Joyce Meyer - Are You Working From Approval or For Approval? - Part 2

TOPICS: Approval, Inferiority, Self-esteem

Don't get legalistic with God about your giving. Don't count it up. Just every opportunity you get to be a blessing to somebody, whether it's giving them a compliment, praying for them, encouraging them, or hearing of a financial need that they need. At my staff, I have them give me a list, each department manager, every quarter, of people in our own ministry that they know really have a serious need. And we have a fund there called "Love in action" where employees can give into that for other employees. And then if there's not enough to meet the needs, then Dave and I take care of the rest of it.

And what's the sense in helping the whole world if I'm not gonna help my own people? That doesn't make any sense. Look around you: listen to what people say. God's love is not based on what we do, but if we know how much he loves us, we're gonna want to do all these things. And this is the whole point that I'm trying to get across to you today. You don't have to do these things to prove to God that you love him or to get him to do something for you. If you spend a lot of time receiving God's love. Remind yourself every day, "God loves me. I'm special. I'm the apple of his eye. He rejoices over me with joy. He sings when I get up in the morning".

And the Bible says all that, all that. There's a scripture and it says that we should "Acknowledge every good thing that is in us". We should acknowledge every good thing that is in us. How many people do that? We're always acknowledging every bad thing that's in us. Listen to this scripture, Zephaniah 3:17, this is amazing, "The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a mighty one, a Savior [who saves]! He will rejoice over you with joy: he will rest [in silent satisfaction]", now, listen to this, "And in his love he will be silent and make no mention [of past sins, or even recall them]: he will exult over you with singing".

So, when you do something wrong and you admit it, talk to God about it, are willing to turn away from it, and you ask for, and receive his forgiveness, if you keep being reminded of that sin, continue to feel guilty about it, it's not God at all, it's the devil. It's the devil doing that. Or you've gotten so good at it, you're doing it yourself. Oh, I was great at feeling guilty. I didn't feel right if I didn't feel wrong. And so, there's a few things that I say every day, and I hope it makes the devil good and mad: "God loves me, he approves of me". Come on, I'm not trying to be a super, spiritual, smart aleck. Can you say that? "God approves of me".

And then, right away, you know, the devil whispers in your ear, "Well, how can he approve of you with the things you do"? I'm not talking about, he doesn't approve of everything we do, but he approves of you. And the more you know that he approves of you, the less wrong things you will do. If you've got, say you've got some kind of an addiction, and you're trying so hard to break it. And you're so frustrated because it never works. Matter of fact, the harder you try, the more frustrated you get. Guess what? This really helped me when God told me this, because I spent a lot of time being frustrated.

And when God showed me this, "Works of the flesh equals frustration," I mean, I started watching, and every time I got frustrated, it was because I was trying to do something that I should have turned over to God. And trusted him to do. Amen? God loves you so much, and he approves of you. And he created you with his own hand in your mother's womb. I wanna challenge you to start watching for God's love in your life. 1 John 4:16 was a life-changer for me. It says, "And we know (and understand, recognize)", say, "Recognize. And (are conscious of, by observation)", that means looking for it, "(and by experience) and we believe (adhere to, and put faith in and rely on) the love that God has for us".

Now, this was life-changing for me because it says we should be conscious and aware of the love that God has for us. That means you should watch for, and I even keep a journal, of all the little special things that God does for me. Things that might not even make any sense to anybody else, but they just... Blessed me so much. God challenged me, a couple of weeks ago, told me that I'd stopped releasing my faith for favor, and I had. You know, sometimes you can just start taking things for granted, or assuming, or presuming, and he just reminded me that I had stopped releasing my faith for favor.

I think every day we should say, "I have favor with God, and God gives me favor with man". Don't go out the door without saying, "I have favor everywhere I go today". Well, the first day after I received favor, Dave and I went out to eat, and somebody, the waitress came over and said, "Somebody in the restaurant paid for your meal". Well, you say, "Well, yeah, sure, you're Joyce Meyer". Well, I've paid for people's meals that aren't Joyce Meyer. They're just normal, regular people. And then I had, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't tell you this, certainly don't mean it to sound like I'm full of myself, but I thought this was amazing.

