Joyce Meyer - The Deception of Procrastination - Part 2

So Paul talks a lot about entering the rest of God and we enter the rest of God through believing. When you put your faith in God, you cast your care on him and you believe that he will take care of the problem. Now, that also includes doing whatever he might tell you to do. See, I'm a firm believer that we're partners with God. We have a part, and he has a part. And in Ephesians 6, there's a little verse that says, "Having done all [the crisis demands], you are to now stand [firmly in your place]". But first you do what you do, what you can do, you do what the crisis demands.

You know, I can't pray for God to clean my house. I can't pray for groceries just to show up in my house. I can pray for God to give me the money for 'em. I can pray for God to give me the grace to go get 'em, the energy to go get 'em. But I've gotta do the part that I've got to do. And a lot of people don't realize that. They want God to do what they should be doing, and they try to do what only God can do. So, we get it backwards. And there are things in your life that you can't fix, and you can't do anything about. And those things are the things that you need to cast your care about, and put them totally on God, and then you can enter the rest of God.

But here's what Paul says in Hebrews 4:1, "Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still holds and is offered [today], let us be afraid [to distrust it], lest any of you should think he has come too late and has come short of reaching it". And then in verse seven he says, "Again he sets a definite day, [a new] Today, [and gives another opportunity of securing that rest] Saying through David after so long a time in the words already quoted, 'today, if you would hear his voice and when you hear it, do not harden your hearts'". Today! Today is the day for you to make a decision. Today is the day that you're gonna make a decision to get more serious with God than you ever have before.

Can I tell you something? Just coming to church and sitting here week after week after week, won't get you to heaven. Now, we're only saved by putting our faith in Jesus Christ. But anybody who has real faith, I mean, if you're truly born again, then you can't help but change. 1 John 3:9, I think it is, says that. It says that when we're born again, we receive the seed of Christ, and we cannot stay the same. Because literally, Christ is living in us.

And so the minute that you're born again, have any of you ever noticed that when you're born again, there's a new war that starts that you never knew was there before? All the things that now bug you that didn't bother you at all before? Well, that's the Holy Spirit dealing with you, but he's doing it for your good. And the quicker you obey him, the better your life is gonna be. I mean, you know, really, what does anybody want other than to have righteousness, peace and joy?

And Romans 14:17 says, "The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink". It's not about stuff. This is not about getting God to give you your wish list. "But it's righteousness," having a right relationship with God. And we get that through our faith in Christ. We become right with God when we receive Jesus as our Savior. That's the most wonderful thing in the world. "And then peace and then joy". That's what the kingdom is. And so, you know, years and years ago, when I had all these 50 things on my prayer list that I was asking God to give me, stupid stuff that I didn't no more need than, you know, anything. Fur coat and this and that, you know. That was back when fur coats were popular. They're not now.

But I thought, "Oh, man, God give me a fur coat". I didn't know what pitiful condition I was in. And one time God challenged me. He said, "Compare your prayers with the apostle Paul". So, I got out all of Paul's prayers. And, do know Paul never prayed one time for any material thing, not for himself, nor for the church. He never prayed one time for any of their problems to go away. What he prayed was that, "They would be able to endure whatever came, with good temper". Hmm.

What if you came to me for prayer and said, "I have this problem, Joyce, and I want you to pray for me". And I started praying, "Oh, God, please help them endure this problem and stay patient and happy". You're like, "I don't want that prayer, I want you to pray the problem will go away". You see how we are? Do you know that... Well, I'll go ahead and say it. You may not like it, but... You know, the pain of the things that we go through actually are some of the best things in the world for us.

And I read one time, and it's absolutely true, the things that you think right now are your greatest enemy, someday you'll realize it was your biggest friend. Because that was what made you change. And that pain that you feel inside when God is changing you, don't fight it, enter the rest of God about it. It's like when a woman is given birth. What do they say? "Breathe, relax, push". Makes you think, "Push, I feel like my guts are coming out"! I love when couples now, men say, "We're pregnant. We're having a baby". No, you ain't having a baby. You're gonna get a baby, but you're not having the baby.

I heard something cute today, if I can get it right. This is really just something I wanna say to the men. So men, this is important. So I want you to get this. This is something special for you, and it'll really help you in your life. When you get married, you enter a relationship. And in relationships, there's a lot of conversation. There's a lot of ideas going back and forth, and there's a lot of opinions. And only one person can be right, and that other person is called the husband. I knew I married Mr. Right, I just didn't know his first name was always.

