Joyce Meyer - Blessed in the Mess - Part 2

TOPICS: Blessing

Well, thank you for joining me today on "Enjoying Everyday Life". I started yesterday teaching a message called "Blessed in the mess". Today I'm gonna do part two of that message. And really, the core of the message is that when you're going through trouble, trials, and tribulations, which we all experience in life, you can be blessed, happy, joyful, right in the middle of it, if you handle it God's way. And I think this message can be really good for people because when you're having trouble, emotions flare up. I mean, a mouth just wants to go... In the wrong direction. We don't feel like treating people right. We wanna take it out on everybody else, get mad at people that aren't having trouble. And none of those things are the way that God wants us to handle our problems.

So, just for the sake of people that maybe didn't get to listen yesterday, how does God want us to handle our problems? I'm gonna go through this much quicker than I did yesterday. God's way to handle trouble is: number one, don't blame him, don't get mad at God. Number two, don't feel sorry for yourself. There's somebody in the world that's going through something much worse than you are. Stay positive, keep an attitude of faith. Faith is the evidence of things that we don't see and the proof of their reality. So, you have to see in the spirit realm, you have to believe what you don't see. You believe the promise of God no matter what things look like. Don't say negative things, don't prophesy your own defeat. Say things like, "God loves me. This will pass. This will end well. God's gonna take this and he's gonna work good out of it".

Keep doing what you would do if you didn't have problems. Keep your word, keep your commitments, and above all, especially be good to someone else. Boy, that makes the devil mad. I love Romans 12:21. It's one of my favorite scriptures. We "Overcome evil with good". Wow, just that one scripture can be a life lesson. We "Overcome evil with good". So, once again, when we're having trouble, if we handle it God's way, we will be blessed in the middle of the mess. Now, that doesn't mean that your trouble is just gonna vanish right in the middle. But, you know, the way we look at things really makes a difference in how we go through the thing.

If you, the Bible says, "Looking away from all that will distract unto Jesus". So, we think about our problem too much when we're having problems, and the best thing to do is do what you can do. You know, if there's something you can do, then do it. If you can't, pray about it and believe that God hears and is answering your prayer. You know, Daniel in the Bible prayed about something and he was fasting for 21 days. He didn't get an answer right away. And then when the answer came, God told him that he had to send an Archangel to deal with the principality, the evil spirit that was trying to prevent the answer from coming.

So, we have to understand that we have an enemy. The devil is alive and well on planet earth. And especially when you start to do something good, he will come against you and try to stop you. A well-known prophet who has a very good reputation prophesied to me a few months ago and he said, "During the next five years, you're gonna have some of the greatest things happen in your ministry that have ever happened". And I've had nothing but trouble ever since. And I'm like, "Thank you for that word". But see, I understand. When you understand, because what the devil wants me to do is not believe what he said. He always tries to make it look like "That ain't gonna happen".

And so, I just keep saying, "Boy, these next five years they're gonna be great. We're gonna see healings and miracles and all kinds of wonderful things". Do you know, I believe that we could reach more people in the next five years than we've reached in the whole rest of this ministry? Because there's just technology that's becoming more and more available that, you know, like I'm blacklisted in India, which means that they won't let me in the country anymore. Some high up person didn't care for my preaching, and so he managed to get me on a "Can't get in" list. But I'm on television in India in 16 different languages. So, you can't really keep me out. You know? We are more than conquerors. Right in the middle of our trouble and tribulation.

Romans 8:37 says, "Yet in the mid, amid", which means in the middle of, "All these things we are more than conquerors and we gain a surpassing victory through him who loved us". So, when you're going through trouble, keep in mind that God loves you. I'm sure that probably you've always said it sometime when you're having trouble with God, "Don't you love me"? I never say that again. I used to say that, and I will not say that again because I know that I know, that I know, that God loves me, and my trouble is not his fault. It's not, there's just evil in the world and we don't understand it all, but a lot, you know, people have free will and a lot of times somebody else's bad choice will affect me. And it's like, "Well God, why did you let that happen"?

Well, instead of focusing on the why, let's focus on, "God, I'm excited to watch you work good out of this". Come on, this is a new way to look at our problems. 1 Corinthians 15:57 says, "But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory, [making us conquerors] through our Lord Jesus Christ". There's so many scriptures. What does it mean to be more than a conqueror? I've thought about that a lot. And you know what I think it means? I think it means that before we ever get a problem, we already know we're gonna have the victory.

So, when you can live like that, you don't have to be afraid of problems. You know, you don't have to think, "Oh, I hope this doesn't happen. I hope that doesn't happen". You know, "I heard there's gonna be layoffs at work. I'm afraid I'm gonna get laid off". No, you've already got the victory. So, you can already know if you get laid off and you keep a good attitude, if you handle it the way God wants you to, he'll get you a better job than the one you had. If you handle it God's way. And I have to keep saying that because to be honest, we slam the door ourselves in the blessings of God just through having a bad attitude or speaking wrong things. And you'll find out tomorrow, I'm gonna talk about the mouth.

