Joyce Meyer - 40 Things the Word Does for You (08/17/2019)
Joyce Meyer stresses that making God's Word a daily priority is key to truly enjoying life, as it brings freedom, healing, protection, and many rewards. She uses John 8:32 and other verses to show how the Word—like seed—produces fruit when consistently planted in our hearts, leading to transformation and victory over every problem.
Why Prioritizing God's Word Changes Everything
Welcome to Enjoying Everyday Life. I'm so glad that you have joined us today. And you know, when you make studying the Word of God a priority in your life, I believe that you will enjoy your life much, much more. Matter of fact, I think it's about the only way that you're ever going to be able to enjoy your life.
So, we've got our studio audience with us today and just want to continue to share with you how important I feel the Word of God is in our everyday lives. And you know, it's great to hear somebody else teach the Word. That's always beneficial. It's great to listen to CDs or things that you download from your computer, whatever format you can get it into, get it.
But it's also good for you to study the Word of God yourself, to get with God yourself, and to trust Him to bring understanding that will be life-changing to you. And so, I have a devotional that's out called Wake Up to the Word. And I want people to form a habit of just making that first thing. And devotionals are great for that because they're not really very long, and it's a good way. I call it like a little spiritual vitamin.
The Rewards of Diligently Seeking God's Word
And so, I put together, and we actually have this online, if you feel like that you can't keep up with me today and you want to get copies of this. It's online. It's called 40 Things the Word of God Does for You. So, I probably won't get to every single one of them, but you're going to get the point that I'm trying to make.
You know, I believe if we know that there's a reward at the end of our effort, it encourages us even more so to make that effort. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know, I don't study the Word just to get a reward. I study the Word because Jesus is the Word, and I love Him. But He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
And the Bible says that He's coming soon, and He'll have His wages and His rewards with Him. And so, studying the Word of God and obeying the Word of God does bring many, not just a few, but many rewards in our life. And I quickly found 40. Now, there's much more than that, but it's kind of an interesting thing to do.
The Word as Seed: Planting for a Great Harvest
So, let me start with this. This is a peach seed. Now, the Bible says that the Word of God is like seed, that the Holy Spirit sows the seed, and that's the Word of God. And depending on what kind of heart it's sown into, which is us, that determines what kind of fruit and harvest that we're going to get.
So, this is a peach seed, and if I were to sow this in some good fertile ground, I would ultimately have a peach tree with lots of peaches. So, it's interesting to think that I can study the Word of God and get not one kind of fruit, but all kinds of fruit, especially, and I want you to get this, especially if you're consistent.
You know, 2 Corinthians 3 says, if you continue in my Word, if you continue, then you will be transformed into the image of Jesus Christ. And so, it's not what we do right one time that changes our life, but what we persistently do right. Now, I've been studying God's Word, seriously studying the Word for over 40 years.
So, I now have a great deal of victory in my life. And you have no idea what kind of a mess I was when I started. So, no matter how bad you feel like your life is right now, let me assure you that the Word of God has the answer to every problem that you have.
Freedom Through Knowing and Applying Truth
So, the very first scripture is John 8, 32. The Word of God is truth. And John 8, 32 says, if you know the truth, the truth will make you free. Now, it's not just head knowledge, but it's actually applying the Word in our lives.
And so, I really encourage you, anytime you hear the Word, listen to it, but having already made the decision, I'm going to do what I learned today. It doesn't do us any good at all to just have a bunch of information. We need revelation, and we need a heart that's willing to do what God tells us to do.
And one thing about the truth is it confronts the lies in our life. And Satan is a liar. He's the father of lies. He does nothing but lie. And from the time we show up on planet Earth, he's trying to bring deception into our lives by giving us wrong thinking.
Well, the Word of God, the truth of God's Word actually will renew our mind, and it shows us a new way to live. How many of you have found, after you started studying the Word, that you were believing things in your life that absolutely was not true at all? Did any of you discover that? Well, boy, I had lots of that in my life.
Healing and Health from God's Word
Proverbs 4, 20-22 says the Word of God is life, it's healing, and it's health to all of your flesh. Now, that's really interesting because there's a whole lot of people in the world today that don't have any energy, they don't feel good. They might be breathing, but just breathing isn't the kind of life that he's talking about here. This is like the God kind of life.
