Ways The Devil Deceives Us-FULL SERMON | Joyce Meyer

does the devil ever tell you you're no good well why do you believe that that's just a lie from the pit of Hell God says you're valuable you're precious he loves you he's got a good plan for your life he created you uniquely in your mother's womb you ever hear the devil say oh you're all alone nobody cares about you well that's not true because God says I will never leave you I will never forsake you but lo I am with with you always even unto the ends of the [Music] Earth how many of you

know the devil's Alive and Well on the planet and you know it's not that I just enjoy talking about the devil but to be honest every once in a while we need to because for some reason as much as we know we kind of forget that he's behind a lot of the stuff that's going on in the world and in our lives I have to tell you that I went to church for a lot of years and I I never heard a message about Satan I never heard a message about the devil I don't even

know that he was even talked about that much I mean I to me I guess the devil was just a Halloween character where kid put on a red suit and carried a pitchfork and had a long tail and some pointed ears I you know I had no idea that a lot of my my problems and the issues that I was dealing with were from an enemy an evil enemy that hated God and hated anybody who was trying to serve God and even when I did discover that Satan was a real entity which I found through

reading a book actually it's an old book still in print called Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth and I was like wow it was like an eye opener for me but even then I had no idea that I had any authority over him or that I could do anything about it and so we need to realize that once we recognize what the enemy is doing we don't have to just put up with it come on I don't know what to do well I'm going to tell you today that's why you're here okay but

you know I wrote a book 25 years ago called the Battlefield of the Mind and it's still it's still our number one number one book we call that book the Energizer Bunny it just keeps selling keep selling keep selling keep selling keep selling and it's because we all want peace of mind and we know that our mind gives us a lot of trouble no matter how much we learn about this every day I still have to take authority over wrong thoughts I still have to cast down wrong ones and choose Right Ones Does anybody else

still have to do that every day of your life okay well that's being vigilant when you do that that's one of the ways that you resist the enemy you don't just whatever you know you think the way you know that God wants you to think speak the way you believe God wants you to speak and it actually changes things in your life so Satan is a liar that's the first thing we got to realize a liar the father of Lies the truth is not in him he cannot do anything but lie so it's interesting to

me I remember a woman coming one time for prayer and she said I am so upset Joyce I really need your prayer the devil's been lying to me and then she told me what her problem was and I just I didn't say this to her but I thought later okay the lady said she knew it was the devil she knew he was lying to her and yet she was upset about it so we obviously don't really believe that he's a liar or we wouldn't believe anything that he says does the devil ever tell you you're

no good well why do you believe that that's just a lie from the pit of Hell God says you're valuable you're precious he loves you he's got a good plan for your life he created you uniquely in your mother's womb you ever hear the devil say oh you're all alone nobody cares about you well that's not true because God says I will never leave you I will never forsake you but lo I Am With You Always even unto the ends of the Earth I can tell you the things that I'm sharing with you today about

thoughts and words and coming against these lies of Satan it's one of the main things that has helped bring healing into my life because if you're mistreated as a child you learn how to think about everything the wrong way everything we You Know The Enemy starts early building strongholds in our minds a stronghold is a place where the enemy digs in and hides where he's protected and nobody can get to him but the word of God the word of Truth is stronger than any lie that Satan tells us amen 2 Corinthians 10 four and five

the weapons of our Warfare everybody say I'm in a war are not physical weapons of flesh and blood but they are Mighty before God for the overthrow and the destruction of strongholds so we have weapons but they're not guns and knives and bombs and things like that the weapons that we have are spiritual weapons and I want to tell you today that your mouth full of the word of God is a spiritual weapon weapon Satan hates what's going on in this building today he despises that you're here he despises that I'm here he hates that

all the people got saved last night he'll do anything he can to try to get you not to pay attention or cause you to forget everything you hear the minute you leave the building but I'll tell you what we are in a war that if we read the end of the book we find out we've already won I'm so glad I've already got the end of the story so all we really have to do is walk it out here the weapons of our Warfare are not carnal they're praise and worship they're the word of God

they're prayer the name of Jesus you have weapons against the enemy in as much as we refute arguments does the devil ever argue with you theories reasonings and every proud and lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God and we lead I love it some of our thoughts captive and we lead a few of our thoughts once in a while captive nope every thought boy sounds like a big job to me cuz I have millions of thoughts every day and we lead every thought captive Under The Obedience of Jesus Christ now

I don't know where you're at with all this right now or people watching by TV I don't you know maybe you've never even heard anything like this before but uh not to be offensive but some of you not all of you but some of your mind is just a mess I mean it's just it's just a mess the enemy's controlled your thoughts for so long that you just believe all kinds of wrong stuff and so the only way you're ever going to know what truth is is to learn the word of God learn the word

of God watch this program every day on TV I'll teach you some stuff I've been through some stuff get yourself a Bible get some good Christian books start learning what your rights are as a believer in Jesus Christ and stop just letting the enemy walk all over you control your moods control this is going to be good for us today because we need this every once in a while every once in a while we just need to get a good shaking and say listen you are a child of God you have rights you have privileges

the devil has some power but he does not have more power than you do and then Ephesians 6:12 one more we are not wrestling with flesh and blood your war is not with your husband it's not with your wife it's not with your kids it's not with your mom or your dad we are not wrestling with flesh and blood contending only with physical opponents but against the despotisms against the powers against the master spirit IR who are the world rulers of this present Darkness against the spirit forces of wickedness and the Heavenly Supernatural Spirit now

