Joyce Meyer - How Your Mind Affects Your Physical and Emotional Health? (08/18/2019)
Joyce Meyer shares how even born-again believers can live stressed, joyless lives if they never learn to manage their thoughts according to Scripture. Using Romans 12:2, Proverbs 3:5-7, Hebrews 4, and others, she stresses that renewing the mind and truly trusting God with heart and mind brings transformation, rest, peace, and better physical/emotional health. The core message: wrong thinking causes stress and drains energy, while godly thinking produces strength, joy, and health.
Taking Thoughts Captive
You don’t have to just think and meditate on everything that comes into your head. You need to think about what you’re thinking about, and if what you’re thinking about does not agree with the Word of God, the Bible tells us to cast down those wrong thoughts and bring every thought captive to the obedience of Jesus Christ.
It amazes me still, after all the years that I was in church, that my life was a mess. I mean, I loved God, and I was born again. I knew that I would have gone to heaven if I had died, but I was not happy. I had no joy, no peace, didn’t know who I was in Christ, and had never heard one message on my thinking. Never.
And there are scriptures all over the Bible about the mind. Actually, one of the key scriptures in Romans 12 says that the only way we can be transformed is by the renewing of our mind—learning how to think the way God thinks.
We All Need Mind Renewal
How many of you think you still have a ways to go in coming up to thinking the way that God thinks? So we all need to be here tonight, amen?
I’ve written three books on the mind, plus I have a devotional on the mind. I’ve written The Battlefield of the Mind, which has been very popular. I’ve written Power Thoughts, which teaches you how to think certain ways on purpose that will add power to your life.
You can add power to your life by the way you think, or you can actually weaken yourself by the way you think. And tonight, we’re going to be doing part three of this series. And this is called How Your Thoughts Affect Your Physical and Emotional Health.
Thoughts Create Stress
Now, first of all, let’s talk about thoughts and stress. Do you know that you can stress yourself out by the way you think? You say, no, it’s my circumstances. No, it’s the way you think about your circumstances.
And God has given us an answer—a simple, I mean, the simplest answer to every problem. And it takes most of us a lifetime to learn it.
Let’s look at Proverbs 3:5–7. Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind. You see, there are so many scriptures that have the mind included in them. But for some reason, we don’t always see it.
Worry Blocks Trust
Now, how many people think they’re trusting God and they worry all the time? Well, see, they’re not trusting God with all their heart and mind. They may want to trust God. I think for many years, I wanted to trust God. I wanted to think I was trusting God.
But it was a real eye-opener for me when I realized that as long as I was worrying, and I was anxious, and I was trying to figure everything out, then really, I was not completely trusting God.
Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.
Stop Circling Problems
Now, what does that mean? Don’t sit around and rotate your mind around and around and around your problems, trying to figure out what’s going on and what you’re supposed to do. Why, God, why? When, God, when? I just don’t understand, God, why this is happening to me.
You know, just ask God in faith: if there’s something You want me to see here, show me. If there’s something that You’re not ready for me to see, then don’t show me.
We have one thing to do when we have a problem, and that is to pray and trust God. Pray and trust God.
Easier Said Than Done
Now, I know that that’s a lot easier to say than it is to do. Dave told me for years, “Why don’t you just cast your care and trust God? Why don’t you just cast your care and trust God?”
Well, I wanted to, but I couldn’t—because I didn’t really understand what I’m teaching you tonight. Now, for some people, this is a little bit easier than others. But it’s a pretty good-sized challenge for the biggest majority of us.
Then the scripture goes on to say that if we will trust in, lean on the Lord, be confident with all our heart and mind, not rely on our own insight or understanding, and acknowledge Him in all of our ways, that He will direct and make straight and plain our path.
Don’t Be Wise in Your Own Eyes
And then I love the next verse: be not wise in your own eyes. I love that. You know what? We’re not smart enough to run our own lives. Not trying to insult you, but we’re not.
I’m not smart enough to keep this ministry going. I realized the other day, you know, the Bible says that God upholds everything in the universe with the word of His power.
Now, think about that. The whole entire universe is being upheld and everything is in place because God said it should stay there.
God Holds It All Together
So, I kind of thought about it like, okay, if this is God, just for a second, and now everything in our ministry—all the teaching I need and the preaching I need and the television and the radio and the money and all these employees we need and 18 offices around the world and 800 employees and buildings and so on and so forth—if God just went boop, it would all fall apart.
How could any one of us be smart enough to keep something like that up and running? But God has provided a way for us to not have to be stressed out all the time and have all kinds of physical health problems caused by stress—by simply trusting Him.
Entering God’s Rest Through Belief
Hebrews 4:3 and 10. For we who have believed, adhered to, trusted in, and relied on God do enter that rest—in accordance with His declaration that those who did not believe would not enter His rest when He said, “As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest.” And this He said although His works had been completed and prepared and waiting for all who would believe from the foundation of the world.
Now, believing has to do with faith, but it also has to do with our thinking. I’m not really believing God if I’m not thinking God is on this and He’s going to take care of it. And I can think that on purpose. I don’t have to wait and hope that thought falls in my head.
On purpose, I can think, I don’t care what it looks like in my life—I believe that God is working. That’s one of my favorite things to think and say: I don’t care what it looks like. I believe that God is working.
God Has Been Working All Along
You know, when you suddenly get a breakthrough, that doesn’t mean that God just suddenly decided to go to work on your situation at that moment. He’s been working all along. Now, all of a sudden, you get a breakthrough.
So let’s all practice. Say, “God is working right now in my life.” Doesn’t that feel good?
Now, He says that His works have been completed since the foundation of the world. I love that. You know what? We’re really not waiting on God to do anything. It’s already been done.
Pray, Trust, and Wait Well
And what we need to do is pray, receive it by faith, and keep a good attitude until we see the manifestation. Come on, let me say it again. We need to pray. We need to keep a good attitude, stay in faith, and trust and believe that God is working until we get our breakthrough.
Everything from God comes through faith and patience. We don’t get it just by faith. You’re going to pray, and then you’re going to wait. I can pretty much promise you, you’re going to pray, and then you’re going to wait.
And if we could just pray and get it, we would have no problem at all trusting God. But when we pray, and we wait, and we wait, and we wait, and we don’t see anything happening, that’s when the enemy tries to really fill our minds full of stuff.
Resisting the Enemy’s Lies
Well, God doesn’t love you. Well, you’re in sin. Well, you’ve done something wrong. Well, this is never going to happen for you.
And that’s when you need to open your sweet little holy mouth. Come on. And you need to say, “God is working in my life right now, and I will receive all that God has promised me.”
Trust in God causes us to enter His rest. And you know, rest is not a cessation of work. It’s resting while you work.
Somebody said to me, “You just seem so relaxed when you teach.” Well, I am, because yes, I’m working, but I’m resting in God while I’m working. I’m trusting Him for every next word that’s going to come out of my mouth.
Trusting God in Everything
And yes, I have studied and prepared. I study really hard, and I spend a lot of time going over and over this stuff. But I honestly really don’t know what the next thing is going to be that’s going to come out of my mouth. So I am trusting God.
I’m trusting God for favor. I’m trusting God for the people to come. I’m trusting God for salvation. I’m trusting God for the offerings to be good.
Everything that we do, if we trust God, we can do it in rest. Now, if I was up here and I was worried about what you think of me, and afraid nobody was going to come, and afraid we were going to go home broke, and afraid of this and afraid of that, I mean, I would be absolutely miserable.
Early Insecurities in Ministry
When I first started preaching, I was pretty insecure. And I’m telling you what, if anybody out there yawned or looked at their watch or got up and moved, I mean, I was tormented because the devil would convince me that they didn’t like me.
And so, let me tell you something. I was working on the outside, but I was not resting on the inside. It’s really not a problem. You can work on the outside, and you can work hard if you’re resting on the inside.
Come on, is anybody home tonight? If you’re resting on the inside, you can work a lot harder on the outside, and you still won’t get tired. Amen?
The Ultimate Stress Reliever
Trust in God. I’ve been thinking about this lately. This is the greatest stress reliever in the world. Just to say, you know what, God? I don’t know what to do about this situation. If You want me to do something, You show me. If You don’t show me anything, I’m not going to get into a bunch of works of the flesh trying to fix something I don’t know how to fix. I’m trusting You, and I’m going to go ahead and enjoy my life while You work on the problem.
You’re not so sure about that, huh? Now, you know, I thought if I could just put trust in capsules and sell it as a prescription. And I actually don’t have it ready yet, but I’m getting about a half life-size bottle made that’s going to be full of trust pills. And the prescription will read, take as often as needed. You cannot overdose on this medicine. Side effects: joy, peace, righteousness. Amen.
Take some trust.
Physical Ailments Caused by Stress
Stress caused from worry can cause many physical ailments: tension in muscles, headaches, breathing irregularities, increased heart rate, artery inflammation, gastrointestinal problems, constipation, diarrhea, low sperm count, irregular menstrual cycles, depression, sleep deprivation.
Worry is a result of wrong thinking. God loves you. He knew about your problem before you ever got it. You might have been surprised, but He was not surprised. And God has already got a plan for your breakthrough and your deliverance. And all you’re doing is walking it out and waiting it out.
Don’t Stay Miserable While Waiting
And I’m trying to make the point tonight that you don’t have to make the mistake I made. You don’t have to be miserable all the time you’re in the waiting process and only happy when you get these breakthroughs.
It’s foolish to do that because as soon as you get what you want right now, it won’t be long and something else will take place in your life and you’ll go right back into the same process all over again. Am I telling the truth?
And you know what? Our journey with God, if you stick with it long enough, really changes you. And one of the benefits that you do begin to get as time goes by is you really begin to learn how just totally useless it is to worry about things that you can’t do anything about.
Worry Is Useless Activity
And I don’t really think that we can ever preach a sermon that’s going to stop anybody from worrying until they do it long enough to get good and tired of tormenting themselves. And they finally get the revelation: this is useless. It’s like sitting in a rocking chair and rocking all day. It keeps you busy, but it gets you nowhere. You make no progress.
Any type of negative or ungodly thought can drain our energy. Energy. We’re going to talk tonight about energy-draining thoughts and energy-producing thoughts because Americans are tired. They are just tired.
Why So Many Lack Energy
If I said tonight, how many of you don’t have as much energy as you need to have for your daily life, how many hands would go up? Well, my gosh.
You know what? There’s a chance that at my age, I feel better than some of you do that are 20 and 30 and 40 years old. And it’s not because I’m lucky. Most of our energy comes from what’s going on inside of us. Most of our draining of energy comes from what’s going on inside of us.
My husband is so healthy that it is almost annoying. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, but I’m just like… Now, you know, he did just have a cold, but it’s very rare for him to even get anything like that.
Dave’s Health and Attitude
And I mean, even if he does, sometimes I’ll get a virus and I’m like, oh, I feel so bad. He said, yeah, I had that last week for four days. I’m like, well, why didn’t you tell me? Well, you couldn’t have done anything about it. Why tell you?
But he just, he goes and he goes. And I mean, nighttime comes and I want to be in my chair. Dave’s out doing things and going places. He just really, really feels good.
But you remember this morning I said in 48 years of being married to him, I can only remember two times Dave telling me he didn’t like somebody.
Energy Wasted on Negative Emotions
How much energy have you wasted hating people? Come on. How much energy have you wasted being angry? How much energy have you wasted being jealous?