Now, that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch the program. But we get ourselves in so much trouble just by saying stupid things that don't make any sense and we say them out of emotion and when we're angry. And man, you'll see what Jesus did. 2 Corinthians 2:14, "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph [as trophies of Christ's victory]". I love that. I think that God has a trophy case in heaven, and when people grow and are spiritually mature and they become usable for God, I think he gets to put a little trophy in his case. You know, people who have a case full of trophies that means they're an expert at that thing.

And many years ago, on thanksgiving, I was praying one morning and God, I saw a trophy case in heaven. I wasn't even aware of this scripture. And God said, "You're a trophy of my grace". And then he just showed me that, you know, coming from the background I did, being sexually abused and going through the process of letting God heal me and use me. And then I found this scripture and I thought that was so neat. And then I saw the other day there's a man who has a book called "Trophies of grace". And I want God to be able to be proud of me. Don't you want him to be able to be proud of you? Don't you want him to be able to show you off in his trophy case as someone that is not affected by all the stuff that the devil tries to do?

"He always leads us in triumph," the Bible says. He always, God always does his part. The key is, are we gonna do our part? Or are we just gonna follow our emotions and do what we feel like doing and do what the enemy wants us to do? 1 John 5:4, "Whatever is born of God is victorious over the world:" if you're born again, you have the victory. "For this is the victory that conquers the world, even our faith". Wow. You know, faith is for the hard days, it's not for the good days. Faith is for the days when nothing makes any sense. And, you know, I was just thinking, and I wrote this down, faith is wonderful. It's a great gift from God.

Just think about what a privilege it is to be able to know now that you're gonna go to heaven. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of looking forward to that. I'm kinda fed up with what's going on here. The Bible says, "Even creation groans". The trees, you know, when you think about it, I looked out my backyard today and, you know, it's pretty, but I thought, this is nothing compared to what the Garden of Eden must have looked like. Because creation is also under the curse of sin that got started in the garden. And we're supposed to be lights in a dark world. So, it's very important to not just be saved by faith, but to live by faith, to walk by faith. And that means that you're always making a decision no matter what's going on, "I'm gonna trust God in this".

You say, "Well, I've tried that before, I've trusted God and it didn't work out". Well, then trust him again. I mean, let me ask you a question. Do you have any better solution? I mean, if you gotta better option, let me know what it is, but I don't, to me, gonna trust God. I've seen him work. I've seen him do amazing things. And so, I'm gonna trust God and believe this is gonna work out to my benefit. You're never alone in your trouble. You're never by yourself. God has promised to never leave us or forsake us. In Deuteronomy 20:4, it says, "For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to save you". Everybody say, "I've got the victory". But I wanna say again, it's only if you do things God's way.

See, so often we hear a victory message preached. But you've gotta have that "If" in there. You know, God wants to prosper you, but he expects you to be a generous giver. Well, that's your part and you do that first and then you trust God. God wants to bless you, but he tells you, if you want your prayers answered, you must forgive anybody that you have anything against. Anybody, everybody that you have anything against, you must forgive them. "Well, they don't deserve it". Well, we don't deserve the forgiveness that we've gotten from God. I mean, what did you do to deserve the forgiveness that God gave you when you were born again? Anybody here dumb enough to say you deserved it? If you do, I might come out and smack you, I don't know. Well, what I wanna know is why can't life be easier?

Well, it's not all hard. There's a lot of wonderful days and a lot of good things that happen, a lot of victories. Maybe you're watching and you're in a good time in your life and you're thinking, "Well, you know, this message is kind of a downer if you want to know the truth". Well, not really, because you'll come back around and something will happen that you don't like and then you're gonna remember this message and say, "Well, I need to handle this God's way. I need to do this the way God wants me to do it". And how many of you agree that we don't always do it God's way? Matter of fact, I probably could say we probably usually don't do it God's way.

1 Corinthians 15, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting"? You know, even if your difficulty ends in death, you still got the victory. See, that's what's so cool about this. I mean, death would be the worst thing and that only brings you into the best thing. It's like, yeah, go ahead and promote me. I'd love to walk on streets of gold, and sing with the angels. And I wanna preach with Moses, and Paul, and I wanna do a seminar there, you know. Who's on the roster to preach this weekend? Well, Moses, and Abraham, and Joyce. Might as well believe for big things, huh? And you know what? Have all the fun you can have in life. Laugh, don't go around with a sour face and depressed and discouraged all the time.

You say, "Well, you just don't know what's going on in my life". Well, to be honest, whatever it is, if you handle it God's way, it will work out good and God will give you double for your trouble. I've had it happen in my life. I mean, my life started out so bad, oh, my gosh. I mean, when I was 23, I could not remember ever being happy. Not ever. My childhood was stolen, I don't know what it's like to be a kid. I never could sit on my dad's lap and get comforted or go to him for advice. I don't ever remember my mom or dad ever sitting me down and teaching me any kind of value that would help me in life. And I prayed while I was in that situation. You know what, God didn't get me out of it, but he sure got me through it. And when I came out, I was a mess. I mean, I looked all right.