I don't want to stand up here and sound spooky if you've never had any teaching on this kind of stuff you may go but you know what there's demons all over the place amen we don't see them but thank God there's angels all over the place too and I'm going to share some scriptures with you a little bit later about the power of angels that are working in our behalf all the time and I think we need to learn to see a little bit better into the spirit realm and I don't necessarily mean with your

natural eyes but we need to learn to really believe with our heart that no matter what's going on angels are working in our behalf God is helping us and what we have is greater than what the enemy has see I'm the kind of person I got excited when I first started hearing this kind of stuff 40 years ago because I'm not the kind of person that wants to have a problem and have to sit around and think that I can't do anything about it I want to I'm a fixer I want to fix stuff how

many of you like to fix stuff I don't think anything frustrates me anymore than when somebody brings me a problem and tells me there's no answer I absolutely cannot stand that you know why because there is an answer to everything and there is a way way to fix everything if we're just not lazy and refuse to look for it so one of the first lies that the devil will try to tell you is that he doesn't exist the next thing is is even if you do believe he exist there's really nothing you can do about

it so I just want to read you maybe three scriptures here Luke 10:19 behold I have given you Authority everybody say I I have authority I have authority he didn't say I will give you Authority he said I have given you Authority and today I want you to believe that that you have authority and you have the power of God working in your [Applause] behalf and you know I think a lot of what I'm talking about today just comes down to I I want all of us to have just a more inner determined attitude it's

not so much about going around screaming at demons and you know all it's just like I am not going to be defeated I am not going to quit I am not going to give up I know who my enemy is and if anybody can have God's blessings I can have God's blessings I I I'll tell you the truth if you won't fight for yourself there's not too many other people that are going to do it for you and I don't mean there's not people that love us you know all kinds of people love us but

we've all got our own deal that we're dealing with and we have to learn to fight for ourselves and to believe the word of God for ourselves you cannot be defeated you cannot be defeated if you will take hold the word of God and refuse to give up I don't know if you heard what I said but I want to repeat it again God is no respector of persons if God can bless anybody he can bless you come on if God bless anybody God can bless you don't sit around and think that all this stuff

is working for somebody but it's never going to work for you if you do and I do with the help of God what God tells us to do we have to have a breakthrough there's no doubt about it behold I have given you Authority and power I want you to pay attention here Authority and power to trample upon serpents and scorpions and I've given you physical and mental strength and ability over all the power that the enemy possesses so this scripture says we have authority and power I don't want you to miss this we have

been given Authority and power but Satan it says of him that he has power it doesn't say he has any Authority we have authority and now listen to the only Authority that the devil has is what we give him and most of that we give him through passivity through lack of knowledge through laziness through Disobedience and we just need to wake up and realize that Jesus Paid a amazing price for us to have a good life and every one of you need to stomp your little holy foot today and say I am going to have

what Jesus died to give [Applause] me James 4:7 I'll just read you this be subject to God resist the devil and he will flee then Jesus called together Luke 91 Jesus called together the TW Apostles and gave them power and authority over all demons and the ability to cure diseases Luke 10:17 the 70 returned with Joy saying Lord even the demons are subject to us in your name everybody say I have authority I have authority and I have power all right now one of the things that the enemy does all the time is he works

to steal your peace because where there's peace there's power there are probably 25 things every day that each one of us could get upset about unless we learn to take responsibility and hold on to our peace in Exodus when Pharaoh was coming against the Israelites his army was in back of them the Red Sea was in front of them and they started getting frantic God said stand still hold your peace and I will fight for you hold your peace remain at rest and I will fight for you Philippians 4:6 be anxious for nothing but in

all things by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God and the peace that passes understanding Colossians 3:15 says let the peace of God be the Umpire in our life deciding with finality whether things are right or wrong in or out and I just want to say this today because it was on my heart this morning when I was getting ready for this service if you're in here today and you're about to do something in your life that you don't have peace about please don't do it please don't do it

if you don't have peace about it don't do it don't marry somebody you don't have peace about thinking they'll change after you marry them come on that is just like super dumb on steroids if you're having questions now you just wait and see how many questions you have after you amen Psalm 91: 1 and 2 he who dwells in the secret place of the most high shall remain stable and fixed under the shadow of the almighty wow hang out with God and you're going to get some stability I will say of the Lord what are

you saying I will say of the Lord he is my refuge and my Fortress my God on him I lean and rely and in him I put my trust okay now now watch watch these promises for then he will deliver You From The Snare of the Fowler and from the deadly pestilence then he will cover you with his pinions and under his wings you shall trust and find Refuge his truth and faithfulness are a shield and a buckler to you you shall not be afraid of the terror of the night nor of the arrow of

the evil plots and the Slanders of the wicked that fly by day nor of the pestilence that stalks in darkness nor of the destruction and the sudden death that surprise and lay waste at noon day a thousand may fall at your side and 10,000 at your right hand but it shall not come near [Applause] you only a spectator shall you be yourself inaccessible in the secret place of the most high as you witness the reward of the wicked because you made the Lord your refuge and the most high your Dwelling Place there shall no evil

befall you nor any plague or Calamity come near your tent here it is for he will give his angels a special charge over you to accompany and defend and preserve you in all of your ways of obedience and [Applause] service now you know I'm sure the enemy's already put a few questions in your mind well you know stuff happens to me where are my angels okay I had a friend that was in a boat one day she actually was meditating on Psalm 91 and the boat hit a hard wave and she fell and hit her

head on the side of the boat and got a pretty good little bump so right away she well God I don't understand why that happened to me I was just I was meditating on Psalm 91 and you know what he said back to her you're not dead are you come on you know we let the devil confuse us about the few things that happened to us that we don't like but what about all the things that God has saved you from that you don't even know about come on there's more with you than With the