How many days have you been tired all day because you couldn’t sleep the night before because you went to bed mad at somebody—and that somebody you were mad at was in the bed with you?
I mean, I can’t tell you how many nights in the past—thank God, long ago in the past—I would sleep on the seam of the mattress because I’d go to bed mad at Dave and I was not going to touch him. I am not touching you. Don’t even think we’re going to do the kiss and make up thing because it ain’t working tonight. I am mad at you.
Stubborn Anger Drains You
And how many nights did I lay there cold—so cold—because he had all the cover and I was not about to ask him for any of it. I am not asking you for a thing.
And so I get up the next day and I had a backache and a headache and a neck ache and I felt lousy all day long. And Dave gets out of bed singing, he goes out and plays golf and he’s just a happy camper.
You know, it took me a lot of years, but I finally thought, this is stupid on steroids. I mean, you know, there’s stupid and then there’s stupid on steroids.
Stop Doing What Doesn’t Work
And why do we want to just keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over without looking at the results? If what you’re doing is not working, stop doing it.
Critical thoughts about people can drain our energy. Excessive thinking can drain our energy. God told me one time, your problem is you just think too much.
Suspicion, jealousy, bitterness, resentfulness, hateful thoughts. If you want to increase your energy, improve your thinking.
Thoughts Aren’t the Only Factor
Now, I’m not saying that it’s all thoughts. Obviously, you can have something physically wrong with you. We’ll talk about a few other things later. You may not be eating right. That can make you feel bad all the time.
But a lot of it… Matter of fact, I think I’d be safe to say that you can be doing everything else right. But if inside you’re full of all kinds of wrong, bitter, hateful, mean stuff, I don’t care what else you do, you’re still gonna feel lousy. Amen?
John 14:27. Well, I just can’t help it. I’ve just got so many people that aggravate me. And I’ve got so many problems. And you wouldn’t stand up there and tell me to be happy if you had my problems.
We All Have Problems
You don’t know what kind of problems I got. You don’t know anything. Just because I stand up here and do this doesn’t mean I don’t have stuff going on in my life too. Amen?
Three and a half months ago, I had my whole right hip replaced. They sawed it in half, took it out, put a new one in. And yes, here I am.
I was on a walker for a week, and they gave me a cane then. And after a day, I was carrying that around with me. And they said, “You’re not supposed to carry it. You’re supposed to put your weight on it.”
But you know what? I think that one of the reasons why I recovered well was, number one, I did everything they told me to. But secondly, I had a good attitude. I laughed so much during that period of time. I think just the laughing helped heal me.
Keep a Good Attitude
Don’t get a bad attitude about everything that goes on in your life. Be thankful for the good things that are going on, and trust God to help you with the other stuff.
Peace I leave with you. John 14:27. My own peace I now give and bequeath to you. When somebody bequeaths you something, it means they leave it to you in their will.
Jesus said, “Look, in My will, one of the things that I’m leaving you is My peace. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed, and do not permit yourselves to be fearful and intimidated and cowardly and unsettled.”
Uh-oh. I’ve got a responsibility.
You Already Have Peace
God says, “Look, I’ve given you peace. If you have Christ in your life, then you have the Holy Spirit living in you, and you have all of the fruit of the Spirit living in you. Love, joy, peace.”
Everybody say, “I have peace.” I have peace.
You don’t need to keep praying for God to give you peace. You need to pray that God will give you the good sense to use the peace that you have.
I mean, it’s true. I think a lot of times, we just wear ourselves out asking God to give us things that we’ve already got.
Philippians 4: No Anxiety
And I love Philippians 4:6 and 7. It’s actually one of my… I mean, I think about this scripture almost every day.
Don’t fret or have any anxiety about anything, but in every circumstance and in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, continue to make your wants known to God, and God’s peace will be yours.
And I also like Psalm 37, the first couple of verses. It says, don’t fret yourself over the evildoers, for they shall soon be cut down like the grass.