Now, you'll try to remember that to go tell it to somebody else, won't you. Today, I believe there's an anointing here tonight for you to make decisions. I don't want you just to, "Oh, Joyce preached a good sermon". And then tomorrow somebody say, "What'd Joyce preach on"? "Umm...umm" no, you tell 'em, the deception of procrastination. She taught on the deception of procrastination and how dangerous it is, especially to put off things that God tells you to do. Or things he tells you to stop doing. I mean, all the other stuff, you know, if you don't clean the closet out, that's up to you.

If it bugs you, then you know, then you just need to do it, and get it over with. But the big things I'm talking about are the things that God speaks to your heart, and shows you to do, or tells you not to do. Those are the things that you need to—i mean, to lock in to, get committed to. And no matter how bad it hurts, you need to do them. Somebody say, "Amen". Well, you know what we do? You know why we don't do it? We make excuses and we blame other people. We make excuses for our frogs. And we blame our frogs on somebody else.

Matter of fact, we get comfortable with the frogs. They've been around so long, we don't even smell 'em anymore. Every once in a while, the stink gets too bad, we'll spray a little room deodorizer on it. But, you know, getting rid of 'em is a different thing. Maybe you invited the frog. I don't know. You could be going home to sleep with the frog tonight. Now, if it's your husband, I'm not calling him a frog, but it's kind of a sneaky way to say, if you're with somebody you're not married to, then I hope he croaks tonight. And you say, "It's time to go". I don't mean croaks like dies, but, you know. I wish I could make a good frog sound, but I probably can't. Don't let somebody take advantage of you like that.

You know, sometimes we have, we do, we have stupid stuff around and we just get so used to it, we don't even realize we've got it anymore. Or we have behaviors in our life that are so obnoxious, but we just get so accustomed to behaving that way. And then somebody's not confronting us. They're just putting up with it. You know, I had a relationship one time with somebody that I worked for, and he really was a controller, and I didn't want to lose my position. And so, I came under that spirit, and I was still hurting from all the stuff with my dad, who was also a manipulator and a controller.

A few years went by, and I realized I was being controlled and I really got mad at him. And you know what God said to me? He said, "It's just as much your fault as it is his, because you let him do it". See, we'd like to blame everything on everybody else. But there's always a responsibility on both sides. There's always two sides to everything. In John chapter 5, we see a man that had been laying by a pool for 38 years, waiting for a miracle. Once a year, an angel came and stirred up this pool of water. It was called the pool of Bethesda. And whoever got in first, got healed. One person out of all the people laying around that pool got healed.

And so, when Jesus came there, there was a lot of sick people laying around. And verse 5 says, "There was a certain man there that had suffered with a deep-seated and a lingering disorder for thirty-eight years". Now, we don't know what his disorder was, but apparently, he couldn't get around with any ease because he'd been laying there for 38 years. Verse 6 says, "When Jesus noticed him lying there helpless", and we know how compassionate Jesus was, so you gotta get the meat out of this. Jesus saw him, "Helpless, knowing that he had been in that condition a long time", he said to him, "Do you want to become well? Are you really in earnest about getting well"?

And I would like to say to you tonight, I doubt that there's anybody in here that had a bigger mess in their life, than I did when I started trying to walk with God. I'd been sexually abused for about 15 years by my dad. I was 18 years old. I thought when I got away from home, got away from him, I got away from the problem. I didn't realize I took the problem with me in my soul. See you can get away from something, but if you still got the results of all of it in you, then that's the part that has to be healed. And only God can do that. Only he can get inside you and heal those kind of hurts that you don't even know how to talk about.

And I want you to know tonight, and believe me that if you will stop putting things off, and you will begin to not just go to church, and believe your name is written in the lamb's book of life, that Jesus is coming again. But if you will start to really walk with the Holy Spirit, and be led and guided by the Holy Spirit, listen to what he says, spend time in prayer. Don't make your own plans. Don't plan and then pray that God will make your plans work. Pray and then plan, after God leads you and guides you. "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". Part of the great "Lord's prayer". "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom come".

We need to all be concerned more about the Kingdom of God than ourselves individually. And there's not enough concern corporately about the kingdom. There's a world out there that's going to hell. And we need to be busy turning on the lights. Any person, no matter what kind of mess your life is in, if you'll begin to do things God's way, it'll take time. It's not gonna happen overnight. It'll probably take longer than you'd like it to. But God will heal your life, and he'll heal your soul, and he'll heal your mind, and your emotions.