Enemy and I think it's just good for us to hear this once in a while but it's it's also good for you to kind of talk to yourself about it from time to time to refresh yourself and remind yourself that you do have God's power and you do have his angels with you don't let the devil just walk all over you the spiritual realm is very very very real even though we're not really cognizant of it most of the time it's there and God is always fighting in your behalf as long as you're believing God

is working do you hear me as long as you are believing God is working now Satan knows the danger of Pride and so a lot of the thoughts that he tries to put in our head are Pride based thoughts when a person thinks they know everything you can't teach them anything we have to be very careful that we don't always think in every situation that we're right and we won't listen to anybody else I said something last week at the place where I was preaching and as far as I know this is scripturally accurate or

I wouldn't have said it I don't think you can find a place in the Bible where Jesus ever tried to prove that he was right about anything he was accused of stuff all the time and he just basically said well whatever you think whatever you think and you know why he did that because he knew who he was if we know who we are and we know who we belong to we don't have to try to prove to other people that we're right about stuff well if we have no humility and somebody accuses us of

something then right away we go into defense mode because we don't want them to think badly of us can I tell you something being right is highly overrated it really doesn't do all that much for you in the long run and I know one thing I spent a lot of years of my life not knowing that because I sure start a lot of arguments trying to prove that I was right and I'm just telling you all that is is the fruit of Pride p r i d e pride pride also causes us to be very

judgmental toward other people doesn't it we're right if they would do everything we do then they'd be better Satan wants us to focus on things that Annoy Us about the people we live and work with these daily annoyances keep us from focusing on what God would like us to see about ourselves I'm going to rewind and say that again the enemy seeks to have us focus on the things that Annoy Us about the people we're in relationship with how many of you have somebody in your life that you love but they do stuff that just

annoys The Living Daylights out of you well we're going to have a couple Dave stories now I love love love my husband we've been married 50 years and I want to tell you ahead of time Dave you are not going to do that I guess he will so anyway let can I have my prop here's something that Dave does that drives me absolutely Bonkers now wait when he eats cereal I am like you have got to stink and be kidding I mean the cereal is not attached to the bottom of the bowl I don't make

noise when I eat cereal it's a peaceful thing the other day he's down there with two dishes to bang together the other day and I'm not exaggerating he was in the kitchen I was all the way back in our bedroom which is a little bit of distance and I could hear the man banging the bowl oh it annoys me here's another thing that he does no you're going to mess up my message you know what how many of you do things that you you know that might uh irritate your wives but it gives you pleasure

the more noiser the more I do it the sad thing is is that's true he thinks it's funny all right here's another thing that he does which I still don't get this he'll put he puts lotion on his hands and then he sits on the side of the bed and goes one night I was almost asleep and I look over and he's sitting there and I'm like what are you doing he said I'm drying the lotion on my hands I said well you put them on for moisture not so you dry them up one more

thing I'm I'm just trying to let you know you're not alone in your battles one more thing is the man talks through every every movie and TV show he'll say put it on put it pause it pause it and so I'll pause it and he says now you know what's going to happen here I'm like no and you don't either we haven't seen it yet come on give God praise that we can walk in love anyway Romans 15 one we who are strong in our convictions and of robust Faith ought to bear with the failings

and the frailties and the tender Scruples of the weak we ought to help carry their doubts and qualms of others and not live to please ourselves in other words there's more about me that's annoying than there even is about him it's just that we don't we don't see what we do because we're so busy seeing what everybody else does what Satan has won a battle if the believer sees nothing wrong with himself and a great deal wrong with everybody else is there anybody here that has a tendency to be a bit judgmental H oh now

come on don't go lying well I wouldn't wear my hair like that well oh boy shall I go on or just pick on that a little while Matthew 7 1-7 we might as well dive in here who cares if I get through many points do not judge and criticize and condemn others so that you may not be judg and criticized and condemned yourselves well I tell you what you know you know one of the best pieces of advice that I could give you today and I'm still learning myself mind your own [Applause] business I mean

we can save ourselves so much turmoil and upset just by simply minding our own business well I wouldn't do that and I have to say to myself you know what Jo you're not in charge of it I don't need to have an opinion where I don't have any responsibility for just as you judge and criticize and condemn others you will be judged and criticized and condemned and in accordance with the measure you deal out to others it will be dealt out to you again I was at Joel oin recently and I did a message on

Mercy we need to be more merciful to other people so we get more Mercy back verse three why do you stare from without at the very small particle that's in your brother eye but you do not become aware of and consider the beam of timber that's in your own eye get the beam of Timber out of your own eye then you'll see clearly to take the tiny Speck out of your brother's eye now let's talk for a minute about prayer Satan seeks to prevent us from praying he wants us to forget it not have time

for it Focus so much on how we sound that we can't even really pay any attention to what we're saying have you ever caught yourself especially if you're trying to pray in front of people you're not even talking to God at all you're just trying to sound eloquent I have to really be careful when I'm up here I mean I I really try it's like I want to I want to be here and talk to God not stand up here and try to impress all of you with what I'm saying because prayer is powerful but

it must be sincere in order to be powerful the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available dynamic in its working your prayers and my prayers are a danger to the devil come on when you if you know who you are in Christ and you say I resist you Satan in Jes Jesus name Heaven hears that and God goes to work in your behalf Matthew 7:7 keep on asking it will be given you keep on seeking and you will find keep on knocking reverently and the door will be opened unto you just

keep it up and keep it up and keep it up and keep it up and keep it up you know my father abused me sexually when I was growing up and I prayed for him on and off I mean not constantly but I prayed for his salvation 40 years at least and you know different times I think he he ain't never going to change you know don't let the devil fill your mind with those kinds of thoughts about other people they're never going to change do you ever think that about people you ain't never going