But inside, I mean, I thought I got away from my trouble when I got away from home, but I actually took it with me in my soul. And see, that's the issue. We run away from things so often, but we still got it in here. I still had the bitterness, the resentment, the self-pity, all the feeling like the world owed me everything, and I had a chip on my shoulder, so many things that I had to deal with. And when I got serious in my relationship with God, and really invited the Holy Spirit to come into my life and not just change my life but change me.

See, we start out wanting God to change our life. "God, you gotta change my life". Well, why don't you just say, "God, change me"? Because if he changes you, then your life will change. "God change me". Whenever you're not getting along with somebody, maybe you're married, and man, I prayed so long for Dave to change. "Oh, God, you've gotta change Dave". And one day God said, "He's not the problem". And I was shocked. I thought, "Well, who is"? See, we're very self-deceived. How many of you know we always think it's the other person's fault? And you know, you got marriage problems, you know how you can fix it? Think about the things you liked when you married the person. All the little things that they do now that irritate you, just don't be petty.

Who cares how they squeeze the toothpaste tube? Hide it in a drawer if you don't like it, you know. "Why, why, why"? It's our biggest question in life, isn't it? "Why"? How many of you have some whys right now? You're just like, "Why, why, why"? You know what? We rarely get answers. You know why? Because God wants us to trust him. God wants you to trust him. Matter of fact, it wouldn't hurt any of us to just say, "God, I'm never gonna ask you why again". Now, it's not a sin to ask God, "Why"? But you know, most of the time he doesn't tell you. And the Lord told me one time, he said, "Don't you realize if you knew everything then you wouldn't need me"?

We live in a world full of sin and evil, because of it, conditions that are difficult exist. And the more sin we have in the world, the more disease we have. Well, you know, the sovereignty of God comes into play in all these why questions, and we know that God is sovereign. But you know what? I think trying to figure out the sovereignty of God is beyond our human understanding. I don't think we can understand it. There's a few scriptures in the Bible that I just like, "No, I ain't even gonna try to figure that out". I don't. I just trust God. You know what? Once you make your mind up that God is good, and that beyond all else God is good, it settles a lot of issues in life. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to find out why. Don't spend your time in your own reasoning and trying to figure things out, but cast your care on God and trust him and believe it's gonna work out good.

We know so much, but there's so much we don't know. 1 Corinthians 13, "We know in part". And we do, we just, we know part of things, but stop bothering yourself with all the things you don't know. And just say, "God, I don't know. You know, and I know you, and so I'm gonna trust you that you're gonna work it out". Faith is a beautiful thing. It allows you to enjoy life when life, itself, is lousy. You can laugh on those days when there's nothing to laugh about. "In the world, there will be tribulation. Cheer up". It's impossible to cheer up in the middle of tribulation unless you handle things God's way. And no, it's not gonna be easy. Your flesh will have a fit. You have to understand that because that's the devil's way of trying to get you to not do it God's way.

But listen to me, every time you go through something and you handle it right, now this is very important, the next time it's gonna be just a tiny bit easier. And then the next time it'll be even a little tiny bit more easy. And by the time you have about 20 or 30 years of that, you're like, "20 or 30 years?"! Well, see, I'm at the point now where, I mean, I can honestly tell you that whole three months that I went through the thing with my legs, and I mean, I had to have somebody with me 24/7. My family took four hour shifts staying with me because I couldn't do anything. I was in three places, the bed, the toilet, and the recliner, for three months. Well, and I can honestly tell you, and I'm not bragging, I mean, I give God the credit, I was pretty happy the whole time.

I just thought, "Yeah, wait on me. I'll have some coffee. Can you get me some water"? They said, "You're liking this too much". I made my mind up that I was gonna handle it God's way. And they told me I was gonna be in a boot 12 weeks. I was in it five. Come on. And you know, I mean, this leg, it had no strength. I mean, I could barely pick it up. And so, naturally people are thinking, "Wow, is she gonna ever be able to preach again? Is she..."? You know, we were talking about, "Well, I guess I could sit down and do tv". And you know, here I am getting ready to go to conferences again. You know, God is good. But who knows what would have happened if I would have been a sour puss and had a bad attitude and I don't know, you know. I might still be laying in bed.

I was in the hospital a total of 27 days. That wasn't fun. But here I am. See? I made it through. And that was not hard for me because of all the years: first starting off doing things wrong, I did that for a lot of years. And then I thought, "Well, this isn't working. Let's get a new plan". Started trying to do things God's way. Took a long time, and I'm not perfect. I still have days where I don't, but the more you do it right, the easier it gets to do it right the next time. So, let's just end with James 4:7, "Be subject to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee". Sometimes we like to just quote half of that scripture, "Resist the devil and he'll flee". No, "Submit yourself to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee".