Joyce Meyer - Developing the Character of God - Part 5

Once again, I want you to focus on the sign. There's a right way, and a wrong way to do everything. If you do things the right way, you're gonna find blessings falling on your life. You know, God pours things out, he doesn't dribble them out. Like the Bible says, "If we tithe and give offerings, he'll open the windows of heaven, and pour out blessings". "The love of God has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Ghost". How many of you are glad you don't serve a stingy God that just does barely get by? Amen? And so, I really want you to remember as you make decisions in the upcoming future, little ones and big ones, don't ever think, "Oh, that's just a little thing, it doesn't matter".

You know, little compromises turn into big problems. I said, "Little compromises turned into big problems". And you know, a lot of times we do think, "Oh, that's just a little thing, that doesn't matter". But the little foxes spoil the vine. Amen? And so, I've been teaching this weekend, if this is your first session, about developing the character of God in your life. Our goal is actually to become Christ-like, like Jesus. The Bible says that, "We are Christ's ambassadors, that he is making his appeal to the world through us".

Now, I don't know what you think of that, but what a privilege, but what a responsibility. I want you to think about this: you might be the only Jesus, that some of the people you know will ever see. I'm not saying that you're Jesus, but I'm saying that, how are they gonna see him if they don't see him through his people? We see Jesus by faith. Faith is an interesting thing, it's beautiful. It's like, you believe something that you can't see, you can't feel, but you know, not in your head, but in your heart, you know, that you know, that you know, that you know, that it's real. Not one of us saw Jesus die on the cross, but boy, we're banking our whole life on the fact that he did.

We're giving our whole life to something that we can't see and didn't witness, but we believe it. And as you grow in God, you start with that believing that Jesus died for you, but then as you grow in God, you begin to believe all these other wonderful things: that he loves you, that you've been made right with him through the blood of Christ, that he has a good plan for your life, that he freely and graciously forgives you, anytime you do something wrong. So many wonderful things, that no matter what happens to us, if we trust him, he can take it and work it out for our good. I don't know why anybody wouldn't wanna serve God? I mean, it's nothing but a good deal. Amen?

We get everything, and Jesus paid for it all. You're not gonna get a deal like that anywhere else. And so, we're talking about really spiritual maturity. And Paul told the Corinthian church they were still babies, and that he could only give them milk. He couldn't preach the kind of messages to them that he wanted to, because they couldn't take it. He said, "You're not ready for it. You can't take it". And so, people that are baby Christians only can hear stuff that makes them feel good and warm and fuzzy. They can't hear things that confront them, or that make them really take a deeper look at themselves.

And so, that's what we've been trying to do here this weekend. I told people, at the beginning of the year that worked for me, I said, "I intend to preach a lot this year on spiritual maturity, because frankly, I don't know how much time we got left". And I feel like that I need to do, as a teacher and the position God's given me, and the number of people that I get to reach through television, I feel like I have a responsibility, to not just tell you what you might like to hear, or the warm and the fuzzies, but to tell you what you need to hear, that will move you as quickly as possible, to deeper levels in God. Because people, people really who need Jesus aren't going to church to find him.

And sadly, they might go to some churches, and still not find him. But boy, do you have an opportunity. Because you see, I believe God has his people literally planted everywhere. I really do. I think he's much more strategic about this than what we might even imagine. Don't ever be down in the dumps and say, "Well, I'm the only Christian where I work". Well, thank God! I mean, thank God there's one, thank God you're there. Now, start praying a little bit differently. Stop asking God all the time for something you want, and start every day asking him, "God, what can I do for you today"?

To me, that's what spiritual maturity is. We start out asking God for everything: "God, fix this, fix that, make that go away, change this, give me this, give me that, give me something else". And then we hopefully make a full change to, "God, what can I do for you today"? "Put somebody in my path that I can help". Now, that doesn't mean you still can't ask God for things you want. The Bible says that, "We have not because we ask not". If you have any kind of problem, the first thing you wanna do is pray about it. "Be anxious for nothing, but in all things by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving".

Be a thankful Christian, not a grumbly one, a thankful Christian. Like I said this morning, don't sit at the lunch table at work with everybody who's complaining about everything at their job they don't like. You be the thankful Christian who's thankful you have a job. Amen? I, you know, obviously, you probably wouldn't have been here this weekend, if you weren't fairly serious about your relationship with God. And so, I've probably got some of the cream of the crop here, that's why I can talk to you the way that I've been talking to you. But it's one thing to sit and hear it and say, "Amen," it's another thing to go out there and do it. And I just wanna tell you that we need you. All of you in this room, there are people that you can reach that I could never reach, because they might turn on somebody like me and say, "Oh, another one of those televangelists".