to change well you changed and I changed and all it takes is one moment with God at the right time is don't give up on people maybe if you can't even really be around them because of they mistreat you or something but you still don't have to give up on them and so I just continued to say I mean I remember where I was at one day in my car and I said Lord you're using me to lead people to you all over the planet please don't let my own father die and go to hell

please save him and you know what it wasn't that much longer after that and I got to pray with him and I B baptized him and he didn't receive Christ till he was 80 he wasted his life but he's in [Applause] heaven now I love this one Satan seeks at all times to push us into extremes if he can't get us not to do something he will try to get us to do too much of it all right for example some of you don't save any money and that's not good some of you won't spend

any money and that's not good we need balance in everything first Peter 5'8 be well balanced for your adversary the Devil roams about like a lion seeking whom he may devour look look at that be well balanced tempered sober of Mind Vigilant cautious at all times for that enemy of yours the Devil roams around like a lion roaring in Fierce hunger seeking someone to seize upon and devour how many of you would say today it's not going to be me not going to be me but you got to be vigilant now let me just give

you a little Caution here at least I find this for me one of the times when I'm likely to maybe give in to the attacks of the enemy is if I let myself get too tired you got to be careful how you take care of yourself cuz I can tell you your physical body does affect you spiritually when I feel really bad I don't want to pray I Don't Care much about walking in love um you know I mean I do it because I know it's what God wants me to do but I'm just saying

that I've learned for me that I've got to get right r and I have to take decent care of myself if I really want to be strong in the Lord Satan wants us to either be unaware of him or excessively focused on him so he wants us to either be too focused on him or he wants us to be unaware of him and I find for me in my walk with God there's a lot of things I know but we can't keep all of them in the Forefront of our mind all the time so sometimes

there's things that we kind of begin to forget and then the holy spirit will have to come around and kind of refresh my memory and that's what happens to me when it comes to dealing with the Enemy I don't go around thinking about the devil all the time I don't go around thinking about demons all the time I don't go around talking to the devil all the time but there are times when God just has to remind me now you need to tighten the ship up a little bit here and realize that that's the enemy

lying to you and don't put up with his non how many of you needed a little tightening up in this area he wants us to either be unspiritual or excessively spiritual he wants us to have no discipline or be completely legalistic we need to be aware of extremes he wants us to talk too much or not talk enough you say can anybody not talk enough I think so I've tried to spend a half a day with somebody that won't say anything and I'm worn out by the end of the day cuz I feel like I

got to keep the whole thing going he wants us to either have no plan at all or he wants us to have our lives so planned up that there's no room for any kind of creativity let me ask you a question is there any area in your life that you can think of right now where you would say you know I'm a bit extreme in that area I'll call you guys all right you want me to mess in your business how many of you eat too much sugar there we go how many of you work

too hard and don't get enough rest how many of you don't take time for yourself how many of you don't get enough sleep who we got a messy crowd here today can we put the scripture back up first Peter 58 be well balanced yeah this is my opinion you know I think for me I can eat something sweet occasionally but I can't do it every day you can't you can't anything that you that you have to do all the time every day is going to become a problem for you be temperate be sober of mind

be vigilant and cautious at all times that enemy of yours the Devil roams around like a lion roaring in Fierce hunger seeking someone to seize upon and devour let's look at verse n withstand him uhoh you just got a job withstand him be firm in faith against his onset the minute the enemy moves against you learn to recognize him and immediately move back against him thank you I tell people don't wait until you been depressed for 6 weeks and it's going to take a truckload full of Christians to come along and scrape you up prop

you up again the minute you start to feel just say no the joy of the Lord is my strength I'm not going to waste this day feeling sad and having a bad negative attitude resist the devil at his onset be rooted established strong immovable and determined knowing that everybody is going through something we're not the only one that goes through things another thing that the enemy tries to do these are ways that he deceives us he tries to keep us totally focused on ourselves Jesus said if anybody wants to follow me he has to forget

himself lose sight of himself and all of his own interest and take up his cross and follow me now that sounds like a pretty boring life doesn't it it's like forget myself forget my own interest lose sight of myself well who's going to take care of me well uh let's see God will well we're talking today about the devil lovely subject but he is a real problem in our lives but he doesn't have to be if we know know how to recognize his work and if we know that we have power and authority over him

the Bible says in Ephesians that all authority in Heaven and Earth have been given unto Jesus and we are we belong to him he's given us his name he's actually given us so to speak a power of attorney I took care of my mom and my dad and my aunt and as they got older and older and couldn't take care of themselves they all gave me a power of attorney over their life which meant I could act in their behalf I could actually use their name and get things done and when our heavenly father gave

us the name of Jesus he basically did the same thing now we can't go around doing things and getting things that aren't the will of God but when we use the name of Jesus it's we don't don't just pray and Tack that name onto the end like some little magic charm there's power in the name of Jesus and I believe that let me say again the Bible the Bible says that every knee must bow there was given unto him a name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee must bow

in heaven on Earth and under the Earth and so when we speak the name of Jesus it has a very good effect on the enemy and stops him in his tracks and sometimes if you don't have time to say anything else you can just say Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus and I'm telling you there's power released in that name so we have weapons and we also have armor with weapons we attack with armor we protect ourselves and God has given us these things our weapons are not weapons of Flesh and Blood they're spiritual weapons the word

of God is a weapon the name of Jesus is a weapon praise and worship is a weapon against the enemy prayer is a weapon when we pray we release God to work in our behalf and in our circumstances but I'm just talking about some of the different ways that Satan deceives us and he really really does it all by putting thoughts into our mind you have to realize that every thought you have is not a god thought and every thought you have didn't even initially start out to be your thought it only becomes yours if

you take it and begin to meditate on it you can make it yours if you want to but everything that you think is not initially your thought you know I remember when I used to wake up in the morning many years ago and not every morning but a lot of mornings I would wake up and just think I'm depressed now how did I know I was depressed I wasn't even up yet but the enemy I believe he especially likes to get control of our thoughts early in the morning so I want to encourage you to

be very careful what you lay in bed and think before you ever really get fully awake and get up I always try to start my day with thinking some good things even before I get out of bed happy thoughts make a happy life happy thoughts make a happy life happy thoughts make a happy life now you know I can wake up in the morning and think oh my gosh I got to get up I don't want to go get on that treadmill but you know none of that's going to do me any good because I

already know I'm going to go do it and really there's no point in dreading anything that you know you're going to go ahead and go do anyway so you can change those thoughts you can turn those thoughts around and you can think I'm glad I can get up and do this I'm glad I can walk I'm glad I can talk I'm glad I can see I'm glad I can hear here I've got a good life I love my life I love God I love myself and and I'm not depressed but I feel well see the

thing is and I mean feelings are real and you know if somebody's got some chemical thing going in their body you know you may need a little help besides just trying to talk yourself out of it but there's a lot of our bad moods that we can talk ourselves into and we can talk ourselves out of them you can sit around and feel sorry for yourself but you don't have to you can talk to yourself out of it all right so we're talking about different ways that the enemy tries to deceive us and the different

kinds of thoughts that he puts in our minds and so one of the biggest problems that I had and I think aggressive people are like this if God wasn't doing anything about my situation I was very happy to take over and try to do it myself it's called fleshly Independence and God does not want us to be independent or separate from him he wants us to be totally dependent on him like a branch and a Vine John 15 I'm the vine you're the branch whoever abides in me will bear much fruit so if we want

our lives to be fruitful and we want them to be good then we need to learn to depend on Jesus for everything so what happens then when there's things that you want to happen are things that are happening that you don't want to happen or there's somebody in your life that you don't like some of the stuff they do and you want them to change or you want some of your circumstances to change and maybe you've prayed about it sometimes to be honest we don't even start with prayer we try everything we can think of

first and then when none of that works we will finally pray but the thing you have to understand is apart from me you can do nothing Jesus said so obviously we can do things but they're not things that are ever going to work long term are bring any real lasting joy into our lives and so we try I would go to church and I would hear messages you know things I'd never heard before like maybe maybe somebody said something about the words of your mouth like I just shared with you well I didn't bother to

pray about it I didn't bother to ask God to help me I just go home and try to change Dave maybe would say something you know something I needed to change in my life or whatever and I would just first I'd get mad and then I'd try to change and as God called me into Ministry and I felt like I was supposed to do some pretty major things I tried to make my Ministry grow I was trying everything imaginable trying to change myself trying to change Dave trying to change my kids trying to make my

Ministry grow and you know what nothing was working and the more it didn't work the more frustrated I became so I just want to share a few things with you today now I'm not saying that you can't control any of your behavior because you certainly can God's given us a fruit of self-control but by and large ultimately you cannot permanently change yourself you have to trust God to change you you have to trust God to work in your life and help you be the person he wants you to be and it happens little by little

I don't even like the word little don't care about it at all but in the earth there is a law I like to call it the law of gradual growth which means everything that's alive is growing so if you're alive you are growing but the interesting thing is is you can't see that growth the tree in my backyard is growing all the time but I could stand there and stare at it all day and I would never see it grow however I could go away for maybe five years and come back I'm wow that that's

really grown well see when I first entered into a real serious relationship with God I had so many problems and I mean I was in church every time the door was open it was back in the what they call the word and Faith movement and I mean it was nothing to go to a 7 10 day camp meeting three services a day but the more you study the word now listen to me the more on one hand you become encouraged about what God can do in your life but also the more you study the word

the more you see what's wrong with you and that part's like maybe not so much fun but it is important you know why because we cannot even cooperate with God to do anything about something that we're totally blind to and don't even realize is happening you might remember I shared this morning that one of the things the enemy tries to get us to do is focus on what's wrong with other people because as long as we focus on what's wrong with everybody else we really our hearts are not open for God to show us have

you ever have you ever gone to church and I don't know maybe even here today you've thought man I wish my husband would have come boy I wish my son was here to hear this you know we always think about all the other people that need to hear what the preacher's saying but the point is you're here and so I guess you need to hear what's being said learn to appreciate God's chastisement and when you see something in the word and you can say honestly you know I really need to come up higher in that

area that's a good thing don't ever let that discourage you or make you feel bad about yourself let me tell you something God's chastisement is a sign of his love and I'm so great ful that he loves us too much to leave us alone in the mess that we're in he never tells us shows us anything that needs to change in our life if he's not ready to help us change it did you hear me but you can't go home and do it on your own and it is going to take time little by little

and I'm telling you after five years of being in what I thought was a pretty serious relationship with God I can remember thinking I not changed at all anybody ever felt like that I mean I have just not changed at all but you know what I can look back now and my gosh I'm like a totally completely different person than the way I was 41 years ago when I began to study the word of God and as I said earlier if you don't like waiting then hanging out with God is going to be frustrating to

you because he doesn't really do anything in a huge hurry he takes his time because he's got eternity to work it all out so and then of course I tried to change Dave all the time and I was trying to change my kids and trying to make my Ministry grow and trying trying trying and I don't want this to sound wrong I'll bring balance to it but God's not asking us to try he's asking us to believe he's asking us to go to him first and say God no matter how hard I try I cannot

do this without you but if you'll give me grace and grace is the power of the Holy Spirit to help us overcome our evil Tendencies now it's also God's undeserved favor we we hear that definition all the time it's God forgiving us and being merciful to us and doing things for us that we could never earn or deserve and there's no real reason for him to do it but it's even more than that and I really wish that more people would bring out the other part of the definition of grace that it's power it's the

