Joyce Meyer - Change

Well, thank you for joining me today on «Enjoying Everyday Life». This is a heart-to-heart message, from my heart to yours. I know that many of you right now are going through changes in your life. And I cannot even imagine if we had all the changes that all of you that are watching are going through, we’d probably have a mountain. And some of them are changes that you’re excited about. You’ve provoked those changes. And, you know, we don’t mind change when we’re the ones that make the change. But when somebody else changes, and what they change affects us, then a lot of times we don’t like it. But if you’re going to ever have the courage to change and not be miserable the whole time it’s taking place…

Now, I want you to listen to this, because it’s very simple, but profound. You have to change your mind about change. You have to not see it as a negative, but look at it in a positive way. Yes, something has ended, but there’s a new beginning. You can’t imagine how it could be any better than the thing you gave up because we always lose something before we know what the new thing is going to be. And so, you let go, but then you have fear that there’s going to be nothing to take hold of. I can’t even imagine how Abraham felt when God told him to leave his country and his family and all that he knew and «Go to the place that I will show you». He didn’t even tell him where to go.

Just imagine Abraham just packing up his tent and getting his family and just starting to wander off through the desert. I would have probably been more tempted to say, «Well, you tell me where I’m going, and then I’ll decide if I wanna leave where I’m at». But you know, we’re always, change is just part of life. And you have to realize that if you’re resistant to change, you’re just going to be unhappy all the time. George Bernard Shaw said, «Those who cannot change their mind cannot change anything else». I like this one. John Rockefeller said, «Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great». I wonder how many people just hang on to what they know is safe, rather than going for something that they really wanna go for, but they let fear hold them back.

I wonder how many of you right now, there’s something you believe that God wants you to do, there’s something you have a desire to do in your heart, maybe it’s something as simple as color your hair, or get a different hairstyle, or change careers. Just the thought of something different can be frightening, but it doesn’t have to be if you can look at it in a very positive way. Now, I said, I don’t mind changes that I provoke, because obviously, I want the change. But when it’s hard is when somebody else changes and you’re affected by that change. Like someone told me recently that after 20 years of marriage, her husband walked in one night, she had no idea that he was unhappy, no idea there was a problem at all, and he just simply said, «I don’t wanna be married anymore». He said he didn’t have a girlfriend. He wasn’t because he had another woman. He just simply didn’t want to be married anymore.

And then somebody else told me a similar story. The man just walked in. He said, «I don’t wanna be a dad. I don’t want the whole thing. It’s just not what I wanna do». Well, that leaves a woman devastated for a period of time. First of all, you have to fight feeling rejected, feeling like it was your fault if you would have done something different. I don’t know why when other people have problems that we always take it that it’s our fault. You know, I was sexually abused by my father when I was a child and a teenager, and I felt guilty about that for years and years and years. But I didn’t do it, he did it. He had a problem, so why did I feel guilty? It’s a ploy of the devil to just make you miserable. He loves to make people feel guilty.

Anyone, I heard this statement in a book, I read this statement in a book, and it just, I thought it was awesome. «Anyone who thinks things can always stay the way they are is a fool». I asked my daughter, this morning, I said, «How do you feel about change»? I said, «You don’t seem like it bothers you». And she said, «I guess I just know that change is part of life». And I think that’s the way we have to look at it. Change is part of life. We change, our bodies change. And if yours hasn’t changed yet, just wait, because it will. Our desires change. We may wanna do something and we loved doing it for four or five years, now, all of a sudden, we don’t wanna do it anymore.

Well, you know, that’s one of the ways that I can tell when God is finished with something and he wants me to do something new. Now, I don’t just jump every time I don’t like something for a day, but if I just keep staying there and keep staying there and keep staying there, then that’s one of the ways that I can tell what God’s trying to say to me. Our friends change. You might have a really close friend for years and years, and now they’re not your friend at all. Nothing happened. Their life went one way, and your life went another. The world around us changes, and boy, is it changing now. And many of the changes we don’t like. That’s why if you’re a believer in Christ, you know that he’s got you covered and he’s gonna protect you, and you don’t have to live in fear in these last days. Change is absolutely everywhere. Prices change. Styles change.

Somebody just told me, this morning, they were gonna do a deep dive into their closet and get rid of everything. She said, «I wanna change. I wanna change my style of dress. I wanna go more classic». Well, that’ll be kind of exciting. Now, you know, my hair will always be the exact same way, so don’t expect that to change. But I do change my mind about a lot of different things. Somebody mentioned, this morning, that I’ve done a good job of changing things in the ministry as to keep up with the changes in the world. I remember when we didn’t even know what a computer was. And I remember the first person that talked to us about getting on the internet, Dave and I said, «Ah, we don’t want to mess with that». He said, «This is gonna be the future: you need to get on the internet». «Nah, we don’t want, we’re not gonna mess with that».