So, the Word of God brings life. There's life in the Word. It brings health, and it brings healing in every area of our life. And I just want to tell you today that no matter what's going on in your life, Jesus is interested in healing you everywhere you hurt.
When I talk about healing, I'm not just talking about your physical body, although I will say that feeling good is extremely beneficial to every area of our lives. But I'm talking about he can heal you mentally, emotionally, financially, socially. Maybe you don't feel like you have good relationships. Well, there's answers in God's Word for every single problem that you have.
So, this is what Proverbs 4, 20-22 says. My son, attend to my words. Now, to be attentive is not a glance. To be attentive means that I look, I read, I study, I ponder, I pray. I might do it over and over and over. Attend to my words, consent, and submit to my saying.
Submitting to the Word for True Healing
So, it doesn't just say read, it says submit to what the Word says. Let them not depart from your sight. Keep them in the center of your heart. Meditate on the Word. For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all of their flesh.
Psalm 107, 20. He sends forth His Word and He heals them. And He rescues them from the pit and from destruction. Well, I tell you what, a lot of people living in some kind of a pit, like a low, depressed area where there's no life, there's no light. I was in a pit.
You know, Joseph was a young man in the Bible who was thrown into a pit and he ended up living in the palace. And I believe that we can have that same experience. He lifts us up out of the pits of life and He sets our feet on solid ground. He sends forth His Word and He heals us. And He delivers us.
You know, a Word can change your day. A Word can change your life. A Word can encourage you. A Word can discourage you. God's Word is full of healing power that never does us anything but something good.
Protection and Shielding Power of Scripture
Psalm 18:30. The Word protects us. I like that. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff going on out there that's after us all the time. There are people that don't like us and they want to talk about us and say all kinds of things. And there's disease and there's the devil and demons and all kinds of stuff.
And so, I love this that the Word protects us. Psalm 18:30. As for God, His way is perfect. The Word of the Lord is tested and tried. Now, here it comes. He is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him.
So, you know, I think it's safe to say that we are in a war. The Bible says that we are soldiers in the army of God. And that we war, not with flesh and blood, but with principalities and powers and wickedness in high places. And God's given us armor. And He's given us weapons.
And so, who in their right mind would want to go to battle without a shield? A shield would be very valuable. Let's just say it's a big shield that covers you front, sides, and behind. Well, the Word of God is a shield to all those who take refuge and put their trust in Him.
Active Partnership: Putting On God's Word
We've got to pay attention to some of these little words, who take refuge and put. You know, the word put, P-U-T, is a huge word in the Bible. It says, put on the full armor of God. Put off the old man. Put on the new man. We're partners with God.
We can't just passively sit by and think, well, I own a Bible. I hope it works in my life. The Word's not going to help you just because you've got it on your bookshelf somewhere. We have to study, study, study the Word of God.
And we don't have to, like God's not going to love us if we don't. Something I learned a long time ago, I was studying and kind of doing it out of obligation at that time. Felt like, you know, God was going to not be happy with me if I didn't study the Word.
And one day he whispered in my heart, and he said, stop acting like you're doing me a favor when you study. I already know the book. I wrote it. You're the one that needs to learn it. See? So, this is something, honestly, when I share with you to study the Word, this is something I'm asking you to do for yourself.
Prosperity and Stability from Meditating on Scripture
I mean, if we have any intelligence at all, and we have a problem, and somebody says, do this and you'll get better, then we don't have anybody to blame if we don't do this so we can get better. What good would it do you to go to a doctor if he said, here, take these, take this pill, you'll get better, and we take them home and set them on a shelf and say, I don't want to take those.
Well, the Word of God is medicine for every area that heals us. I mean, it's actually medicine for our soul. It heals our soul. The Word brings stability, fruitfulness, and fulfillment. And all that we do will prosper.
Is there anybody here who enjoys wasting your time? Is there anybody here who wants to just work and work and work at something and never get a good result? Well, no, we don't want to do that. But listen to this scripture.
And he shall be like a tree, firmly planted and tended by the streams of water, ready to bring forth its fruit in its season. And its leaf shall not fade or wither. And everything, everything he does shall prosper and come to maturity.