Oh yeah, the devil loves to give people like me, a bad reputation. But God has his people strategically placed everywhere: in schools, in businesses, in restaurants, in grocery stores, everywhere. And everywhere you go, now, listen to me, everywhere you go, there's somebody that needs Jesus. And you can't always preach to everybody you see, but you can act like Jesus. You can smile. You can be friendly. You can be encouraging. You can say, "That color looks good on you". "Your hair looks nice". You can be polite. Love is not rude. You can say, "Please". You can say, "Thank you". Little things. The world is desperate. I mean literally desperate to have somebody show them something real and genuine.

The church does not have a great reputation, and we need to change that. Amen? And the reason why she doesn't have the reputation she should, is because of hypocritical Christians. They're good at telling other people what to do, but Jesus said to the hypocrites in Matthew 23, "You tell other people what to do, but you don't do it yourself". "Or you tell other people what to do and you won't lift a finger to help 'em". So, it's time for us to, "[forget about ourselves, lose sight of yourself and all your own interests] and take up your cross, and follow me," Mark 8:34. You say, "Well, if I don't take care of myself, who will"? Well, Jesus will.

And see, I came out of my abusive situation at 18, and I thought, "Nobody's ever gonna do anything for me, I'll take care of myself, and I'll never ask anybody for anything". Well, I had a lot of changing to do. And I wanna tell you, and I mean it, if God can do what he’s done in me, with the mess I was in, there is nobody in this room that he can't change. And nobody watching by television that he can't change. And there's nobody that's done so much wrong, that you can't be forgiven. I said nobody. There's nobody that's done so much wrong you can't be forgiven. Nobody. And so, there's a right way and a wrong way, and I hope you'll start choosing the right way, because how many of you believe that the hour is short? I think the trumpet could blow at just about any time, and I just, I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to being in heaven.

I really feel like Paul did when he said, "For my part, I would rather go. But I think it's better for you if I stay". Now, when we quit this morning, I was talking about who could God use. I'm in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, "God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is foolish to put the wise to shame, and what the world calls weak to put the strong to shame". You're not a surprise to God. He knew exactly what he was getting when he chose you, and when he chose me. I don't know why he chose me, but he did, so... "And God also selected (deliberately chose)". I mean like, he did it on purpose. Even when I started in my little, short shorts, blowin' smoke in everybody's face. But you know why I got by with it? Because I was anointed.

Now, we're gonna talk about that for a little bit today too, because that's another word we don't hear enough about. Forty years ago, I mean, I heard all kinds of teaching about God's anointing, and it became very important to me. And a lot of Christians today don't even know what that is. God anointed a donkey to speak to a prophet. So, guess what? If he can use a donkey, he can use you, and he can use me. "God selected (deliberately chose) what in the world is lowborn and insignificant and branded and treated with contempt, even the things that are nothing".

I love this. You know what? God chooses what the world would throw away as useless. He loves to take people that have been mistreated and feel like trash and make them royalty. Come on. You are kings and priests of the Most High God! Wow! Joint heir with Jesus Christ. What he earned and deserved: you get. Man, "That he might depose and bring to nothing the things that are". He chose things that people would think, "Well, God could never use you". And then when they have to watch him do it, they're left with, "Well, it must be God".

I remember when one of my good friends, when after God first called me to teach, and by the way, I wasn't looking for a ministry, I was making my bed. And I was listening to the first (it was a cassette tape then) teaching cassette tape I'd ever heard. And it was about Jesus when he got in the boat, and they had the storm. But when he got in the boat he said, "Let us cross over to the other side". And they had a hurricane type proportion of a storm, and the disciples got all afraid, and Jesus was asleep in the boat. But the thing I love most about that is, in chapter 5 verse 1, it says, "And they arrived on the other side".

So, when Jesus said, "Let's go to the other side," it doesn't matter how many storms you have in the middle, you are going to eventually end up on the other side. I love that. And when God spoke to my heart, he said, "You're going to go all over the world and teach my word". Well, that was so ridiculous. But you know, when God speaks, it's different than a person speaking, and I believed it. I mean, if I looked at it in the natural, it's like, "Who do you think you are"? And that's exactly what people said to me, "Who do you think you are? You don't have enough education"?

A good friend of mine said, "You don't have the right personality". Well, she ended up working on my staff, which I thought was kind of funny. But, I mean, in the natural, they were all right. I didn't have the education. I didn't have the experience. I didn't have any money. I mean, it was like, God had to do it on purpose. I had no idea what I was doing. We were laughing the other day, because we're celebrating this month, 30 years on TV. And when God actually spoke to Dave, we had a weekly meeting in st. Louis every Wednesday night. And after one of the meetings, Dave said God spoke to him and said, "You're just losing all these teachings. You need to buy a TV camera and start recording these".