And I was reading that one day and I thought, why do we need to be so upset about everything that’s going on in the world?
Focus on Your Own Righteousness
Now, I don’t mean that we shouldn’t care as far as doing what we should do to take our responsibility to stand up for righteousness, but I’m not going to spend my time mad and upset over everything that everybody out there is doing.
I’m going to keep doing what I know is right and be ready when the trumpet blows.
How your thoughts affect your emotions, and how your thoughts affect your physical health. Now, first of all, let’s talk about thoughts and stress. Do you know that you can stress yourself out by the way you think?
You say, no, it’s my circumstances. No, it’s the way you think about your circumstances.
A Practical Worry Strategy
And God has given us an answer—a simple, I mean the simplest answer to every problem, and it takes most of us a lifetime to learn it.
J. Arthur Rank, an English executive, decided to do all of his worrying one day a week. So he chose Wednesdays.
And when anything happened that gave him anxiety or annoyed him or bothered his ulcer, he would write it down and put it in his worry box and forget all about it until the next Wednesday.
The interesting thing was that on the following Wednesday, when he opened the worry box, he found that most of the things that had disturbed him in the past six days were already settled, and it would have been useless to have worried about them.
Most Problems Solve Themselves
My administrative assistant is here, and when I was recovering from my hip surgery, I just asked him to give me, can I have 30 days without the phone ringing, without getting a bunch of emails, unless it’s something really, really important.
So she didn’t contact me hardly very much at all. And when it was over, I said, you really did a good job. She said, you know what I found out? Most of the things solve themselves.
And it would be amazing the things that would just work themselves out if we just wouldn’t get so worked up about them.
Now that doesn’t mean to be irresponsible, but honestly and truly, a lot of times we don’t even give God time to even begin to work. And we’re all over the situation.
Come-to-Jesus Meetings
So do all your worry in one day a week, and you’ll probably find out by the time it comes you won’t have to do any worrying at all.
You know, very often I have what I call come-to-Jesus meetings. You know what that is? That’s where you come to Jesus, and you say, we need to have a meeting, because I’m in a mess and I need some information.
And I spent a lot of years in my life all stressed out and tied up in knots with headaches and all kinds of other stuff. And the doctors would tell me it was stress and it would make me mad.
And I thought, no, you are the one stressing me out. You are making me stress, telling me it’s stress.
Facing the Truth About Stress
And I was like that because my mother had a mental disorder and I did not want to hear the word stress because I equated it to not being able to handle life. And I was not going to have mental problems.
And then finally, through a long series of education and understanding, I found out that stress can be caused from a lot of different things. And there were many of the things that I was doing wrong, like worrying, trying to change people.
You can’t change people. Only God can change people.
If you think you’re going to marry somebody and change them after you marry them, you better wake up and smell the roses before you say, I do.
Surprises After Marriage
Because I can promise you that they’ve got some bad habits that you have not seen yet until they get comfortable.
How’s this? I did not even know when I married Dave that he played golf. Didn’t even know. Didn’t even know. Because he was all focused on me. And that’s the way I thought it was going to stay.
Come on, is anybody with me tonight? Yeah, well, you know about how long that honeymoon thing lasts. And then reality kicks in.
One day we were having his whole family over that weekend, and he said… And you know, so I’m busy cleaning the house and doing all this stuff. And he said, well, I’m going to go out to the park and hit shag balls.
Golf Practice Surprise
And I thought, what? What is a shag ball? Well, it’s a thing golfers do, where they take a whole bag of golf balls and go out and just hit them one after another after another after another.
I didn’t know that in order to play golf one day a week, you have to practice the other six days. I didn’t understand that.
But here we are 48 years later, and Dave is still working on his swing. And every time he goes out and plays bad, then he’s got to go out and work on it again because now he’s got something in it he’s got to fix.
And so it’s kind of like a joke now because he’ll come home, “I think I know what it is now.” And I’m like, get out of here.
