Joyce Meyer - Your Life is What You Make It - Part 1

Several weeks ago, I got up one morning and it was just one of those days where I kinda felt like if I wasn't careful, I might just be in a bad mood. And as I drank my coffee that morning, I started to have little, tiny thoughts of self-pity. "Work, work, work, that's all I do is work". And I mean, God spoke to me clearly in my spirit and he said, "Joyce, your life is what you make it". And I immediately put together a message, 'cause I knew exactly what God was telling me, "You can have a miserable day if you want to, but you don't have to". Come on. And I know what to do. The minute you start feeling sorry for yourself, the next thing you need to do is start thanking God for every blessing that you can think of that you have, 'cause those negative bad thoughts are the devil trying to plant seeds in your mind, that if you water them by continuing to meditate on them will affect your emotions and the words that come out of your mouth, and you can just talk yourself into having a lousy day, but you don't have to. And we don't have days to waste.

So, this weekend I'm gonna do a three-part series called, "Your life is what you make it". And we're going to look at a lot of different good things. I've also got a new Dave story I'm gonna tell. Whenever it fits in right, and I'm sure that it will come out at some point. First of all, the Bible tells us plainly that God wants us to have and enjoy a good life. Every single one of us. And I'm gonna read you John 10:10 out of three different translations. "A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. But I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed". That's the message Bible. The Amplified Bible, "The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, until it overflows)".

So, I'm just gonna throw this out. Are you enjoying your life? John 10:10 is important to me because the way I grew up, I never really got to be a child. And every healthy adult should have a healthy child on the inside of them. You need to know how to work, but you also need to know how to play. And all I knew how to do was work. Because when I was growing up, if I was working, I didn't get in trouble. But I can remember getting in trouble for laughing. And so, I didn't have a healthy child in me. And God had to teach me that it was okay to enjoy life. So, I felt guilty when I enjoyed anything because I felt like there was something I should be doing. John 10:10, in the new living testament, "The thief's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and a satisfying life". "A satisfying life".

So, this kind of life is what Jesus came to give us. So why doesn't everyone have it? Why do some people have it and others don't? Well, it's not God's fault because God is "No respecter of persons". The Bible says plainly that he doesn't play favorites. The same thing is available for everybody. God loves every one of us the absolute same. He doesn't love one more than he loves another. Deuteronomy 10:17 in the Amplified Bible says, "For the Lord your God is the God of Gods and the Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, the awesome God who does not show partiality nor does he take a bribe". Romans 2:11, "For God shows no partiality [undue favor or unfairness: with him one man is not different than another]". So, when you see somebody having a great life, don't ever just think, "Well, gee, you're lucky". Or "You must have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth".

If people have a good life, if they're happy and content, satisfied, blessed, confident, strong, there's a reason for it. And it's because they have a good, strong, right relationship with God and they're putting him first in everything that they do. Acts 10:34 and 35, "And Peter opened his mouth and said: Most certainly and thoroughly I now perceive and understand that God shows no partiality and he is no respecter of persons". I'm reading these scriptures because I want you to know that you have the same equal opportunity as anybody else. I like to say, "God is an equal opportunity employer". Amen? In verse 35 says, "But in every nation he who venerates and has a reverential fear for God", reverential fear for God. We don't hear many messages on the reverential fear and awe of God.

I saw a young man on one of the apps the other day, I forget what ya call 'em all. And he was in his early 20s and he said, "You know why my generation is so messed up and do so many crazy things, is because they have no reverential fear of God". And see, it's good to know that God is your friend and that he's kind and merciful and loving and forgiving. But there is another side to God too. And we need to have a reverential fear of God because God means what he says. And what he says he will do is what he will do. And we can live under the blessing, or we can live under the curse, it's our choice. We're all created with free choice. That means we have to take responsibility for the things in our life.

Now, you may not be responsible for everything that happens to you, but you are responsible for how you respond to it. I think that's good enough to say it again. You may not be responsible for everything that happens to you, because people can hurt you, mistreat you, abuse you, use you, abandon you, reject you, lie to you. And yes, that hurts. You're not responsible for what people do to you, but you are responsible for how you respond. And my father sexually abused me. I mean, that's all I ever remember, so I don't really know how old I was, but I wasn't very old. He was in the service, the army, when I was born in 1943 during the second world war, and so I only saw him once until I was three years old. And I don't know if I was four or five or six, but I wasn't very old when he started to sexually molest me and then eventually take it to other levels.