So, he went out the next day and bought a $20,000 television camera. And I was so mad, because he didn't even talk to me about it, and we usually talked about things. And I mean, we probably barely had $20,000. And I said, "What'd you do that for"? He said, "Well, I just felt like God told me we don't wanna lose all these teachings, that we need to keep them". Well, then one morning he was getting ready in the bathroom, and I was getting ready to go to the office, and the Spirit of God came on Dave and said, "I've prepared you all this time to go on TV". And of course, Dave managed the money and the first thing he thought was, "Well, we can't afford that". And he said, "God showed him a hand like on a water faucet". And he said, "I've got it turned up about this far. If I didn't have it turned up this far, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing. And if I want you to do a little more, all I gotta do is turn it up just a little bit more".

What God orders, God pays for. Did you hear me? And what he orders, he provides for. We have got the most amazing and wonderful staff of people. I think we have a little over, somewhere between 5 and 600 employees now. They're not all here. We've got offices in India, I don't know, eight or nine others, different places, I lose track of what we're doing. And they're just, they're just wonderful. It's not all about me, I've got this whole staff of people that help. We went on weekly TV first, and that did okay, but the first time we filmed for television, we had one camera, we were in a room that wasn't very big, and some of the ceiling tiles were falling out of the ceiling, and my backdrop was a blue shower curtain. But it was anointed.

You say, "Well, what is the anointing"? Well, the "Anointing" is God's presence and power on something. Let me read you Isaiah 61:1, prophecy about Jesus, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed and qualified me to preach the gospel". People told me I wasn't qualified, but it's not your education that qualifies you, it's the anointing that qualifies you. Come on, are you with me? And boy, that anointing is precious. I mean, I admit that, you know, this shouldn't work. But when there's an anointing, it's like people are drawn to that anointing. And I mean, I've heard some of the wildest stories about TV. I dare not get into telling stories. But I mean, God uses that thing in a way that just seems ridiculous.

I'll tell you one story. There was a man that was sitting in his recliner drinking beer. And he was a young man, and he stayed drunk about half the time, was wasting his life. I can't see through the TV camera. And I said, "You, young man sitting back in your recliner, drinking your beer". And he said, "It scared the living daylights out of him". And he sobered up, got saved, and is still walking with God today.

So, well, one more story. I had a man that was high on drugs watching, flipping through the channels about 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, and he said he got to the channel that I was on, and his remote quit working. He couldn't change the channel. And he said he thought the batteries had gone bad in his remote, so he changed the batteries and it still, he couldn't get it off that station. He said, "The only button on my TV that worked was the one that made the sound go up". He said, "It scared the fire out of him too, and he sobered up and got saved".

Well, I'll tell you what, hanging out with God is just fun. The anointing, and there's a price you pay for the anointing, it's obedience. That's what we're talking about here this weekend, obeying God, especially when you don't feel like it. Doing what's right when nobody's looking but God. Not just doing what's right as a people pleaser, but living for God, doing it for him. Start living your life in such a way, where you do things for God just because you love him. Not because they feel good or don't feel good. "He has anointed and qualified me to preach the gospel of good tidings to the meek, the poor, and the afflicted: he has sent me to bind up and heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the [physical and spiritual] captives and the opening of the prison and of the eyes to those that are bound".

Now, I wanna tell you something. And i, you know, get all the education you can get, hopefully it's more of a Christian education. But I'm not against education. I only have a 12th grade education, but I've got three or four doctorates that have been given to me. So, I can legally call myself Dr. Joyce Meyer, but I'm just Joyce. I'm the people's preacher, I'm for you. Amen? I don't, I don't, and I know, you know, people respect titles. I'm not downing that at all, but it's just not, it's just not me. And I would rather have no theology degree in God's anointing, than to have a master's degree in theology and not have the master. Amen? Learn all you can about God's anointing and do everything you can to protect it.

Romans 8:29 and 30, "For those whom he foreknew [of whom he was aware and loved beforehand], he also destined from the beginning [foreordaining them] to be molded into the image of his son [and to share inwardly his likeness], that he might become the firstborn among many brethren". Molded into the image of Jesus Christ.

Now, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that, "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things pass away: and all things become new". I think what really happens is we become like new spiritual clay. We all know when you get born again if you were bald, you're still bald. Amen? So, you look at yourself and you think nothing's changed. Well, this molding thing, I don't imagine it's much fun. If we pretended like this clay had feelings, I have a feeling that hurts. "Ouch! What are you doing to me? Ow, leave me alone, that doesn't feel good". And we're to be molded into the image of Jesus Christ.