power of the Holy Spirit coming into our lives to enable us to do with ease what we can never do on our own without God's help I I'll say it again I know that was a mouthful Grace is the power of the Holy Spirit coming into our lives to help us do with ease what we could never do on our own with any amount of struggle and effort so we need God's grace for every single thing that we do and certainly we need God's grace to change us to change the people in our life that

need to be changed and we need to trust God with the timing and the process now there's a scripture that I'm going to share with you Galatians 3 1-3 that really was the first scripture that I saw that started opening my eyes to the this truth that I'm sharing with you right now oh you poor and silly and Thoughtless and unreflecting and senseless Galatians Paul didn't me any words you think I'm tough and I mean Jesus was even worse he called people a bunch of whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones who has fascinated or

Bewitched or cast a spell over you unto whom right before your very eyes Jesus Christ the Messiah was openly and graphically set forth and portrayed as crucified he said okay now you know the message you know that Jesus died in your place so let me ask you a question did you receive the Holy Spirit as the result of obeying the law and doing its works or was it by hearing the message of the gospel and believing it the 500 people who gave their life to the Lord last night they didn't do anything to earn that

they came in Sinners the only thing that my message maybe helped them do was to realize what a mess they were in and how there was no way that they could help themselves and so when the time came to receive Jesus I'm sure that they were like I I can't do this I can't help myself I need you you're the only one that can fix my life and so we need to learn and you're going to see a scripture here in a minute that says this we need to learn that the same way that we

received Christ is the same way we have to live depending on him for everything so let me go back verse two let me ask you a question did you receive the Holy Spirit as a result of obeying the law and doing its works or was it by hearing the message of the gospel and believing it was it from observing a law of rituals are from a message of Faith are you so foolish and so senseless and so silly having begun your new life spiritually with the Holy Spirit are you now reaching perfection by dependence upon

the flesh so what is this telling us I can't depend on my own flesh to perfect my own self I have to lean on God and I'm sure that there's some of you here today that you've been just pretty frustrated with yourself anybody here you just been pretty you just like you know I'm not where I need to be you know my prayers are not right well first of all you probably doing a little better than what you think you are one thing's for sure the devil's never going to wake you up in the morning

and tell you how far you've come but he will certainly remind you of how far you have to go and everything that you don't deserve and what God's not going to do for you because you've been such a bad person that's why we have to have our minds renewed by the word of God let me tell you something if you are going to go around mad at yourself all the time you are not going to enjoy your life because you are one person you are are never going to get away from you everywhere you go

you're there so you have to learn how to embrace yourself How To Love Yourself how to believe that God is working in you everybody say God is working in Me God is working in me say it again God and I'm changing I'm changing now say this I'm not where I need to be I'm not where I need to be but than God I'm not where I used to be God I'm not where I used to be I'm on my way I'm on my way a complete [Applause] victory in Ephesians 28 and9 which is the scriptures

that we use to share with people about the Plan of Salvation no matter how many times I read these I still like reading them again because it's so amazing what Jesus has done for it is by free Grace God's unmar favor that you're saved nobody can earn salvation we can't deserve it we can't earn it Jesus bought bought it and paid for it we're delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ's salvation through your faith everything that God wants us to have comes to us one way and one way only and that's through faith it's

by grace through faith God's goodness provided it and the only way that I can have it is if I receive it by faith and Faith believes what it cannot see yet let's go into another thing that I believe Satan tries to tempt us with when we find ourselves in the presence of worldly compromising people Satan will tempt us to be quiet about our commitment to God perhaps out of the fear of embarrassment or rejection but the longer it goes on the more dangerous it becomes to us you know why Romans 1:16 says for I am

not ashamed of the gospel of Christ we cannot be ashamed of being Christians now I don't think it's our job to go out in the world and try to cram Jesus down everybody's throat but neither do I think that we need to be quiet about him and you know something that I found that works really well for me is I just try to be who I am wherever I go now I use common sense I use wisdom you know I don't say some things to some unbelievers that I might say to one of you but

God is such just such a part of my life that I just talk about him my everyday conversation oh yeah God really helped me with that or I prayed about that or you know whatever and I recall one situation where a lady that I mean she was somebody that helped me in a business situation she wasn't a Believer and and I remember one time her saying to me you know you you talk about God like you know him well see I think I think we can in a polite right way we can actually make people

curious you know because he is a major part of my life and another thing that I found that really helps is just like if somebody that's not a Believer tells you about a problem they're having don't just say oh that's too bad you maybe you can't preach to them right then but you know you can say you know I'm going to pray for you I've never had anybody yet say oh no don't you pray for me don't you do that now there's a balance and like I said you don't want to go around just trying

to be super over religious and making everybody dread seeing you come got to pray for God to open the right doors and you know I gave a good example I said there's a lot of different kinds of fish in the sea and you can't catch them all with the same kind of bait so sometimes you got to know what kind of bait to use on what kind of unbeliever sometimes you got to wait a long time I remember one woman that I was around her for 20 years in a business situation before I ever got

a chance to pray the Prayer of Salvation with her but a lot of Christians don't want to go fishing they want to go catching if they don't get somebody in the hook right away then they're going to throw in the towel and give up sometimes you got to be willing to just be a Christian around somebody for a long period of time and maybe you can't say anything at all until they say to you what's different about you how can you have so much peace with all this stuff that's going on at work trust me