Giving God's Word First Place Daily
Who is this he? He who gives the Word of God first place in his life and who studies, meditates, ponders, and lives out the Word by day and by night. If you have not given God's Word a place of priority in your everyday life, you say, everyday, Joyce? Sunday morning's not enough.
How many people believe in God? They really do believe in God. They've received Christ as their Savior. They believe that Jesus died on the cross for them and that he was resurrected from the dead. They're hoping that someday they'll go to heaven, which really, if you know the Word, you can know that you're going to go to heaven, not just hope that you will.
So many people, you can ask them, do you believe you'll go to heaven when you die? And it's amazing how many people say, well, I hope so. Well, see, that person doesn't know the Word of God, because if you know the Word, then you can have assurance of that.
But how many people just, they believe they may go to church every single Sunday, and yet they have no victory in their life? They don't know the Word at all for themselves? You know, there have been times in the past in history when large denominations encourage people not to try to study the Word for themselves, because they felt that the pastors and the priests were the only ones that could possibly understand it.
The Inherent Power and Creative Force of the Word
Well, this is how God communicates with us. That's it. Jesus is the Word made flesh who came to dwell among us, and every word that is written here is not just black ink on white pages, it's power. There's power in the Word of God. Inherent power in the Word of God.
This seed has life in it. There's power in this seed. It doesn't look like much, but I tell you, there's power in this seed to produce enough peaches for all of us. Wouldn't that be good? We could even take some home. But it has to be planted, and it has to be nurtured, and it has to be cared for.
Well, the Word of God is the same way. There's power in the Bible. There's power in the words in here that can change our lives. And these are some of the things that it says that it does for us.
Now, I'm particularly fond of Hebrews 1, verse 3. It's a bit long, but it just... Man, it encourages me. When I wonder, can God take care of this? You know, will I make it through this? Am I strong enough to do this?
You know, you can always go back to God and trust Him to hold you up. Thank God you don't have to make it on your own. You can trust God to hold you up. If you're in a problem right now in your life, and you feel like you're going to cave in, just say, God, I trust you to hold me up.
Upholding the Universe: Trusting God's Mighty Word
And one of the ways I know that He can hold me up is when I read Hebrews 1, 3. It says, He, being Christ, is the sole expression of the glory of God. The light being, the out-raying, or the radiance of the divine. He is the perfect imprint and very image of God's nature.
Now, listen to this. So powerful. Upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power. So what's keeping the stars in the sky? Why doesn't the moon fall on us and crush us? What's keeping the sun up there today?
What's making the earth rotate on its axis? What keeps the ocean from going further than the sand? God told Job, He said, Who can say to that ocean, you'll go this far and no further? Let me tell you something. We make a big mistake when we forget about how powerful God is.
And if we... just look around at the world. Just look around at nature. Look at the sun and think, God, you're keeping that up there. Amen? Just look at the stars. God, you're keeping those up there. You're making all this work. How in the world does this universe work? God is upholding, maintaining, propelling it. How? He speaks to it. God said, and it was.
Speaking God's Word: From Creative Power to Daily Victory
Well, see, the cool thing about the Word is we can learn to say what God says. Come on now. That's the awesome thing. We can be a mouthpiece for God, and when we not only learn His Word, but we start speaking His Word.
Listen, I don't get up now and start my day and think, Oh, I'm never going to have anything. I say, no, everything I lay my hand to today is going to prosper and succeed. I'm the head and not the tail. I'm above and not beneath. I lend, but I never have to borrow.
Well, you can start saying that when you don't have two pennies in your pocket. And trust me, if you not only say it, but you do the other things that the Word tells you to do, like be a generous giver and trust God and, you know, don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal.
You know, do the things that the Word of God tells you to do, then you will come to the day where everything you lay your hand to will prosper and succeed. And that doesn't mean that you'll never have a problem in your life, but it does mean that God will see you through those problems, and He will uphold you and guide you and maintain you by the power of His Word.
Uh-oh, and now I'm starting to get excited. We've got to be careful when I get excited. God's Word has the power to create. We just kind of talked about that, you know, the creative power of the Word.
Words as Containers: Choosing Life or Destruction
And honestly, when we speak God's Word, and I don't, you know, I'm not trying to take this out of context or out of balance, our words have creative or destructive power. So I always say that words are no different than this cup. They're a container.