I went out to a restaurant the other day to eat with my kids, and when I left the restaurant, I was going out the door to go to the parking lot, and somebody pulled up, rolled their window down, and said, "You are beautiful"! And drove off. Okay, do you know what I think? I take things like that as being God. I mean, who just rolls their window down and screams something like that out the window? "Oh, well, they knew who you were". Well, maybe they did, maybe they didn't. I don't care, but I felt like it was God, because we'd been having a conversation in the restaurant about doing what you believe God tells you to do and not letting fear talk you out of it. And I felt like God was just saying, "I really liked that conversation". You will get so excited with your life if you'll start to really look at all the ways that God shows his love. I mean, little, little ways. Little ways.

I remember years and years and years ago, I like pumpkin bread, zucchini bread. I don't have time to cook or bake, wouldn't even, I mean, I tried to make a tuna casserole a few years ago, and it was so dry you couldn't have swallowed it. And I used to cook all the time. I was a great cook, but I haven't cooked now for so many years, it's like a joke. But way back, years ago, when I was just really getting really busy in ministry, I remember saying to the Lord, one day, "Lord, I'd really love to have some zucchini bread".

Well, next conference, next meeting I went to, I had meetings in st. Louis then, we hadn't started traveling a lot. Somebody brought me a box that, an iron. I thought, "Why is somebody giving me an iron"? But inside of it was a loaf of zucchini bread. Now, you can think what you want to, but those kinds of things are not accidents. Well, guess what? I have somebody now that makes it for me anytime I want it. "If you delight yourself in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart".

Come on, I want you to get this today. I just felt like loving on you this morning. Just telling you how special you are. Yes, we do things wrong. We all do things wrong. And we should grieve over our sin. But grieve, repent, get over it, and go on. Otherwise, you're going to spend your time mad at yourself your whole walk with God. Stop focusing on everything you do wrong and focus more on what you can do for other people. Let me say again, the best way that you can show your love for God is by doing things for other people. Maybe you need to tell somebody they're beautiful. Have you ever done a little something for somebody and them said to you, "You just changed my whole day"?

Come on, you've had people say that to you, right? Well, isn't that amazing to be able to change somebody's whole day just by telling them they look nice or giving them a compliment or telling them God loves them. That's what we need to live for. Living for God is living to help other people, to be a blessing to other people. And it's just about how to get over yourself, how to learn to live unselfishly. That's what it means to take up your cross and follow him. The Amplified Bible says, "Take up your cross, forget yourself, lose sight of yourself and all your own interests".

Now that doesn't mean you never do anything for yourself or that you sacrifice everything, all your wants and desires. But it does mean that... See, you don't even need to focus all the time on what's wrong with you. My gosh, I got so many things wrong with me. But I got a lot of things right with me too. And you know what? Most of you have more things right with you than you have wrong with you. But if you focus on those one or two little things that are wrong, the more the devil can blow that up to where you feel like that's all that you are. And it keeps you from receiving from God.

Let's talk about grace for just a few minutes. Grace is undeserved and unearned favor, which we hear that all the time. That's what it is. But you know what, if you do a thorough study of the word, it's a lot more than that. Grace is the power of the Holy Spirit helping us do with ease what we could never do ourselves with any amount of struggle and effort. Did you hear that? Grace is the power of the Holy Spirit. He is the spirit of grace. "When the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall receive power to be my witnesses". It doesn't say to do witnessing. It says, "To be my witnesses".

And see, that's what we need. It's not so much about doing, but just being. If every person who is a Christian would actually get out in the world and just be one. You'd save more souls than knocking on every door in your city and telling people about Christ. Acts 1:8 doesn't say when the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall do witnessing. It says, "You shall be my witnesses". You become a witness everywhere that you go. You know, I think it's funny 'cause people in the world don't know what it is, 'cause they don't know what the anointing is, but people sometimes, and I'm talking about people that don't know me as this, Joyce Meyer, but they'll just say, "There's just something about you".

See. The girl that helped with my makeup this morning, she said, she was telling me about this one woman, and she said, "I don't know what it is, but I just like you". And see, that's God's presence on our life. And that presence will give you favor everywhere that you go. Amen? I mean, my husband had to give up playing in his little golf league when I went into ministry, and that was a big sacrifice then 'cause he liked that weekly golf game with the guys. And now, God's given him favor, and he's played on every great golf course in the country. Let me tell you something. God told me, one time, "You take care of my business, Joyce, and I'll always take care of yours".