And you can be peaceful and joyful, and you know, what does anybody want other than to be happy? I mean, it's not really a big house that you want or a new car or a promotion at work. You wanna be happy. You wanna believe that you've got a right relationship with God, that he loves you. God loves you. And so, this man had been laying there and he said, "Do you really wanna get well"? And so, I guess I'll just throw that out tonight. Do you really wanna get well? And if you do and you're serious about it, then I promise you that if you will follow God and do things his way, the day will come when you'll be able to say, "God has taken it all and turned it out for my good". Amen?

Well, now here's the interesting part in verse 7. The invalid said, "Sir," here comes the excuses. "I have nobody when the water is moving to put me into the pool: but while I'm trying to come [into it] Myself, somebody else always gets ahead of me". So what's he saying? I've been laying here 38 years, and nobody has ever come and put me into the pool. And even if I try, somebody always gets ahead of me.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm a little aggressive. And in 38 years, I could've wiggled. I mean, 38 years times 365 days, that's a lot of time to wiggle. I could've wiggled and squiggled my way over and I would've been laying on the very edge of that pool. And I mean, the first bubble I would have fallen in. But see, he was just lying there waiting for somebody to do it for him, and feeling sorry for himself because of his condition. That's why Jesus said, "Do you really want to get well"? "Are you serious about getting well"?

Now, let's look at another man who had a completely different spirit. Little man named Zacchaeus. Luke 19, the first six verses. "Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. And a man was there by the name of Zacchaeus: and he was a chief tax collector and he was wealthy". Now, tax collectors were the most hated of all, and he was wealthy because he'd been stealing the people's money. The way the tax collectors worked was the Roman government required a certain amount of tax, but then they were free to add on to that whatever they wanted to.

So that's why the people, even though they were Jews, the Jews hated them because they were stealing their money. So, he was a tax collector, and he had gotten wealthy off of the backs of taking advantage of other people. "He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd". So, let's just say that he had a disadvantage. I don't know how short he was. Let's say he was 4'10", who knows? But he couldn't see, he wanted to see Jesus. "I want to see Jesus". And he couldn't see over the crowd. So he went and he climbed a tree.

Now, you know, a lot of people wouldn't have bothered. They would've just said, "Oh, man, I'm short. Been short all my life. I've missed so many things because I've been short. If I was just a tall man, then I could see Jesus". And just as Jesus walked under that tree, the Bible says he looked up and he saw Zacchaeus. And he said, "Come down here. I'm going to your house today". Now, why did Zacchaeus didn't call for Jesus? He was just sitting in the tree watching. But when Jesus got there, I think Jesus' spirit felt something that he liked. I think he felt some real determination and some, "I'm not gonna get left out".

And can you imagine how mad it made all the pharisees, when Jesus went to that tax collector's house and had dinner with him? Are you gonna be the kind of person that sleeps one more night with the frogs? That lays by the pool 38 years? Or are you gonna climb a tree? Amen? What's gonna be your choice? Are you in a pit? And you don't know how to dig your way out? Let me end with a little story.

"There was a farmer who had a donkey that fell into a well, and the animal cried, pitiful were his cries. For hours the farmer tried to figure out, 'how am I gonna get this donkey out of this well'? And he finally decided, 'well, he's old, and I just don't think it's worth it. So, I'm gonna call some of my neighbors, and we're just going to shovel dirt in there and cover him up and just suffocate him, and let him die'. So, he called over his neighbors and they were shoveling dirt in there and he was crying, pitiful cries. And then pretty soon he got quiet, and they wondered why? They kept shoveling dirt for a little bit and didn't hear anything from him. So, they went and looked down in there, and lo and behold, every time they'd throw in a shovel of dirt, he'd shake it off, and get on top of it. And they threw so much dirt on him, that the dirt got up to the top of the well, and he just got out there and walked off".

So, you've got a choice, you can shake your dirt off. Actually, let it become a benefit to you to help you get to where you wanna be. Or you can just stay in the well and keep crying, mad at everybody else because nobody's coming along and doing it for you.

Father, I pray in Jesus' name that people here tonight who have not received you, would make a decision that this is their night to do so. And that people who have not really fully surrendered, would do that. And you would fill them, as they open up all the rooms in their life, that you would fill them with the power of your Holy Spirit. We need you, Holy Spirit. We need you. And I pray that people would make decisions about things that they know you have spoken to them, and they have not done. And that they would start obeying you. I ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.