F4F | Debunking Ken Copeland's Abuse of Mark 11:24

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Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseborough. I am your servant in Jesus Christ.

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This is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God. So have you heard

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Kenneth Copeland and the word faith heretics, because that's what they are. Take this central verse out of context and apart from other passages that explain what's really going on here.

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The verse in question, it's the Gospel of Mark chapter 11 verse 24. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you've received it and it will be yours.

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Whatever you ask, believe that you've received it. So you sit there and you go, oh well this is a blank check.

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I can write whatever I want. God's gonna pay for it. So I want a Mercedes -Benz.

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I want a private jet. I want a bazillion dollar mansion on the beach in Newport Beach.

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And I want a trophy wife and all this kind of stuff. And I believe that I've received it.

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I already have it. In fact, you know, I'm gonna check my email now for the tracking number to see if it's come in. Yeah, you're gonna...

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that's not what this text is saying. And by the way, how do I know? Well, real simple.

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Because we apply the three rules for sound biblical exegesis here at Fighting for the Faith. They are context, context, and context.

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But that's not the only rule. There is another rule, and that is that Scripture interprets

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Scripture and unclear passages are governed by clear. And when you see how this works, you'll never think that you can just name it and claim it, blab it and grab it, and then all you gotta do is believe that you've received it and there, there you go.

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You're a bazillionaire. No, that's not what what Christ means here.

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So let's, shall we, let's a whirl up the desktop and we're gonna head over to Ken Copeland Ministries, COVID -19, right?

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And why anyone takes this guy seriously, I have no idea. But yeah, well, maybe it's because he scratches itching ears and he plays into human greed like you wouldn't believe.

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He is the epitome of human greed. But all that being said, we're gonna listen to just a little bit of a message called

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Victory First, Exceedingly Great Prayer Promises from Kenneth Copeland from his 11am

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Central Standard Time sermon from January 2nd, 2022. And why am

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I doing that? So, and as we listen to this, you're gonna see how this verse gets abused.

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And this is one of the central texts of the Word of Faith heresy. That's what

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I was meaning to say. And we're gonna unpack this for you. We're gonna apply that other rule. Scripture interprets

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Scripture to see what's going on here. I mean, is Christ really giving us a blank check? Nope.

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And so he's gonna start with a little story, if you would, a story about his late mentor,

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Kenneth Hagen, who, oh man, what a train wreck that guy was, theologically.

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I mean, heretic extraordinaire. He's gone to his eternal reward and don't expect that he has a good one.

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But all that being said, let's listen to Ken Copeland as he regales us with a story and then goes right into, well,

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Mark 11 and see what he does with it. And then we will apply that second rule. Scripture interprets

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Scripture to find out what this is really teaching us. So let's do this. By the way, I've sped it up just a little bit and I've put the closed captioning on.

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These are auto -generated by Google. And so put those on to kind of help us out a little bit.

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I don't know what the captioning normally is, but here we go. Brother Hagen always said, when you hear that I've gone, you know, I was satisfied. Without sickness and disease.

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Now he was born, for those of you that don't know, he was born prematurely. They induced labor because of his mother.

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And, and he, he, the doctors told him he had to die. He asked the doctors one thing.

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He said, why is my blood orange? So he had a fatal blood disease. And he asked the doctor, he said, doctor, why is it when

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I drink something hot or cold, it feels like it goes way over here like this. And he said, son, let me put it to you like this.

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We would have to give you a new heart, which we can't do. We would have to give you new lungs, which we can't do.

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And we would have to, he said, you are so underdeveloped. Your whole chest cavity is out of place and nobody has ever survived past 16 years old.

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Nobody has ever. I mean, it's classic, you know, word of faith, telling of tall tales kind of stuff here.

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Can I get a doctor, you know, could I see the actual, you know, uh, medical file on Kenneth Hagin to confirm this story?

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And he said, and sure enough, he said, I was bed fast at 16 years old, but he found the precious word in Mark 11, 22, 23, 24, and 25.

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There it is. But he found the precious word. Mark 11, 22, 23, 24, 25.

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He found this and, oh, it saved his life. And he just stayed with it. And he just stayed with it and wouldn't let it go.

