Joyce Meyer - Living in Agreement with God - Part 1

Well, thank you, for joining me today on, "Enjoying Everyday Life," where I will teach you the Word of God, prayerfully, in a way that is going to really help you enjoy your life more. Today, the title of what I wanna teach is called, "Agree with God". We all wanna walk with God. I'm sure you've heard that phrase "Walking with God" or sometimes we'll say to people, "How's your walk with God going"? And in Amos 3:3, the Bible says, "How can two walk together unless they have agreed"?

So, we need to be in agreement with God. But it's interesting to me sometimes, I think we more easily and quickly agree with the devil, the things that he puts on our head, than we do the Word of God, which is God's promises to us. So, we're gonna talk about a handful of different things today and tomorrow, just to make sure that you are agreeing with God and you're believing what he says about you in some very important areas. First of all, your past. Are you in agreement with God about your past? Until you have a right attitude toward your past, you have no future. I want you to get that. Until you have a right attitude about your past, you have no future.

You say, "Well, Joyce, what should my attitude be"? Well, let's just say that you've made mistakes in the past and you're still feeling condemned about them. You've asked God to forgive you. You believe he has, but you're still carrying around this load of guilt. Well, what you should believe is, "Okay, I made mistakes, and I'm sorry that I did, but I'm gonna learn from those mistakes". You know, I believe that we learn more from our mistakes than probably anything else. But you can't learn from them as long as you are carrying around a bag of guilt about them. So, many of you watching today, you need to make your mind up that the past is called the past because it's past. And there's nothing that you can do to go back and undo what you did.

Now, if you hurt someone and you can make amends, then that's a good thing to do. Certainly, you need to repent of any sin. If you've hurt someone or said some things to them that have hurt them, you can, certainly, and should go back and apologize to them. But really, what else can you do with the past, but let it go? And that's what God does. So, I wanna make sure that you are understanding what I'm saying and that you're still not dragging around, thinking all the time, about all the things, or even one thing, that you've done wrong in your past. Your past does not have to do any harm to your future unless you let it. Let me say that again. Your past, no matter how bad you've been in the past, if you're truly repentant, you've asked God to forgive you, and you're ready to turn around and you want to walk with God, then you have to come into agreement with God.

So, let's see what God says about your past. Isaiah 43:18 and 19: "Forget the former things: do not dwell on the past". Now, I'm gonna go a little slow because I want you to get this. In other words, you don't have to sit around and think about the past. Now, you know, you know my story. If you've listened to me teach much, my father sexually abused me growing up. Well, you know, that's been 50 years ago, now. And I've forgiven him. He's no longer with us. Thankfully, he received Christ and he's in heaven. My soul has been healed from all those things. But every once in a while, I'll realize that I'm sitting around thinking about some of the things that he did to me. And it's just the devil dropping thoughts in my head, trying to upset me.

Once in a while, I'll even have a nightmare about some of the things that my dad did to me. And I'll wake up and start to feel bad or guilty. And right away I'm like, "No, no, I'm not going there". What happened to me then, is finished. It's over. It doesn't have to affect me now. It doesn't have to affect my future. But I can't dwell on it. And you can't dwell on things that have happened to you in the past. Let's just say that you're in a marriage relationship. And the person you're married to did something wrong and they really hurt you. But you've decided that you wanna make the marriage work, so you're gonna stay with them, and you've forgiven them.

Well, have you really let go of it? Or are you keeping it around just in case, every once, in a while, you wanna get it out and think about it for a while. You have to completely let things go because the devil loves it when you keep dwelling on things that are in the past. Because, like I said before, there's nothing you can do about the past that's gonna be fruitful, except learn from it. I have learned so much from the mistakes that I have made in my life. "Forget the former things: do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing". And boy, some of you I want you to get that today. That's your word from God, today. He says, "I am doing a new thing".

You say, "Well, I don't see anything. I don't feel anything". Well, God's not asking you to see something or to feel something. He's asking you to believe what his word says. And I believe that God is preparing new things for me. I don't know what they are, but it keeps me motivated to believe that things in my life are always getting just a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. "I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up: do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland". Okay, maybe, right now, you have got a big mess in your life. I mean, like super big mess, financial mess, marital mess, mess with your kids, mess on your job. Your life's a mess. And you would definitely say, "Joyce, I am in the wilderness". Okay, well, God is saying to you today, "I will make a way in the wilderness".

Receive that. God is able to make a way in your wilderness and open up a road for you to walk out of that mess and into something brand-new. Isaiah 42:9: "See, the former things have taken place, and new things I now declare", now, I love this, you gotta listen, "Before they spring into being I announce them to you". Wow. So, before you see them, before they happen, God writes the promises in his word, or he puts a word in your heart, and he wants us to believe what we cannot see before we see it. That's called faith. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that we do not see". Now, in Romans 4:17, it says that we serve a God that "Calls those things that do not exist as if they already existed".