And that went on until I left home at 18. And my mother knew what he was doing. She caught him. I told her, but she told me 30 years later that she just, she said, "I'm sorry for what I let your father do to you, but I just couldn't face the scandal". So, that was a selfish, self-centered decision on her part. She didn't wanna be embarrassed, and so she knowingly let me go through what I went through. Now, God has an answer for that, and we think we can't do it, but he says, "You forgive your enemies, you pray for them," and even go so far as to say, "If they need help, you help 'em". Well, see, our mind says, "Well, that's ridiculous. That's not just. That's not right".

And so, we think because it doesn't sound like it makes any sense that we just don't have to do it. But you will be amazed at what will happen in your life if you'll start to do everything that God shows you to do, whether you like it, or you don't. Amen? So, I wasn't responsible for what they did to me, and I had a lot of problems because of it. But as soon as I got old enough to start making my own decisions, every right decision that I made took me one step closer to total healing for what they did to me. So, let me say again, you're not responsible for what people do to you, but you are responsible for how you react to it. You can take the things that people have done to you, and you can let God use them to make you a better person, a stronger person, and use them to help other people that can build more compassion in you, or you can just feel sorry for yourself all your life, blame everybody for everything that's happened to you, and be sour and full of bitterness and resentment. Become a hater. And that's not gonna help you. It's not gonna do you or anybody else any good.

So, maybe some of you need to make a decision tonight. And of course, I'm not just talking to you, but all the people that'll watch this by television and other ways that they watch it. We have to make a decision to start doin' it God's way. Your life is what you make it. God tells us how we can have a great life. His plan is to give us a good life. But we have to follow his plan. He's not gonna follow ours. Amen? "But in every nation he who venerates and has a reverential fear for God, treating him with worshipful and obedience and living uprightly, is acceptable to him and sure of being received and welcomed by him".

Now, God also commands us not to show favoritism or partiality, but to treat all people good. Not just the important people that you think can do something for you, but actually we should even seek out the lowly and try to lift them up and make them feel better about themselves. Now, the promises of God are for "Whosoever will". I love that scripture. "Whosoever will" can have whatsoever God says that you can have. And every person in here is a "Whosoever". You gotta understand, nobody's left out of this. And I hope that you're mature enough to take what I'm getting ready to say, but if you have a lousy life, it's your fault. And you can't say, "Oh, Joyce, you don't know what I'm going through". You don't know what I've gone through. If you think that I just rolled out of bed one morning and had this ministry all put together nice and neat in a package for me, you got another thing coming. You haven't had the devil chase you around until you try to do what I'm doin'.

John 3:16, "For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that he [even] Gave up his only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever", say "Whoever... Believes in him shall not perish but have (everlasting) life". All God asks us to do is believe, but if you really believe you will also obey. 1 John 5:4, new living testament, "For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith". Every child of God has authority over the devil. Every child of God is full of God's power. You're the home of God. He lives in you. And you're "The head and not the tail, above and not beneath". You're not the bottom of anything. You're the top of everything.

Revelation 22:17, King James, "And the spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will", come on, say "Whosoever... Let him take the water of life freely". I'm takin' my time with this tonight because I want you to get it through your head, that you are not some special case that's been hurt worse, no matter how bad you've got it, there is somebody, probably in this room tonight, that's got it worse than you do. I can tell my story of abuse and really, it's nothing compared to some of the stories I've heard of some of the things that have been done to people or like these girls that Ginger was showing you pictures of. I mean, some of these girls are forced to have sex with men 20 and 30 times a day. How'd you like to live like that day in and day out, day in and day out? No wonder their eyes look empty.

And one of the ways that I'm getting the devil back for what he did to me is by helping people like that be set free. And nobody should get a pass to just sit by and do nothing while people are hurting. The more you get yourself off your mind and the more you do for other people, the happier you are going to be. Romans 10:13, "For everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved". Everyone.