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Wouldn't let it go. And finally, finally one morning the Lord spoke to him in his spirit and he said, so you believe you're well now?

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He said, yes, I do. He said, well, men ought to be up this time of day. So God talked directly to Kenneth Hagin?

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I don't think so. Yeah, it must've been a different entity altogether than the one true

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God. His legs were completely paralyzed. But in that, let's turn there.

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Mark 11, there is a precious prayer. Don't lose your place there in John. We're coming back to that. In fact, when you get over to John, it turned to the 16th chapter.

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Mark 11, here is a precious, precious prayer promise.

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Jesus answering saith unto them, have faith in God. Now here's why it's precious faith. My cross reference says, have the faith of God.

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I don't think it reads Greek. So this is God's faith. For verily I say, God doesn't have faith.

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Saying to you that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he says shall come to pass.

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He shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you. Now Jesus just used his own principle right then.

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Whosoever shall say, therefore I say, I say, Jesus said this. Copeland don't believe anything he said.

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Well, that don't make a difference. But you need to believe this. The question is, what does it mean?

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What did Jesus mean when he said those words? And so the immediate, your heart sits there and goes, well, ask for anything.

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Private jets, mansions, Bentley's, Rolls Royces, Rolexes, and you know, trophy wives and things like this.

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No, that's not what it means. So let me, let me show you. All right. So let's pull this up.

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Here's how you work this out. Now scripture interprets scripture is the second principle and you need passages that deal with the same topic or use language that's similar so that you know you're in the ballpark.

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So if we go back to the original passage, all right, as they pass by in the morning, they saw the fig tree that had been withered away to its roots.

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So you're going to note here, something happened to a fig tree. Christ cursed it and it withered away.

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And then as it were passing by the next morning, all right, Peter remembered and said to him,

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Rabbi, look, the fig tree that you have cursed, it's withered. And Jesus answered, have faith in God, have faith in God.

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Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.

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Pointing by the way to the temple mount in Jerusalem. So therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.

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And when you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone so that your father also who is in heaven may forgive your trespasses.

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Who's he talking to? A disciple of Jesus. A disciple of Jesus, by the way, is a penitent believer in Jesus Christ.

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Somebody who recognizes his own sinful condition and recognizes his need for a

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Savior and also understands by faith that Christ is the solution. Christ has bled and died for their sins and God calls all

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Christians then by the power of the Holy Spirit to mortify their sinful flesh and their passions which war against our souls.

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Look that up in the Bible, you'll see what I'm saying here. And then walk by the Spirit in the obedience of faith.

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That's what we're called to do. So that being said here, right off the bat, if you think that what

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Jesus meant by what he said is that you can ask for a

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Bentley, a private jet or whatever, just believe that you've received it and it will be yours, you don't know your

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Bible, all right? Now the question then, okay, so this is a vague text. So in the hierarchy then of exegesis, you look for all the passages that are dealing with the same topic.

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The clearest passages govern and they govern the unclear. So the unclear texts are to be governed in their understanding and what they mean by the clearest text, not the other way around.

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So we're gonna look for some other passages here on the same topic. We'll look in John 14.

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Here's what Jesus says and watch, thematically it's the same, it's the same topic. John 14, 13 and 14, whatever you ask, and watch the qualifier, in my name, this

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I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything, and here it is again, in my name,

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I will do it. Now, if you've been taught or you believe that in my name means all you have to do is pray for something and then tack at the very end of the sentence, the prayer, we just throw this at the end of it, in the name of Jesus, that whammo, blammo, you can get asked for anything.

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No, and to ask according to the name of Christ is to ask according to his authority, to ask according to his will.

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Uh -huh. You'll see this in the other clear passage. So if you ask me anything in my name,

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I will do it. In my name. Okay. Let me give you another passage. All right. And this is from the

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Gospel of John chapter 15. All right. Let's see here. Jesus says, I am the true vine, and my

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Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away.

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Every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes so that it may bear more fruit. Every branch that doesn't produce fruit, what is this?

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This is the good works we're called to as Christians, right? So already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you.

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Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

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I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

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If anyone does not abide in me, he's thrown away like a branch and withers, and the branches are gathered and thrown into the fire and burned.