Now, that seems very strange for us. We always wanna talk about what we see and what we feel, because those are the things that seem to be reality to us. But there's another reality. There's a spiritual reality that's actually stronger than this natural reality. We live in two worlds. We live with our feet planted on this earth, but we also are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. I believe with all my heart that there are angels in this room today, watching over what I'm doing, helping me, protecting me. I don't see them, but I believe they're here.

You say, "Well, Joyce, why would you believe that"? Because God's word says it. And until you make your mind up to believe what God's word says, no matter how you feel or what you think, you're never going to enjoy everyday life. Now, you can be born-again, you can receive Christ as your Savior and you can go to heaven when you die, but you can still have a whole miserable life that you live. And that's not what God has for you. That's the pathway I was on when God began to open my eyes to the fact that he "Came that we might have and enjoy life and have it in abundance to the full until it overflows". But I'll tell you what, we're in a fight. We're in a war. "The devil roams about like a lion roaring in fierce hunger seeking whom he may devour," but it doesn't have to be you. But it could be you if you don't stand up to him. You have to stand up to him and tell him, "No, this is what the word says".

Now, the reason why I said, I think, sometimes, we more easily believe what the devil says than what God says, is let's just say that a thought comes into your mind: "You know, you're just stupid". Well, unless a person knows the word and they're living by the word, the next thing that will happen is out of their mouth will come, "I am just stupid". So, the devil is just having a party now because he has told you a lie, and you have not only believed it, but you have spoken it out into the atmosphere, giving him material to make it happen. But if you know the Bible and you know the way God wants you to live and you hear that thought, "You're stupid," out of your mouth can come, "I have the mind of Christ".

You have the mind of Christ according to 1 Corinthians 2:16. So, you need to begin to recognize the lies of the devil, and don't just swallow them. I wonder, I just wonder how many lies you're believing right now. Or maybe how many do I still believe? I've been a serious student of the word for 45 years, but there probably are still lies that Satan has told me that have not been uncovered yet in my life. That's why it's so important for us to not just read the Bible out of obligation, but to believe what it says. Isaiah 43:25, oh, I got so excited when I saw this, this morning because I've been teaching people for a good number of years now.

I wrote a book called, "Do Yourself a Favor and Forgive". And it was very helpful to me and I hope to the people that I teach, when I taught them that when you forgive somebody for even the most awful thing they did to you, like, me forgiving my mom and dad for the abuse, well, it seems unfair because you think, "Well, they don't deserve that". But they may not deserve forgiveness, but you deserve peace. So, you're doing yourself a favor when you forgive. Do you know that everything the Bible tells us to do or not to do is for our benefit? I read that yesterday. I think it was in Deuteronomy. He says, "All these commandments that I command you, are for your good". So, even when we see things in the word that are hard for us to do, God is only asking us to do them because he wants to set us free from something. And so, I've been teaching that: do yourself a favor and forgive.

Isaiah 43:25: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more". Now, I probably read that scripture, maybe, a couple hundred times in my life. I don't know why, but for some reason I never saw that part that he does it for his own sake. That's what's so wonderful about the word, it's just full of gold. And you can think you know what a scripture says, and yet, you can find something that's just like a diamond. And I got so excited, I even called up a friend and said, "You gotta listen to this". Well, God forgives us for his sake. What, what, what? He doesn't want that in him. He doesn't want that burden. He forgives us because he wants to, because he's good. And that's the way that he is. He doesn't forgive us because we deserve it. And so, that fits so well with what I've been teaching people about. You forgive people for your own sake.

Do you know that some of you are in prison, right now, today? And you've been living in prison for years because of something that someone did to you, and you've got that bitterness and resentment and anger and offense in your heart, and it is Messing up your spiritual life. It's stealing your joy and it's stealing your peace. But you can let go of that, right now, because what they did is in the past, and you can't go back and undo what they did, but you can completely release the burden by forgiving them. Do it for your own sake. I love that. God forgives us for his sake. Man, that is good. You know, we have been cleansed and perfected according to the Word of God.

Now, I want you to get ready because you're about to feel better about yourself. Hebrews 10:12-14 says, "But when this priest, speaking of Jesus, had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins". One sacrifice for all times. And you see, that is important, because under the old covenant, under the law, they had to sin and make a sacrifice, sin and make a sacrifice, sin and make a sacrifice. So, they never got finished making sacrifices. And even the high priest on the day of atonement, when he would go into the holy of holies and take the sins of the people, he still had to go back next year and do it all over again.

So, they never completely got rid of the guilt or the feeling of sin. I look at it like sweeping the dirt under the rug. You know, and when you were a kid, did your mom ever ask you to sweep the floor and you, instead of getting the dustpan and putting the dirt in the dustpan and taking it to the trash, did you ever just kinda like pick up the edge of the rug and sweep it under there? Well, I've done that. But you know what? If you sweep things under the rug long enough, pretty soon you're gonna have a big lump that you're gonna stumble over and fall. And God doesn't want us just brushing things under the rug. He wants us to know that they are completely gone. And so, now, we have a better covenant, a new covenant.