So, I'm here today just taking care of God's business, and I fully expect him to take care of me today. Whatever I need, he'll take care of, and he'll do the same thing for you. Grace is the power, here it says, "To change you". Oh, there's so many great scriptures. In James 4, well, 4-6, he's talking about, if you love the world, then you're like an unfaithful wife having an illicit love affair. But in verse 6 it says, "But he gives us more and more grace (power of the Holy Spirit, to meet this evil tendency and all others fully)".

I don't even know how to tell you what it meant to me when I realized 40 some-odd-years ago, finally, that only the grace of God could change me. I couldn't change me. Only God's grace. So, you never want to just "Try" to change. You always say to God, "Change me". He's our helper. He's our comforter. He's the one who convicts us of sin and convinces us of righteousness. Amen? Now, you know, I'm being really nice to you guys this morning. Usually I come in here and rip things apart. But like I said, I just felt like loving up on you a little bit this morning. Amen?

Now, if you happen to wanna stay for the next service, it's gonna be a little rougher. I'm gonna talk about the people-pleasing disease. So, if you're not doing anything, hang around. "Go to church twice in one day"!? You don't have to be frustrated anymore. If you read Paul's discourse in Romans, chapter 7, verse 15 through chapter 8, verse 1, it sounds so much like us.

"Oh, I wanna do the right thing, but the thing I wanna do, I can't do it. I'd try to do the right thing, but I always do the wrong thing. Well, if I do that, then it must not really be me. It must be the sin princ...", you can read that and just think, "Was he nuts"? But the beautiful thing about it is then he says, "O wretched man that I am"! And sometimes we feel that way. It's like, "I try so hard to be good, and I always end up being bad. Who is gonna help me? Is there any help for me"?

"O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? O thank God! He will! Through Christ"! Who's gonna deliver you? He will. Who's gonna help you do everything that you need to do? He will. And don't take the credit yourself when you get a breakthrough and a victory. Okay, now, listen just a moment. You heard me read the scripture about salvation, how you receive Christ. And if you're here today or if you're watching from home and you have not surrendered your life to Jesus, why don't you just reach that hand of faith out this morning and just receive.

The Bible says that, "Jesus died for us while we were still yet in sin". When we didn't care at all, he died for us. And God proves his love for us by the fact that he sent his only son to die a terrible death in our place. He had us in mind. Loved you that much. So, if you've not received this great gift of salvation, you can this morning and just gonna pray a simple prayer. You say, "It can't be that easy, surely I gotta go out and get myself straightened out before".

No, here's the joke, you can't straighten yourself out. You'll be frustrated the rest of your life unless you just receive what's freely being offered today and then you go from there. Then from there, you start changing. You don't have to change first, he changes you afterwards. So, if you're here, today, and you say, "I wanna be a Christian," and you know what that means? It means to be a follower of Christ. "I wanna be a Christian, I've never really surrendered my life, or I've not fully surrendered my life".

Maybe you need to do that. Or you've backslidden and been away from Christ. I wanna pray with you this morning just as we close. If that's you, will you lift your hand up and let me just see where you're at? Come on, all over the place, look at that. Wow, that's awesome, awesome. Okay, now, I'm gonna ask you to do one more thing for me, and I'm not doing it to embarrass you, but I'm gonna ask you to stand up if you really mean business. Come on. Here's the reason why I'm asking you to do that. If you won't take a stand in here in front of all these people who love you, you'll never go out those doors and take a stand. So, you need to take a stand for Christ in here. "Yes, I want Jesus in my life". Okay, let's pray this prayer together, all of us.

Father, God, I love you. I believe that Jesus died for me. He paid for my sins. And I know I don't deserve it, but I receive Christ into my life right now. Come and live in me. Forgive all my sins, and let me start fresh. I love you. I need you. And I know that you love me. Take me just the way I am. Now, make me what you want me to be. I believe I'm saved. I'm on my way to heaven, and I'm gonna enjoy the trip. Amen.