And I've actually got some nice, sparkly, fizzy water in here that I like to drink when I speak. But I could put mud in here if I wanted to. So our words are containers for power, and it's up to us whether we're going to put good, positive, life-bringing power in them or if we're going to put something in them that's going to just steal our life and energy.
Psalm 119, verse 2. Those who order their conduct and their conversation according to the Word are blessed. Are you ordering your conduct and your conversation or are you letting your emotions order what you say and what you do?
Blessed, happy, fortunate, and to be envied are they who keep his testimonies and who seek, inquire far and of him and crave him with their whole heart. The Word cleanses us and purifies us. It's amazing.
Cleansing, Guidance, and Strength Against Sin
Psalm 119, 9. How shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed and keeping watch on himself according to your Word. Oh, so what happens if you have a young man or a young woman who learns the Word when they're young and they can begin to apply that Word to their life even when they're young and perhaps they're very passionate and they're making decisions about how they're going to live their life and who they're going to follow and what they're going to do?
The Word of God is a guide. It leads us. It guides us. And it keeps us from getting in trouble. If we follow the Word of God, there's no way we can not have an awesome life. Now, here again, that doesn't mean you're never going to have a problem. Jesus said, in the world, you will have tribulation. But He also said, cheer up, because I have overcome the world.
And I may not get my breakthrough that I want exactly when I want it, but God will come through for me. And I'll tell you, worst case scenario, if you have your problem until Jesus comes back, the good news is, is you're not going to hell. You're going to spend eternity with Him.
And so I think it's worth the commitment if we never saw a breakthrough this side of heaven, although I don't think that's going to be the case. I mean, I've got five scriptures here just about how the Word cleanses and purifies us. The Word reduces the capacity to sin, and it strengthens us against temptation.
You know, before you know the Word, you can just sin all you want to, and it won't even make you uncomfortable. But when you start studying the Word, you can't do the same stuff you used to do, because now, all of a sudden, you've got another law on the inside of you that's kind of rising up and saying, mm, not so much.
Praying Ahead: Reducing Temptation's Power
And you know, I love, and I believe that there's scripture for this. Jesus told His disciples to pray that they would not come into temptation. How many of you know, right now, you know a weak area for you? How many of you know a weak area for you? Okay, well, I do too.
So you know what? I've been aggressively praying, just even in the last couple of weeks, I've started doing this real strongly. Because you know, sometimes we get tired of going around the same stupid mountains all the time, don't we? It's just like, been there, done this, and you know, when, when, when, when are you going to change this?
Well, I've started praying, and I suggest you do, and all of you, God, strengthen me in my weak areas before I'm even tempted. I know I will be tempted, because temptation comes to all of us. The Word of God says temptation must come.
So, it comes, but if we pray ahead of time, that when we're confronted with it, we'll be strong enough to resist it and not get into it, I think we're going to have a lot more victory than we do, waiting until we are so loaded now with temptation that our emotions are all tied up in it, and we don't seem to be able to resist doing the wrong thing, repenting.
Thank God for repentance. Thank God that we can recover. But it's much better to not have to go that route if you don't have to. So, I believe that we can pray, and that the Word will reduce the capacity to sin. Psalm 119, 11, your word have I laid up in my heart that I might not sin against you. Isn't that good? That I might not sin against you.
Revival and Stimulation Through Daily Study
Oh, I love this one. How many of you sometimes feel like you need to be stimulated and revived? Amen? You know, we pray for revival in the world, but how about a personal revival? And you know, a lot of people today take stimulants, things that will perk them up, make them feel better, make them more alert.
Well, this says that your word revives and stimulates us. Amen? You could use the word instead of caffeine. Although, I kind of like to have my caffeine with the Word in the morning. But I'm just trying to make a point that, you know, we don't have to depend on all kinds of artificial things.
You know, I can actually feel enthusiasm entering my soul as I study the Word of God. It actually gets me excited. Now, I don't get so excited when I read the news. I don't, you know, I got, I don't spend much time on it, but I've got this little app on my phone.
And it's really easy to just see what the highlights are of the day. And I mean, it's amazing out of 20 things, there's usually not one good thing there. It's all murder and devastation and liars and cheats and all these kinds of things. But, you know, that's not the case when I get in here.
