Long before Kenneth and Gloria Copeland began speaking the phrase “One Word From God Can Change Your Life Forever” into the lives of the thousands they minister to each day, Kenneth had seen his own life completely revolutionized by “one word” he heard in a teaching by Kenneth E. Hagin titled, “You Can Have What You Say.”
In his quest for faith, Kenneth knew he needed to know more of what Brother Hagin preached, but he didn’t have the money to pay for it.
“What I needed next was every tape by Brother Hagin that I could get my hands on,” Kenneth recalled, looking back on that time in the late 1960s. “I drove my old car over to Brother Hagin’s headquarters. His son-in-law, Buddy Harrison, was his general manager. I’d never met him, but I introduced myself and told him I’d been called to preach.”
“I need Brother Hagin’s tapes,” Kenneth told Harrison. “Here is the title to my car. I’ll send you every offering I get until I pay for them.”
Recognizing the hunger of this young preacher for the Word of God, Harrison did something unexpected. He refused to accept Kenneth’s car as collateral, but graciously gave him copies of all Brother Hagin’s teaching tapes.
Soon after, Kenneth locked himself away for a solid week to study his new found treasure–determined to hear from God.
“I knew my heart needed to be filled to overflowing with the Word,” he remembers. “I took my Bible and my tape player to the garage and made myself available to God. I stayed out there for seven days. The first day, I listened to tapes for 13 hours. The second day, I was out there for close to 15 hours. From then on I averaged 18 hours a day.”
What followed was the beginning of a transformation in Kenneth’s life–a transformation that would be the catalyst for change in his and Gloria’s lives, and the lives of hundreds of thousands of souls for the kingdom. Only eternity will reveal the abundance of that harvest, which began with a single gift, and “one word from God.”