When Jesus was on the cross, he said, "It is finished," and he meant that old system is finished. So, now, we have a new high priest who understands our weaknesses and our infirmities because he's been tempted at every point, just like we have, yet he never sinned. Therefore, the Bible says, "We can come boldly to the throne of grace and receive all the help that we need in plenty of time to meet our need". That's Hebrews 4:15 and 16. So, he says here, "But our high priest, made one sacrifice that's good for all time, and then he sat down at the right hand of God". Well, you don't sit down till your work's finished. And, you know, under the old covenant, the high priest, when they went into the holy of holies, they actually had bells sewn on the bottom of their garment, and there was a rope tied around their ankle.

And as long as they were working, they had to keep moving and working. Those bells would tinkle and the people outside knew that everything was okay. But if the bells got quiet, they knew that the priest had done something wrong and they couldn't go in to get him, so they actually drug him out by the rope. Well, thank God there's no more bells ringing because Jesus did a perfect job, and then he went and sat down. There was no chair in the holy of holies in the Old Testament. But Jesus, after he completed what his father sent him to do, he ascended on high and sat down. And that's so important that he sat down, he entered rest. And then, the Bible says in Ephesians that "We are seated with him in heavenly places".

So, wow. We can enter the rest of God. Oh, my. It's just like finding yourself a nice, comfortable chair and just, having a nice seat and resting. But you know, in Hebrews 4, when it talks about entering the rest of God, the rest that God offers us, it's really not even this kind of rest. Actually, if you study the word, to enter that sabbath, rest of God, it's not a rest from work, it's a rest while you work. In other words, I'm working right now, but I'm also doing it from the vantage point of rest because I trust God to make what I say right. I trust him to give me favor with you. I trust God to not help me make mistakes. I trust him, I have the right word for the people that are watching today. And you know, when we can start doing everything we do, trusting God, then we don't have to live in fear. And that fear torments.

Now, the Bible says that Jesus came to open the prison doors and set the captives free. So, the prison doors are open, but maybe you're still sitting in the prison cell. Some people have gotten so used to being in "A prison" of their misery that they don't even know how to come out and live any other kind of life. "And since that time he waits for his enemies to be made a footstool for his feet". So, God, the father told Jesus, "Come and sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet". Wow. You know, when you do the part that God has asked you to do, then you don't have to just keep doing, doing, doing, doing, trying, trying, trying, trying. And tomorrow, we're gonna get into some great stuff about being made right with God through the blood of Christ. And you'll see that you don't have to keep trying to get things that God has already given you, that you need to exercise your faith to receive. "For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy".

Now, I love this whole thing and I hope you can understand it. It's like, we have been made perfect, and we've already been made holy. It's in our spirit, but it's being worked out in our life through the help of the Holy Spirit, day by day, by day. God sees me as perfect, but I'm not perfected in my performance. And that's okay. Because as long as I love God and I keep just growing a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, whatever still needs to be done in me when the trumpet blows and Jesus comes back to get us, he's gonna finish it. "We shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye," the Bible says.

Just imagine what a glorious day that's gonna be. You know, you really don't have to struggle with all your weaknesses and hate yourself because you've got faults. There's a big difference in weakness and wickedness. And, you know, we have weaknesses, but we're not wicked. I'm not wicked, but I make mistakes. And I don't believe that you're wicked. If you're watching this program today, I don't believe that you're a wicked person. If you were, you would have turned this off already because I would really be getting on your nerves. And I want you to understand, today, that God has made a way for you to not have to live in the past, and be tormented by it.

Romans 8:1 says, "There is, therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus". Because of what Jesus did, once you repent of a sin, you no longer have to feel guilty. And if you do feel guilty, what you're doing is you're trying to pay for your sin by feeling bad and you're trying to pay for something that Jesus has already paid for. And one time, I heard in my heart, "Joyce, that's already paid for. I don't need your help". So, we need to believe that Jesus did a perfect and a complete job. Hebrews 10:17 and 18: "Then he adds", here it comes again, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more". So, when you keep going to God and talking to him about things that you've done wrong in the past that you've already repented for, it's like you're talking to him about stuff he doesn't remember. That's what the Bible says, "He remembers them no more".

Isn't that wonderful? He not only forgives our sins, but he doesn't sit around and think about, "Well, you have really been bad in your life. I've been very good and forgiven you, but you know, you're still gonna have to kind of live on the outer edges of my blessings because you haven't lived the life, I wanted you to live". No, he forgives it. He forgets it. He remembers it no more. "And where these have been forgiven, sacrifices for sin is no longer necessary". You know what a lot of people do? They sacrifice their joy. That's what I did for so many years. I would not allow myself to enjoy my life. I worked all the time because the only time I felt good about myself was when I was working. Now, you know all of this is connected to your mind and your thoughts.