Joyce Meyer - How Do I Stop Feeling Inadequate? (08/18/2019)
This sermon, based on Revelation 16:15, teaches about our spiritual clothing—the attitudes and behaviors we must intentionally put on each day as believers. It emphasizes that success in our walk with God requires active, purposeful living: putting off the old nature, renewing our minds, and putting on the full armor of God to stand victoriously against spiritual attacks.
Guard Your Spiritual Clothes
Well, we're going to start with Revelation 16:15, which is a very odd scripture if you don't understand it. "Behold, I'm going to come like a thief. Blessed, happy, and to be envied is he who stays awake, alert, and who guards his clothes." What in the world does that mean? Stay awake and guard your clothes. He says, I want you to stay awake, stay alert, stay aggressive, walk in your authority, and learn how to guard your clothes so that your nakedness may not be seen. You have a set of spiritual clothes on. So when Revelation 16:15 says, stay awake, stay alert, be sharp, be on guard, pay attention, and guard your clothes, he's talking about this spiritual clothing that we have to make sure that we're wearing at all times. What an insight and revelation if you have never heard anything like this.
The Bible uses the phrase "put on" and "put off." I put on my clothes when I came over here. I put on my clothes when I came this morning. When I went back to the hotel this afternoon, I put them off. Then I selected some others and I put them on. When I go back tonight, I'll put these off and put on my pajamas. When I get up in the morning, I'll put on some more. When I get home, I'll put them off. Nobody just went and stood in your closet and your clothes just jumped on your body. You had to purposely choose them and you had to purposely put them on. We need to learn how to live with intentionality. That needs to be one of the first laws of our living, and we need to realize it's one of the first rules of success: intentionality.
Living with Purposeful Intentionality
We have to do things on purpose. We can't just wait and see what falls on us. We need to do it on purpose. If we would even spend half the time getting dressed spiritually that we do getting dressed in the natural, we'd be a lot further along in our walk with God. And the devil would already be where he belongs, which is under our feet. Now the Bible says, put on Jesus Christ. Put on love. Clothe yourself with mercy. Put on kind feelings. Put on a lowly opinion of yourself, which is humility. Put off the old man. Put on the new man. Put on the full armor of God. Very interesting. Have you been doing that?
"Put on Jesus Christ" means in the morning before you go anywhere, you get up and you make a decision. I belong to God. I don't belong to myself. And when I go out—when I go out of this bedroom and I start dealing with my family, when I go out the front door and I start dealing with society—I am a personal representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I need to put on behavior that's going to represent Him. I have the mind of Christ. I have the Spirit of God in me. I don't have the privilege or the right, which is not really a privilege, to go out and just act like everybody else. I'm an alien from a foreign planet. I don't belong here. I'm passing through. I'm headed somewhere. And my real purpose in being here is not to please myself. It's to represent God and draw other people to Him through my godly behavior.
Taking Off Grave Clothes
Ephesians 4:22-24: Strip yourselves of your former nature, put off and discard your old unrenewed self. You know, for example, after Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He then said a second thing to Him. He said, "Take off your grave clothes." Can I tell you, some of you are wearing grave clothes. You're wearing stuff that don't look right on you. You're still wearing stuff from that old life. Still wearing an attitude that's discouraged and downtrodden all the time. He told Lazarus, not only come out of there and be raised from the dead, but take off your grave clothes. It's time to let go of the past and all the clothes from the grave: all the depression, the despondency, the fear, the bad attitude, the victim mentality. We need to take off all those grave clothes and get on our resurrection clothes.
Now it's almost like I can just hear some of you. It's almost like I'm kind of aggravating some of you. You're kind of like, "Well, you just don't know what I feel like." I can hear you. "You just don't know what I feel like and you just don't know what I've gone through. Don't come in here and give me your happy, clappy message about how joyful I ought to be. Look at me!" And let me tell you something. You can smile whether you want to or not. Actually, let me tell you something else. You can be nice even if you don't feel like it. Yeah, you can. You can be sweet and kind and nice even if there's not one thing in you that feels like it. And let me tell you something else. When you choose to do the right thing when it feels wrong, that's when you're growing and making progress. We don't grow at all if we're just doing what's easy.
Choosing Your Attitude and Nature
You know, I know people that they were just born happy. Well, I'm not like that. I wasn't born happy. I had to work on it. I was one of those people that I could find something sour in anything. I'd had a rough life and... I mean, I know people they just like they're just in a good mood all the time. They're just happy all the time. I know people that are just so sweet they just drip with sugar. And I think sometimes when God passed out nice genes, I think you got mine. But you know what? Even though I didn't have any in the natural, I inherited some from Jesus Christ. When I was born again, I got the nature of God. Amen? "If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature. All things pass away and all things become new." You get the nature of God when you become a child of God.