Now, when I look at that scripture, I have a hard time with the doctrine that says that God picks and chooses who's gonna be saved and who's gonna go to hell. That makes no sense to me when it clearly says it's his will for every man to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. We have a choice. And if you're in here tonight and you've not surrendered your life to Christ, you have a choice. You can walk out still lost and lonely and empty. Or when we offer to pray with you at the end of the meeting, you can receive Christ into your life, and you can begin a brand-new life. It's a journey. You'll have some work to do. You'll need to learn the word. You're probably gonna have to let go of some things that you're doing that are ungodly. But God will never ask you to do anything without helping you do it. Amen?

"To him all the prophets testify (and bear witness) that everyone who believes in him [who adheres to, trust in, and relies on him, giving himself up to him] Receives forgiveness of sins through his name". Everyone. Everyone. The best thing you can do with your life is do as much good as you possibly can to everyone you possibly can as often as you possibly can. Jesus said, it's recorded in Mark 8:34, he said, "Let go of the lower life and you'll find the higher life". Pastor Tommy preached a message one time, I remember it: I don't know if you do. But it was, we pay a high price for a low life, for a cheap thrill. You say, "Well, I just can't resist temptation". Yes, you can because the Bible says that God will not ever bring any temptation on a person that's beyond their ability to resist. He'll help us.

Now, there are some non-negotiables if you wanna have this good life that God wants you to have. Number one, you can't wallow in self-pity and expect everybody to pay you back for the pain you've had in your past. See when you've been hurt, you feel and I felt and it's understandable, "Well, somebody owes me something. I need to be paid back for what was done to me". But the big mistake is when we try to collect from people, they can't pay us back. You know, because men hurt me, I spent a long time trying to collect from Dave. Well, he couldn't pay me back. I didn't show him proper respect. I wasn't gonna submit to a man. Nobody was gonna tell me what to do. When I saw that a wife is to adjust and adapt to her husband, I thought I was gonna throw up, 'cause I didn't wanna adjust or adapt to anybody. I'd spent my life being forced to adjust and adapt.

Come on, you know what I'm saying. Or you have one bad marriage, so then you put up all these barriers, these, you know, and you assume everybody's gonna treat you the same way and we get all of our walls up. But there's a wonderful scripture in Isaiah 61 verses 7 and 8 that say that God will give us a double reward for our former shame. It says, "For the shame of your youth". Well, boy, I grabbed ahold of that because I was full of shame. Because a lot of times when you're hurt by people, somehow the devil works it out to make you think it's your fault. And I spent a lifetime with a message rolling around in my head, "What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me"? Because I wasn't just abused by one man but an uncle, a grandfather, a boss I worked for tried to put his hands on me.

So, I started thinking, "What is my problem"? Well, there was a spirit following me around because of what my dad had done to me and that's exactly what the devil wanted me to think, "What's wrong with me"? You ever have that thought, "What's wrong with me? Why can't I be like everybody else? What's wrong with me? What's wrong with me"? Well, that's exactly what the devil wants. But the first thing that God wants to give you when you come into relationship with him is right-eousness. He makes you "Right" with him. So, the next time you hear that message rolling around in your head, "What's wrong with me"? Open your mouth and say, "No, there's a lot of things right with me. Jesus took care of all the things that were wrong with me, and God has given me right standing with him and I'm learning every day how to do things more and more right".

God gives us righteousness so we can learn how to do things right. The second non-negotiable is you cannot blame others for your current situation. They may be why you are the way you are, but you cannot let them become an excuse to stay that way. Now, what I just said is very good, even if I did say it. Because you see, because I was abused and was hurt so bad, I had a bad attitude. I had a rebellious attitude. I had a chip on my shoulder: "The world owes me something". And anytime God tried to deal with me I would say, "Well, you know, a dog shouldn't have been treated the way I was treated. That's why I'm the way I am".

God speaks to you in your spirit, not like you're having a conversation, but you just know things. And I knew that God was saying to me, "Yes, that's why you're the way you are, but don't let it become an excuse to stay that way". See, that's the message tonight. No matter what has been done to you, and no matter how bad it has hurt, you don't have to stay that way. God's promises are for anybody in the room that's willing to do what God tells you to do.