When I get in here, I'm stimulated and I'm revived. And you know what I feel? I feel I can face another day. How many of you feel like that? You know what? Just sitting in here today, listening to this, I can promise you, you are going to be more excited, more stimulated and more revived as you leave here today. And the same thing for those of you that are watching right now.
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The Rewards of Obedience to God's Word
Thank you for joining us today for the teaching of God's Word, which is very powerful and is extremely valuable to all of our lives. I love doing these studio teachings because I feel like I can just really just look right at you and say, this is what's going to benefit you.
I'm talking today about what the Word of God does for us. Because any time that we do what God tells us to, there's always a reward. Always. And that's so good to keep in mind, you know, that there's a reward for being obedient to God.
And I don't think that we should be obedient to God just to get something. But it is encouraging to know if I keep doing the right thing long enough, I'm going to have a great result in my life. And so, I started this previously on another show. And today, we're going to continue.
Discovering the 40 Benefits of Scripture
I won't get through all 40 of these. I have a list of 40 things the Word of God does for you. And that's just a short list. Let me tell you, it didn't take me all that long to put this together. I mean, there are thousands and thousands of promises in the Word of God.
But I am going to do as many as I can. And there's a list online. You can get on our website and you can find a list of these 40 things that the Word of God does for you. And what would be really cool would be if you would take them then and continue your own study.
You know, this could be a study that could take you two or three months. And boy, what would you learn? And so, let's just continue now. And the thing that we want to look at first today is God's Word is filled with promises to give us mercy and grace.
Mercy and Grace: Undeserved Gifts from the Word
God's Word is filled... It's not filled with messages of, boy, every time you make a little mistake, you're in trouble. It's filled with mercy. You know what mercy is? It's kindness beyond anything that we could ever deserve.
So, when we give mercy to somebody, if you're waiting to find somebody that deserves mercy to give it to them, then that's not mercy. Mercy is giving somebody something that they do not deserve, but you do it because of who you are. Because that's your character, not because of what they do.
And grace, oh my goodness, grace is so amazing. It is undeserved favor. And it is the power to do... It's the power of the Holy Spirit come into our life freely as a gift to help us do what God asks us to do.
So, many times we can read these promises and think, I just don't think I can do that. I don't think I can forgive that person that hurt me so bad. I just don't think I can. Well, you're right. You can't. And I can't either. But God can do it through us.
And He can strengthen us and enable us. And you know, one of the things that helps when I feel, for example, like... You know, I don't have to do this anymore because I've got a lot of experience in the Word of God. But I can remember times when I would feel angry at somebody and I knew that I wasn't supposed to stay that way.
I didn't want to live like that. And I would literally go somewhere and get my Bible out and start reading scriptures about forgiveness and mercy. And you can feel your soul calm down. I mean, it's really just like an ointment that will calm your soul down and at the same time enable you to do what you need to do.
How Studying the Word Builds Patience and Victory
A lot of people say, well, you know, you say you're going to teach... Like I said the other day, I was going to teach on patience. And somebody said to me, well, what are you going to tell people? How are you going to tell them if they're impatient to change? I said, you study the Word.
You know, people may get tired of me saying that, but that is the answer. We study the Word. We study the Word. We study the Word. You don't just try. There is an effort that we put out, but it's not a fleshly effort. It's an effort in the power of God.
And we lean on Him for His grace and His mercy to help us be successful, then when we are successful, we don't take the credit, we give God the glory. And we say, thank you, God, that you enabled me to be an overcomer in this area.
I entreated your favor with my whole heart. Be merciful and gracious to me according to your Word. Now, here's a good one. God's Word gives us good judgment. How many of you could use a little more of that? Anybody here ever just made a really bad decision that cost you a lot of trouble for a long time?
I mean, no, nobody did that. Okay. God's Word gives us good judgment, and I love this, wise and right discernment and knowledge. Man, such a short little Scripture. But look at what... the promise. Good judgment, wisdom, right discernment, and knowledge.
Wisdom, Discernment, and Protection Through the Word
Now, you know what discernment is? Discernment has nothing to do with your natural brain. It has to do with your... the mind of the Spirit, your heart, where you can be looking at something that looks just totally right. Like, well, why wouldn't I want to do that? Or why wouldn't I want to hang out with that person?