Well, we had to change our mind, didn’t we? Now, if you wanna communicate with people, you need to have a computer. And I’ve had to change so many things in the ministry, change the way we did our music: get younger music bands. We did 36 conferences a year, for a long time, and now we’re not doing that many conferences anymore. First of all, I’ve been at this for 48 years, and so, I’ve gotten older during those years because I didn’t start until I was in my '40s. So, you’re thinking, «Now how old does that make you»? Well, I’m 81 ½, and I just plain don’t wanna work as hard as I used to. But I have a great opportunity because I’m on television in a large part of the world, and I’ve written 150 books, and they’re translated into over 100 languages.

My grandson and his wife are in India right now. They may not be when you see this, but when I’m recording it, they’re in India. They adopted a little girl in India, and they’re there waiting for her passport. And they went in a bookstore the other day, and there were my books in Hindi. Well, that’s a wonderful opportunity for me. That’s happened over a large period of time, but all the work that I’ve done, it’s not lost. We just now are getting it to people in a different way. Please don’t get stuck in your ways, and be totally unwilling to change. Because I can tell you, if you won’t change, you will get left, as they say, «In the dust». Everybody else will move on, and you’ll still be back here trying to make the same thing work that used to work.

Now, let’s talk about your mind. What you think about how to change must change. Now, this is talking about changes that we wanna make in ourselves. You know, when you become a Christian, you very quickly start to recognize things, ways you have, and things you do that are not right, according to the Word of God. Or you’ll hear sermons that let you know that certain things are wrong according to the Bible. And the first thing we normally try to do is we try to change ourself. And so, if you wanna change, you have to change your mind about how to change because there’s no amount of just willpower that’s gonna change you. Yes, there’s a certain amount that we can do. We need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. But it is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit working in your life that’s going to change you.

And it happens gradually over a period of time. We change by prayer, including repentance, studying God’s word, and learning to fellowship with God. See, don’t think of God as just being way off in the sky somewhere. Yes, he has a throne in heaven, but he also lives inside of us. Did you hear me? Lives inside of us. In Philippians 4:13 says, «I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me». The Amplified says «I’m ready for anything equal to anything through Christ who infuses inner strength into me». So, let me tell you, whatever changes you are facing right now, don’t be afraid because God loves you, he’s got a good plan for your life, and whatever you’re losing, God can cause whatever you gain to be even better if you’ll give it an opportunity.

So, change your attitude. Ask God to help you change your attitude. And don’t be negative about it. You know, there’s a lot of things that are gonna change whether you like it or not. And so, you need to let 'em change. My son, my baby, he’s now 45. It’s kind of fun having a 45-year-old baby. He lived around the corner from me for many years. I saw him almost every single day. He’d run in the house, run out, grab something, run out. And he and his wife came one day and said, «We’re gonna move to Utah». He and his boys were really into snowboarding, and they went up there a lot to do that. And he hated the weather here. So, he said, «I just wanna move somewhere where it’s cooler and where we can snowboard whenever we want to». And the job that he’s doing here for us, he could do remotely as long as he came in once a month to have meetings.

And so, I didn’t like it when he told me he was gonna move. But he was gonna move, so there was really no point in me being distraught about it. And maybe you’re facing that now. Maybe two months ago, you had a house full of children, maybe now they’re all gone. Well, you don’t have to have the empty nest syndrome where you mourn for years and years because something has changed. My son now comes into town every month and stays about three days, and he stays with us. And so, we probably see him as much in those three days as we saw him in a month when he lived around the corner from us. And we have better quality fellowship because he’s there a lot during those three days. And he always saves a mommy day, which I appreciate. We go out to eat, he takes me shopping, and we get a good chance to catch up. That’s just an example of how something can seem so bad and yet it turned out to be better than what I had. And you may find that.

Some of you are facing some, maybe you’ve lost your job. Well, that’s a shock, nobody wants to lose their job. But that doesn’t mean that God can’t give you one that’s better. So, get a good attitude and a good confession and do your part, look for a job, and stay busy at it, and put in applications, and send out your resume, and you will get a job that’s better than the one that you lost. You see, when we’re used to one thing, we always think nothing could be any better than this, but that is just absolutely not true. Because God is God, if we mess up plan a, or if the world messes up plan a, God can make plan b be better than plan a ever would have been. Why? Because he’s God. He can do what he wants to. All things are possible with God.

I love this scripture. «Now unto him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all that we would ever dare to hope, ask, or think, to him be glory». That’s Ephesians 3:20. He can do way beyond anything we could ever hope or think for. You can change. You can navigate change. You can survive change. You can change your mind today about change. Now, you know, the Bible’s full of rare individuals who dared to believe things could change. Nehemiah is a good example. Where he lived, the land was in a state of ruin. Their walls were torn down, which meant they had no protection from their enemies. But he dared to believe that they could be rebuilt. Most everybody else had given up.