You know, I used to think I couldn't be happy until, and I can't be happy until, and I can't be happy until, and I finally figured out it was time to get happy now. Is there anybody in this place that needs to get happy now? Okay, listen, I'm going to give you a good thing here. You cannot control what other people do, but you can control what you do. Yes, you can. You say, "Oh, no, I don't have any self-control." Yes, you do. "No, I don't." Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. It's the very last fruit of the Spirit that's listed in Galatians 5 that you're given when you receive the Holy Ghost. Self-control. Self-control means you can control yourself. We're not given a spirit of others' control. Nobody in here has been given by God a spirit of others' control. You've been given a spirit of self-control.
The Bridge: Renewing Your Mind
Put off the old man. Put on the new man. Let's go back to Ephesians 4:24 through 26. "Strip yourselves of your former nature. Put off and discard your old, unrenewed self, which characterized your previous manner of life and becomes corrupt through lust and desires that spring from delusion. And be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind, having a fresh mental and spiritual attitude." Attitude, attitude, attitude. "And put on the new nature." So he says, put off the old nature. Put on the new nature. And what's the bridge to get there? Change the way you think by letting your mind be renewed by the Word of God.
For example, if you get up every morning and do nothing but think about all your mistakes and all your problems and how you messed up yesterday and how bad you feel and about everything you don't have in life, I can almost promise you that you will not be able to go out and be nice to anybody. Come on now. You got to wake up in the morning and you got to think some things on purpose. Don't just think and meditate on everything that the devil tries to drop in your head. You begin to think like God wants you to think. And you can do your own thinking. You don't have to just think whatever the devil offers you. You can do your own thinking.
And one of the things that will help you is to talk out loud. Get up every morning. If you can, it's something you would enjoy doing. Drop down on your knees by the side of your bed right away and just say, "Jesus. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Help me today. Help me behave the way you want me to behave." You know, you work for God. You're on His payroll. If you go out and do what you're supposed to every day, you'll get your paycheck. God will take care of you. Come on, I'm talking to you. God will take care of you. We all work for God.
Putting on the Full Armor of God
Put on the full armor of God that God supplies that you might be able to successfully stand up against all the strategies and the deceits of the devil. And defeat him. "We don't wrestle with flesh and blood. We're not contending with physical opponents. But we wrestle against spirits, wicked spirits in the heavenly realm." Verse 13, therefore, put on. Everybody say, "Put on." Probably all this talk about putting on and being active is making some of you tired just listening to me. But let me tell you something, you're not gonna defeat the devil laying on your couch watching soap operas and eating donuts. Some of you wanna have authority over the devil and you don't even have authority over a sink full of dirty dishes yet. It's time for us to go deeper, folks.
"Therefore, put on God's complete armor that you might be able to resist and stand your ground on the evil day of danger. And having done all the crisis demands, you are to stand firmly in your place." Now, let me just say just a couple quick things about that. First of all, you do what you can do. You do what you know to do that God has taught you to do. And then God will always do what you cannot do. Do you hear me? You do something to sow some seed so God can do the part that you cannot do. Having done all the crisis demands, stand firmly in your place. Stand therefore, hold your ground, having tightened the belt of truth.
Standing Firm on the Word
Now, the truth is the Word of God. And he's saying here that it's the belt, and belts keep our pants on, so when you're having trouble, you want to tighten your belt. In other words, what he's saying there is that's the time to dig in and believe the Word of God like never before. It is easy to say that I believe the Word of God when you're not having to apply it in your life. But when all of a sudden you feel like all hell has come out against you, and you have waited longer than you think you can stand, and you're in the midst of seeing other people get blessed that you don't even think really deserve it, and you're about to lose it all—you're about to lose all your clothes. I mean, we're about to lose the joy, lose the peace, lose the love. We're about to come out and have a resurrection of that old man.
That's when you need to bring that belt in another couple of notches and say, "No, I'm going to dig in and I'm going to stand on God's Word." Are you hearing me tonight? Make a decision tonight that you're not just going to try the Word, but you're going to stand on the Word of God no matter how long it takes, no matter what happens. Because there's nothing better for you to do. Let's look at Ephesians 6:18. "And pray at all times, on every occasion, in every season, in the Spirit, with all manner of prayer and entreaty. To that end, what? Keep alert! And watch with strong purpose and perseverance, interceding on behalf of all the saints."
You Are Armed and Dangerous
Stay awake! Stay alert! Stay active! Stay passionate! Stay full of zeal! And guard your spiritual clothes. You will not have any trouble with the devil if you will wear your armor. If you will go out every day with the helmet of salvation, your shoes of peace, knowing who you are in Christ, determined to stand on the Word of God, speaking the Word of God, you will have victory, victory, victory. Amen! You are armed and dangerous! God has disarmed the principalities and powers and He has armed you to be more than a conqueror in life.