorrow. This is Courtney Copeland and Greg Stevens reminding you God loves you. We love you. And Jesus is Lord. >> Building relationships that last. A spiritual ((music playing)) action plan from Kenneth Copeland Ministries will help you align your heart and mind with what God says about your relationships.

From marriage and family to friendships, ((music playing)) church, and the workplace. Learn how to walk in love, release forgiveness, ((music playing)) and guard your heart from strife. God designed relationships to be lifegiving. God is love. And when his ((music playing)) word is your foundation, restored and strong relationships are possible. Use the book and additional teaching resources to draw closer to God, ((music playing)) the source of every healthy relationship through scripture, practical application, ((music playing)) and focused teaching that keeps you anchored in the word.

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