And yet something in your heart is just saying, no, no, no, no, no. And really, sometimes for me, it's kind of annoying when I know that something's wrong with somebody, but I can't put my finger on it. When I know it's like, boy, you need to stay away from that or...
But see, God doesn't want us... I mean, He is full of mystery, but He also will forewarn us of things if we will pay attention to Him. And so we need to learn to listen to those kinds of things. So, teach me good judgment, wise and right discernment, and knowledge, for I have believed, trusted, relied on, and clung to Your commandments.
Boy, this is a good one here. Psalm 119, 72. God's Word is better than thousands of gold and silver pieces. Wow. Are we going to pursue the Word of God even halfway as much as we pursue making a living and making money?
Would you be willing to... Let's just say that you had a job, and that job required so much out of you that you could not attend church, you did not have any time to study the Word. Would you say, well, there's nothing I can do, I have to make a living? Or would you be willing to get another job, one where maybe you even made a little less money, but you said, if I have to do without some stuff, I can, but I cannot do without the Word of God.
I have to have God in my life, I have to have His presence, and I have to have the Word. When we begin to honor the Word to that degree, we see God's honor come into our life in an amazing, amazing way. Psalm 119, 72. The law from your mouth is better to me than thousands of gold and silver pieces.
The Word Makes Us Wiser Than Our Enemies
Now, also, the Bible says in Psalm that God's Word makes me wiser than my enemies. How many of you want to be a little smarter than the devil? You know, if somebody's out to get you, wouldn't you like to recognize what they're up to before you're seriously in trouble? I like being wiser than my enemies.
Here's the Scripture. You, through your commandments, make me wiser than my enemies, for your words are ever before me. Psalm 119, 105. Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. It shows us which way to go in life. Should I go right? Should I go left? Should I do this? Shouldn't I do this? What does the Word have to say?
When we are afflicted, God's Word quickens us and gives us life. I love that quickening. Stimulates. Encourages. Psalm 119, 107. I am sorely afflicted. Renew and quicken me. Give me life, O Lord, according to your Word.
You know, these are great Scriptures to pray. You know, you can pray the Word. Fill your prayers with the Word of God. And if you think, well, I just don't even know how to pray about this situation, then find some Scriptures that apply to your situation and just commit those things to memory and confess those Scriptures all throughout the day.
And every time the enemy comes and says, well, this is not going to work, you say, well, listen to this. Listen to this. Oh, boy, here we go. God's Word gives us hope. Wow. There's a Scripture in 1 Peter that I have just come to love, love, love, love. We are born again into an ever-living hope.
Isn't that amazing? When you're born again, when you become a child of God and you receive Christ as your Savior, from that moment on, you are never without hope in your life. And you know what hope is? It's an expectation that something good is going to happen.
Hope, Light, and Inherent Power in God's Word
So that means no matter what you're going through right now, no matter how bad your circumstances are, no matter how long you've had the situation that you've got right now, you can believe that something good is going to happen to you. And you know what? Not only should you believe it, you should say it. I believe we need to speak those words forth in our life.
God's Word gives us hope. Psalm 119, 114, You are my hiding place and my shield. I put my hope in your Word. We're talking about the power that's in the Word of God. The Word of God is a seed. I have a peach seed here. I got this one because it's a big one, but you know what? I could get a little tiny seed. And it still has power.
God's Word has inherent power in it. That means just like there's an ability inside of this seed, if planted and nurtured and cared for, to produce more of what this seed is, to produce right now, it just looks like an ugly dried up seed. But if I plant it, it's going to produce what's inside of it.
There's power in this peach seed to produce peaches if it's planted. And there's power in the Word of God to produce what God promises that it will produce if we let God plant it in our hearts and we nurture it and we keep watering it with the Word.
I mean, it's like a law in the earth. You sow, you will reap. If you don't sow, you're not going to reap. If we will study the Word of God, believing it like that, there's power in this. I don't just read a chapter a day. I mean, I used to read a chapter a day so I could get a check mark here and, you know, feel like I'd done my duty.
That's about the same way I went to church and did everything else that I did. But boy, there's so much more to this than that. If you're a Christian, if you're a believer in Christ and all you do is go to church on Sunday and you don't understand why your life's not working out, well, let me tell you something.