if you get out in the world and you just be a believer don't compromise your faith just to be part of a group that doesn't care anything about you anyway Satan has scored a victory when he is successful in presenting compromising Christians to the world because then we hear the word hypocrite you're nothing but a hypocrite and the world hates that there's nothing more exciting to Demons than to see a Christian continue outward disciplines of the Christian faith like going to church taking communion putting a few dollars in the offering plate saying certain prayers while

his heart keeps moving further and further and further away from God you can go sit in a garage all day and that don't make you a car and you can sit in church four times a week and that doesn't make you a Christian a Christian is not about wearing a cross around your neck and having a bumper sticker on your car and having a big Bible and knowing how to say a few Christian phrases it's what is your heart toward God and if you really have a right relationship with God it's going to ooze out

of [Applause] you Matthew 158 these people draw near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me we don't want to be like that don't just go to church on Sunday and not think about God the rest of the week let him be the center of your life and the most important person to you you you know what a Christian is who does all the outward stuff but has no real heart toward God they're a phony and the last thing I want to be is phony you know

I don't stand up here and teach you guys things that I don't apply to my own life I was talking to somebody day we got here at lunch and I forget how the subject came up but I said I spend the first hour or two hours of the morning not getting a message to to preach to you but keeping myself straight with God I go to him for me I read the word for me and I study for me because we're not really fit to lead other people to Christ if we're just a phony that

has learned how to say all the right words but we don't have the fruit in our life and so one of the best examples that I found in the Bible is in Matthew 21:1 18-22 in the early on the next morning as he he being Jesus was coming back to the city he was hungry you know can I tell you that the world is hungry for something genuine and something real I mean people are looking and if they know you're a Christian they are looking at you people are watching you that's why we really can't

be phony we've got to be the real deal and he saw one single leaf fig tree above the road and he went to it but he found nothing on it but leaves seeing that in the Fig Tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves and he said never again shall fruit grow on you and the Fig Tree withered up at once and died now may sound silly but I used to feel sorry for this fig tree I thought well I mean I didn't get it I didn't understand why Jesus cursed the Fig

Tree just because it didn't have what he wanted he was hungry he saw leaves on the Fig Tree but a fig tree when it has leaves is always supposed to have fruit under those leaves so when he went to this fig tree to get something to eat all he found was leaves and I think that's what happens a lot of times with Believers we've got leaves but no [Applause] fruit you know even Adam and Eve tried to cover up their mess with leaves and it didn't work for them either and it's not going to work

for us we've got to have real genuine fruit another thing the devil tempts people to do is to do nothing fruitful with their time just waste all your time in vain Pursuits he tempts people to stay up late staring at a television show they don't like or worrying about things they can't do anything about so then they miss out on the sleep they need to be healthy then they're tired and they feel bad physically so they're more easily leted into temptation then they overeat because they don't feel good so that makes them mad because now

they're gaining weight now they get easily offended come on things have roots in our life we can't just look at our life and say how did I get in this mess you start asking God to show you the root of your problems come on the root of your problems I've got an example that I give that I know that refrigerators are not like this now but when I was a young mom and my kids were little sometimes I would open the refrigerator and there would be a a bad smell in there anybody ever had that

like e what is that and so you know move a few things around maybe throw a few things away but sometimes the stink would stay and the only way I could really find out what it was was to just take everything apart and really get down to the bottom where the drain was at and see what was going on and a lot of times it was because something had drained there used to be a drain down the bottom any of you people remember when there was a you had to do wasn't it messy you'd get

down there with all that Gunk and boy you talk about stinking but sure enough you clean that up and it was good well what I usually started out doing was I would spray something in the refrigerator or put some baking soda in there and I tell you we we've got to stop just spraying something on our lives and think it's going to take care of all the stin we need to get down to the bottom of what's going on you might be surprised how much better your life would be if you just go to bed

at night and get some sleep well I'm tired what does that give you a right to be grouchy all day with everybody else because you're tired you know what the answer to that is go to bed [Applause] you know there's a lot of sickness in the world today and a lot of sickness and disease and one thing we should make sure of if we are sick let's at least ask ourselves have I contributed to this because I'm just not taking care of myself I don't think you cared for that much is it because I'm not

sleeping I never exercise I live on sugar I drink a six-pack of soda pop every day that's full of sugar I never drink water I've got way too much stress in my life I'm worried all the time if you can't do anything about it then by all means believe God for a miracle but if there is something you can do you may not like this but I can tell you something if we keep abusing ourselves God is not going to just keep us happy and healthy we need to start cooperating with God when I get

up in the morning and I know I got to go exercise again I mean I heard my flesh say a couple of weeks ago in the gym you know your flesh will talk to you I was I was down in the gym and I just gotten off the treadmill and I was starting to work out with my trainer and I heard my flesh say am I going to have to do this the rest of my life so I answered it back yes you are see you don't have to let your flesh push you around you

can talk back to it because the enemy Works through our [Applause] flesh now here is a great scripture I don't know if you guys are ready for this but wow this is a wild scripture Proverbs 189 he who is loose and slack in his work that means you're lazy not you somebody who's not here he who is loose and slack in his work is a is a brother to him who is a destroyer and he who does not use his Endeavors to heal himself is a brother to to him who commits suicide have you ever

seen that in the Amplified Bible Pastor Tommy so you know what they're saying if you don't do what you need to do to take care of yourself then you're basically killing your own self we need to learn how to respect the temple of God he lives in US and I'm not saying you have to be a full-on health nut or something like that but if you'll just start with just some simple basic things if I stood here and took a servy and said how many you don't drink enough water hands would go up how many

you don't get enough sleep hands would go up how many you eat too much sugar hands would go up how many of you feel bad most of the time hands would go up well it's connected and here again I'm not saying that everybody who's sick is not taking care of themselves that is not what I said there's a lot of different reasons for it but I am just saying that we God has got a work to do through you and he wants you to feel good he wants you to have energy he wants you to

have enthusiasm he wants you to be zealous for life he wants you to love your life God doesn't want us to just get up every day and drag ourselves around trying to make it through the day Satan seeks to keep people passive it doesn't matter what we intend to do that's good as long as we never get around to doing it good intentions are not obedience I'm going to clean the house I'm going to get out of debt I'm going to pray yep I'm going to get back to church when CS Lewis said this and