Well, «Now we’re just prey to the enemy, and our city’s ruined. And, o, woe is me. What are we gonna do»? But nobody was doing anything. However, Jeremiah, I mean, Nehemiah came along and he said, «We can do this». Nehemiah 1:2-4 and 2:17–18, «Hanani, one of my brothers, came from Judah with some other men, and I questioned them about the Jewish remnant that had survived the exile, and also about Jerusalem. And they said to me, 'those who survived the exile and are back in the province are in great trouble and disgrace. Because the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates has been burned with fire'». Well, that left him totally wide open to any enemy that wanted to come in. And he said, «'when I heard these things, I sat down and I wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven'».

Now, he was mourning, but he was praying at the same time. So, while he was mourning, he obviously was believing that God could do something. «Then I said to them, 'you see the trouble we’re in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, and let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, so we will no longer be in disgrace'». And I don’t have time to tell you the whole story, but I mean, they had to fight the good fight of faith to build that wall. I mean, it got down to the point where some were building and some were just protecting them from enemies but he wouldn’t give up. He refused to give up. And boy, that’s a great quality to have, be the kind of person that refuses to give up. Be the kind of person that’s determined to have the good life that God said you can have.

Now, I can just sense it right now. There are some people watching and you are hurting so bad from something that has changed in your life and you just feel like everything’s over. Well, this is God’s word to you today that it can be fixed. God can do a new thing. Matter of fact, God loves to do new things. «And I also told them about the gracious hand of my God that was on me and what the king had said to me. And they replied, 'well, let us start building'». See, sometimes all people need is a leader. They just need one person to say, «We can do it». You know, you can be that person that can say, «We can do it». «So they began the good work and they worked together. They prayed continuously. They fought enemies and opposition, but they finished the wall,» and they had a big party.

You know, Joseph believed that God could work something out of an evil and a painful situation. His brothers sold him as a slave. And he went through many different painful situations, spent 13 years in prison for something that he did not do. And it just seemed like everybody he helped would go off and forget about him. But every place that Joseph went, God gave him favor. Even in the jail, he had favor. And to make a long story short, he ended up interpreting a dream for Pharaoh, and Pharaoh put him in charge of everything. Nobody had more power than Joseph except Pharaoh. So, he went from the pit to the palace, and you can too.

Daniel believed he would not be left alone in the lion’s den. Peter believed he could be forgiven for betraying Christ and still be used by God. A woman who was sick 18 years believed she could be healed. She pressed through the crowd. Sometimes you gotta press. Don’t give up. Wherever you’re at right now, don’t give up. Don’t accept the devil’s lie that life is over and you’ll never have a good life. After being sexually abused by my dad, I mean, I thought «I’ll always have a second-rate life».

Well, boy, when you get in the Word of God and you start learning what God has to say about that, no, you never have to have a second-rate life because somebody else did you an injustice. God will actually give you double for your trouble if you trust him to do that. And yes, I had a bad beginning, but I’m having a great finish, and it’s not over yet. Paul believed that all Christians could do whatever they needed to do in life through Christ, who was their strength. I want you to believe that good things can happen to you, no matter what you’re facing right now. Come on, get a smile on your face, get excited, get stirred up, and say, «Something good is going to happen to me».

And I understand. If somebody’s left your life that you loved, if you’ve lost a loved one, they’ve passed on to be with the Lord, or maybe somebody you love died and you don’t know whether or not they were saved, that’s concerning you, cast all your care on God and enjoy the happy life that he’s given you, because whatever has changed has changed, and there’s probably nothing you can do about it. So, you might as well get in line with it and let God give you a brand-new, wonderful, powerful, exciting beginning.

We need to understand the anatomy of change. Change is a process, and sometimes it’s a longer one than we would like it to be. God has changed me. I mean, from the time I got into a serious relationship with God 48 years ago till now, I feel like my husband has been married to 20 different women. We don’t change all at once. We don’t receive Christ, go to bed, and get up the next day and we’re a totally different person.

We change as we learn, as we grow, as we study the word. Change is frightening because we like to be in control. Even if we’re willing to let go of what’s behind, we’re afraid that we’re not ever going to be able to take hold of anything that’s going to be as good as what we lost. Change occurs when we confront fear, not because we don’t feel it. And so I will just tell you, you have to have courage to change. And that’s really the main thing that I wanna say to you today is be courageous and face change boldly, believing that no matter what has happened, God can work good out of it.

Romans 8:28 says, «All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to his purpose». I’m changing all the time. We’ve had so many changes at the ministry this year, and I don’t know what’s still to come, but I’m ready for it because I trust God that he’s in control of my life. And you know what? He’s in control of yours, too. God loves you very much. You’re very special to him, and he has a good plan even in the midst of the changes that you’re going through. Thank you for being with me today. We love you, and we pray for you on a regular basis.