We have got a mess in our world today and you need more than a little 20-minute sermonette on Sunday morning and maybe a 45-minute to an hour visit in a place where maybe you don't even know what's going on half the time. God wants to be in every area of your life.
I mean, to tell you the truth, God just wants to mess in your business. He just wants to get into everything. And when you invite Him in, if you'll begin to study His Word, He will begin to give you a life that will be so amazing that you won't even begin to imagine it.
Jesus as the Living Word Among Us
And I'm not saying it's all going to happen overnight, but if you're persistent and consistent, it will happen. Things in your life, listen to me, things in your life can change. Only God never changes. But there's nothing else that He cannot change. If you trust God, nothing is impossible to Him. With God, all things are possible.
Well, now I'm getting excited again. You are my hiding place and my shield. I hope in your Word. Psalm 119 and 130, the entrance and the unfolding of your Word gives light. Their unfolding gives understanding, discernment, and comprehension to the simple.
See, you don't even have to be especially smart to understand the Word. I mean, just a simple person, a child can understand this. A lot of people look at the Bible and think, well, you know, I'm not smart enough to understand the Bible. You don't have to be smart enough to understand it.
You go diligently and you study and you read and you trust the Holy Spirit to give you light to teach you and to direct you by the Word of God. Now, I just got to read these because these Scriptures are just so good. Jesus is the Word. So, see, that's why we need to respect this.
You know, when I... Don't throw your Bible around. Don't just, you know, pile it under a bunch of stuff. This is the most precious book in the world. We need to care so much about this that if somebody said to us, you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison, you can have one possession, what do you want? This would be what you should take.
This is what you take. You don't take your earrings. You don't take your lipstick. You don't take your automobile. You take the Word of God because everything you need really is in here. And so, but Jesus is the Word who actually took on flesh and came here.
In the beginning, God said, and that was Jesus. Now, He became flesh, came here in a human body to pay the price for our sins but He was fully God and fully man. Fully God and fully man. And He is the Word. So, when you study the Word, you're fellowshipping with Jesus. Right now, He's in the midst of us.
So, got to read you these scriptures. In the beginning, before all time, was the Word, Christ. And the Word was with God and the Word was God Himself. John 1, 14. And the Word, Christ became flesh, human incarnate, and tabernacled, fixed His tent of flesh, and lived for a while among us.
And we actually saw His glory, His honor, His majesty. Such glory as an only begotten Son receives from His Father, full of grace and full of truth. Wow. Full of grace and full of truth. One last one, Revelation 19, 13. I'm particularly fond of this.
There's a description of Jesus and it says, He's dressed in a robe, dyed by dipping in blood. And the title by which He is called is the Word of God. Is that not amazing? Can you imagine Jesus on a white horse with flames of fire coming out of His eyes and white hair that's so bright you don't know how to look at it and this robe dipped in blood and this big title across His chest, the Word of God. Amen. Whoo! I'm looking forward to that day.
Jesus is coming soon. And you know, we should be spending our time here getting ready for there. That's kind of a new phrase I've come up with and I like it. While you're here, get ready for there. Don't wait until you're there thinking you can get ready for there. Amen.
Saving the Soul and Strengthening Through the Word
The Word of God, James 1, 21. Now this is a favorite scripture of mine too. The Word of God, when it's planted and rooted in our hearts, has the power to save our souls. Our souls. Not your spirit if you're born again. God has come by the Holy Spirit to live in your spirit.
Everything in your deep spirit, the deepest part of you is all cleaned up. It's holy. On and on. It's like the second compartment of our being. It would be like the second deepest place in us. The spirit's deeper, but the soul is next. And that's your mind, your will, and your emotions.
It's how you think, what you want, what you feel. And that's what gives us trouble. The mind has to be renewed by the Word of God. The will needs to be turned over to the will of God. And the emotions need to not rule us. Amen.
And so, get this. James 1, 21. So, get rid of all uncleanness and the rampant outgrowth of wickedness, and in a modest, gentle spirit, receive and welcome the Word of God which implanted and rooted in your hearts contains the power to save your soul. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
You might just say, you know, if I put sugar in cake batter, it has the power to make it sweet. Well, you know what? If I put the Word of God into my life, it has the power to change my soul. But you gotta put it in. It says, to those who welcome the Word of God in a humble attitude.