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You see, if you're a Christian and you do not bear fruit in keeping with repentance by abiding in the words of Christ, you'll know.

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Do you become fruitless? Yeah. Off to hell. You're not really a Christian. And then he says this, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, that means you're a disciple of Jesus.

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And Jesus preaches about a lot of things, but central message, salvation in him alone, the call to repent of our sinful and wicked deeds, to mortify our sinful flesh and its passions by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. These are the words of Scripture, right? Then if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask what...

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hang on a second here, I didn't mean to click that... ask, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

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But if you abide in the words of Christ, mm -hmm, and you really are taking to heart the message of Scripture, calling us to repent of our sinful wickedness, are you gonna ask

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Jesus for something in order to please your sinful flesh? No.

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You'll note then the power of the Holy Spirit takes our wills and produces in us different desires, so that the things that we desire now as Christians are the things that the

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Holy Spirit wishes us to desire. We seek peace, we seek reconciliation, we seek love and joy with others, we don't seek to lie about people, we don't seek to to gratify our sinful flesh at all.

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And so you'll note that whatever you wish is assuming that something's different happened to you as a result of the fact that you abide in the words of Christ, you abide in him and he in you.

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Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

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So you're wishing to bear more fruit as a Christian, you're wishing to exemplify the love of Christ in how you treat others.

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You ask whatever you wish, you see, because here your wishes and your desires are conformed to the will of God.

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Now if you're not sure about this, let me give you, let me give you this, all right? James 4.

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James, the half -brother of Jesus, here's what he writes. So what causes quarrels, what causes fights among you?

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Is it not this, your passions are at war within you? You desire and you do not have, so you murder.

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You covet, you cannot obtain, so you fight and you quarrel. Is this what

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Christ wills for you to do? Are we instructed in scripture to quarrel with others and murder them because our sinful passions are not met?

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No, that's contrary to the will of Christ, right? Do you not have, you do not have because you do not ask.

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You ask, and watch this, you ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

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Oh, wait a second, I thought Jesus says, ask whatever you wish in my name and it'll be granted to you.

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That's if you're abiding in Christ, and here's the thing, if you're truly abiding in his word, you're not going to ask Christ for things in order to, um, to please your sinful passions, right?

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That's, that's not what a Christian does. It's not what a Christian should do. And when you do it, you're wrong, all right?

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You ask and you do not receive because you ask wrongly in order to spend it on your passions.

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You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

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And there it is. James put his finger on it. When somebody is asking God for, you know, for things to satisfy their sinful passions, they are idolaters and that's the problem.

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And so, you know, we have a clear text that says you ask and you don't receive because you ask in order to spend it on your sinful passions.

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That's not to ask according to the name of Christ, but here's the next text.

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And I think this is super helpful. John, the apostle John, who wrote the gospel of John, he says to us

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Christians, he says, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the son of God. Is that you?

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All right. That you may know that you have eternal life and we have it in Christ. And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

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So, what is Jesus getting at in Mark 11 24? Well, it's a

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Christian who abides in him, who asks for things according to the will of Christ, according to the name of Christ and by his authority.

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So, the idea here is, is that when you run into a text like this, that is unclear and is

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God giving us a blank check to ask for mansions and Lamborghinis and private jets? No, he's not.

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James 4 makes this clear. You ask and you don't receive because you ask wrongly to serve your sinful passions.

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Christ doesn't hear that prayer. And then when you tally it up, I would note that John 5 verse 14 is the clearest of these texts.

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If you ask anything according to Christ's will, he hears us.

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If you ask anything according to his will, or as Jesus says, if you abide in me, whatever you ask and ask whatever you wish.

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And that is that the idea then is that your wishes and your desires are now conformed to the actual will of Christ by the transforming and the renewing of your mind.

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That's what Jesus is getting at here in Mark 11 24. And Ken Copeland and the whole

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Word, Faith, Heresy by saying that, oh, you can just, this is a blank check, whatever. Just believe that you receive. Thank you,

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Lord, that I have my Mercedes Benz. I'm waiting for the tracking number to show up for the order in my email address.

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Yeah, that's not what Christ is saying. You get the idea. Hopefully you found this helpful. A little shorter video today.

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If so, all the information on how you can share the video is down below. And until next time, may God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and his vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.