I thought this was good the more a Christian feels with without acting the less he will be able ever to act and in the long run the less he will be able to feel now it's a mouthful so I explain it to you if I if I feel like that I should or want to go do something but then I don't take any action to do it every time I don't take action then the next time it gets harder to take action and finally I'll get to the point where I don't even feel like I

want to do it passivity is probably and I don't have a lot of time to get into this but passivity is probably one of the most dangerous demonic forces that exist you know why because God has given us a free will and a passive person waits for some outside force to move him to do what's right when you need to find the strength within you which is the power of the Holy Spirit to go do what you believe God wants you to do God I believe that I can do whatever you want me to do

[Applause] a person may feel like they want to finish a project that's been left undone but they don't take any action well pretty soon if they keep that up they won't even care about the project at all well the devil really likes to confuse people about what humility is because if you're truly humble it's dangerous to the devil and a lot of people think that a humble person is one who's just like wimpy and weak and never will take up for themselves and you know they're just like these sweet little weak people and they have

I'm no good I'm nothing oh yeah a lot of Christians feel like that I mean you I mean I can go into some circles and say get up and say I just want to tell you that I love myself amen everybody to Stone me and throw me out of the building I never forget I was actually in Philadelphia and a newspaper wrote an article and said Meer says she likes herself well I wonder if they would have liked me better if I would have said I hate myself well I used to hate myself but I

don't hate myself anymore because God loves me and I've received his love come on stop having a self depreciating attitude about yourself I'm nothing I don't have any gifts I don't have any talents I'm not very smart I'm not I'm not I'm not no what you say is I have the mind of Christ and I can do whatever I need to do through Christ and he loves me and I'm a child of God and I have gifts and talents and abilities I can do things that nobody else on Earth can do and I'm going to

find out what they are and get busy doing them [Applause] there's two things that I found that I can do now there's a lot of stuff I can't do a lot of stuff I can't do well you'd be amazed if you knew all the stuff I can't do like I am just not good with directions I mean honestly I can get lost in a bathroom I if somebody wasn't guiding me around all the time there's no tellings where I would end up but I tell you two things I can do I can talk and I

can [Applause] write now come on help me today instead of constantly thinking about what you can't do find what you can do and start doing it with all of your heart you are a precious person and Satan does not want you to like yourself he does not want you to love yourself he doesn't want you to like who you are how you look he wants you to compare yourself with all these other people that you think have it all together can I tell you something they don't have it together any more than you do they

might just be better at hiding their stuff we've all got weaknesses and we've all got strengths now obviously some people might be further along spiritually they've had more time to put into it or they've been more obedient to God but the good news is is you can catch up don't let other people be a threat to you let them be an example to You Tommy Barnett is an example to me of being a lover of people he is so friendly and so sweet and so kind and man if I get around Joel ostein he is

an epitome of a smile and I mean I have not smiled as much in my whole life as that man Smiles in one day and his whole family is that way they all cry and they're all sweet and they're just such love I mean I am challenged when I get around those people come on Joyce let's smile a little more then I come and get around Tommy let's love people a little more but you don't have to feel bad listen to me you do not have to feel bad about yourself because you're around somebody that

can do something you can't do [Applause] okay I'm going to say something that's important not like I haven't already said something things important true humility is knowing that you're nothing without God but you're everything with him you are amazing absolutely phenomenal amazing every single one of you and the only thing that's holding you back is you don't know it but you're not amazing on your own without Christ you are nothing less than zero but through Christ you can do whatever God wants you to do and then you give him all the credit and all the

glory [Applause] the devil works really hard to confuse people about what love is don't let the devil tell you that you're not in love anymore just because you don't feel gooey when somebody comes around you love goes Way Beyond what that is Way Beyond amen love is not talk it's not a theory but it's action love is seen more in what we do for people even sacrificially than it is in any other thing have you been looking for a 365-day devotional well look no further than the promises for your everyday life devotional from Joyce Meyer

that's a focus verse for all 365 days of the year along with a prayer starter get your copy of promises for your everyday life devotional at me.org 365 devvo the biggest thing that we need to do is learn how to think like God thinks and the only way you can do that is by knowing the word of God in words to live by Joyce Meyer shares how studying the word of God transformed her life experience a deeper and more meaningful relationship with God through the captivating collection of verses in this beautiful hard cover book by

Joyce Meyer discover the transformative power of his word words to live by from Joyce Meer get your YouTube exclusive offer today go to Joyce me.org sords and the number two have you ever been trapped in a NeverEnding frenzy where every passing moment feels like a blur leaving you gasping for a chance to pause and catch your breath in her insightful book pursuing peace Joyce Myer explores the importance of seeking peace at all costs this beautiful hard cover Edition IS F filled with meaningful scriptures and uplifting quotes from Joyce providing valuable guidance for living a peaceful

lifestyle so grab a cup of coffee find a comfortable spot and embark on your journey to find peace remember this limited time YouTube offer won't last long go to Joyce me.org pursuit to get your copy today and start your Pursuit Of Peace [Music] the Mind actually is the battlefield that's where we win or lose the war with Satan he said all he gets to say the last of the day mind you start asking God to heal you and he will restore he the God of all comfort and I am so grateful that I know how

to call on God [Music]