In other words, man, I need this, God. I need everything that you say. There's no, there's nothing you say that I don't need. And I don't care how many times I hear it. I need it again and again and again. Oh boy, here it comes now. This is getting better every time.
God's Word strengthens us. Hallelujah. How many of you need to be strengthened today in your resolve to keep going and keep doing what you... You know, even just to do good, we need to be strengthened to keep just doing what's right, especially if you're still in an area where you don't feel like you're getting the right result yet.
And you know, God will test us and try us. He doesn't want us to serve Him just for what we get. And so, you may have to do the right thing for a long time before you start getting a right result. But if our heart's right, we'll do the right thing until Jesus comes back to get us in faith that when He shows up, He's coming with my full reward.
However, I don't believe it will take until He comes back, but we have to look at it like that. We can't be saying, well, I'm going to do this for another month and if I don't get a breakthrough, then blah, blah. I remember a girl who came to the platform after I spoke one night and she had her hands on her hips and she said, I want my money back.
I said, what are you talking about? She said, listen, I've been doing this for two weeks, giving and listening to you preach and nothing's changed yet. And I thought, it was hard for me not to laugh in her face if you want to know the truth. I mean, we spend a lifetime getting in a mess and then we're mad at God if we read three scriptures and we haven't changed.
So, the Word of God will strengthen us to keep going. It will strengthen us not to quit and give up. It will strengthen us not to give in to temptation. My life dissolves and weeps itself away for heaviness. Raise me up and strengthen me according to the promises of your Word.
Melting Hard Hearts and Facing Persecution
Here's a good one. How many of you here have ever dealt with a hard heart? You've ever had a hardness on your heart? Okay. Well, I did. I was abused when I was a child and so I had a hard heart. You know, sometimes when you go through a lot of mistreatment.
The only way you seem to be able to survive it is to get this hardness on your heart that kind of comes like, I don't care. I don't need people. And, you know, who needs you? Nobody's going to tell me what to do again. And so, in a way, you're protecting yourself but then when you start trying to have a relationship with God and behave like a Christian, you have to trust God to melt that hardness off of your heart.
God's Word melts the hardness in our heart. Here it comes. Psalm 147, 18. He sends out His Word and melts ice and snow. Were you like a block of ice? No warmth in relationships. He melts those cold, hard hearts. He causes His wind to blow and the waters flow.
Now, you probably won't care much for this but it's in here so I probably need to tell it to you. The Word of God often brings persecution. See? Sometimes when you first start trying to study the Word, the enemy will launch an attack against you to see if you really mean business.
Mark 4, 17. And they, it's talking about some of the ground that the Word of God is sown into. In Mark, there's different types of ground that the Word is sown into. And they have no real root in themselves and so they endure for a little while. And then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, they immediately are offended, they become displeased, indignant, resentful, and they stumble and they fall away.
You see, when I began to seriously study the Word of God, I started losing friends. Come on. Yeah. Come on. Christian friends. That's right. You say, well, why would you lose Christian friends? Because not always does everybody want to be... Everybody who is a Christian is not a committed, serious Christian.
I always say, some people have enough of Jesus to stay out of hell, but not enough to walk in victory. And so when you decide, I'm going to walk in victory, the enemy doesn't want that for you. That's the last thing he wants for you. So he will bring attack against you. He will bring persecution. He'll bring criticism. He'll bring judgment.
People will tell you you're a religious fanatic and all kinds of things just because you want to love Jesus with all of your heart. So stand strong. The Word transforms us into God's image. Changes us. We're supposed to be Christ-like. We're on our way to being transformed into the image of Christ.
You know, I like to pray when I go out, especially when I get up in the pulpit to preach. Lord, I pray they'll see you today and not me, and they'll hear from you and not me. And we need to be like that even when we fellowship with people. God, I pray that they'll feel like they're with you, not me.
That the fruit that comes out of me will be your fruit, not the fruit of the flesh. 2 Corinthians 3.18, and this is going to have to be my last scripture. And all of us, as with unveiled face, because we continued... Everybody here say continued. Continued.
Because we continued to behold in the Word of God as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another, to another, to another. Do you know what that means? If you continue to study the Word of God, you will get better and better and better and better and your life will get better and better and better and you will feel better and better and better and better and you will make better and better decisions. Come on, everybody say better and better. Better and better.