Honest Self-Examination
So as I’ve had my come-to-Jesus meetings and tried to get to the reality of what some of my problems were.
Now, come on, look at me. Some of you that feel bad all the time, and I’m all with doctors. I mean, I go to the doctor when I need to. I’ve got medicine that I take.
But I found out there’s a lot of things you can’t medicate. You cannot medicate a bad attitude. Come on. You can’t medicate bitterness and hatred and anger and jealousy and resentment. Only God can take care of those things.
So I started getting honest with myself. And here’s some of the things that I learned.
Leave Margin in Your Schedule
As I had my come-to-Jesus meetings, I have received many simple but stress-relieving ideas from Him.
Change my schedule and leave a little margin so I don’t end up rushing from thing to thing with no breaks in between.
No, you don’t like that one? Now see, I’m the kind I don’t like to waste time. So I want to give you 45 minutes for this, 30 minutes for that.
And my assistant will tell you, it’s like… So I have this thing. It’s like, okay, I’ve got to get my hair done. And then I’ve got to get over here to this appointment. And I don’t want to get there too early, but I don’t want to get there late.
Enjoy Life More
And, you know, she’s trying her best to work these appointments out where I’m, you know, got it all just right. And I’ve learned, you know, it’s not going to kill me to sit in the car for 10 minutes and breathe before the next appointment. Sometimes that’s actually good.
Another thing that I learned through these come-to-Jesus meetings is take time to do things I enjoy instead of being excessive about work. Because no matter how long you work, there will always be another project that needs to be done.
Another thing: have a plan, but don’t get upset if my plan is interrupted for a good reason. Go with the flow.
Better Daily Choices
Make better choices about what I eat. Make better choices about what I eat and the kind of fuel I put into my body. Because it will determine how well it functions.
You are not going to live on potato chips and candy bars and soda pop and caffeine and think you’re going to have any energy and feel good. I’m sorry, but it’s not going to work.
Drink lots of good, clean water. How many of you don’t drink enough water? Why not? I don’t like water. Well, God obviously liked it. That’s the one thing He gave us to drink. And all we do is ruin it by filling it full of chemicals.
Sleep and Boundaries
I learned to have a regular bedtime and get eight, and now sometimes I get nine hours sleep a night.
Don’t try to keep all the people happy all the time. Say no when I need to.
Okay, how many of you eat way too much junk? Don’t drink enough water. Don’t get enough sleep. Okay, then we need not be bothered to try to explain to you why you’re tired. Duh.
Why is it that we keep thinking that we can do the wrong thing and get a right result?
Body Image and Acceptance
And here’s the thing. It’s not that you can never eat a dessert or never eat what you want, but you can’t live on the stuff.
Anyway, I’m not going to get into a health message, but let’s get back to some other stuff here.
People today are so worried about their weight and their body shape. We want everything skinny. We even want the skinniest iPhone that’s available now. Even our phone has to be skinny and our iPad has to be skinny. The skinnier it is, the better we like it.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t think Eve was a pile of sticks with skin stretched over. I think she had a little meat on her bones and a few curves.
Make Peace with Your Body
You know, the only thing Adam knew was man. And I think when he saw Eve, he said, whoa, man.
Make peace with the body parts you don’t like. Some of you need to make peace with your thighs. You need to make peace with your long toes.
Here’s the thing, if you don’t like your legs, don’t wear shorts. This is not hard. If you don’t like your toes, don’t wear sandals.
I have cute feet. I mean, I do. My feet are really cute. I have little toes and little toenails and I keep them painted all the time. So I show them off.
You know, if you don’t like your thighs, hide them. Black, baby. Black is the color. Amen.
Aging Gracefully
And here’s the way you do it. You wear really tight pants and really long tops, and they make you look so skinny.
Nobody can stop the aging process. I finally told them on my book covers, I said, okay, guys. I know that you can airbrush anything. But pretty soon, these people aren’t gonna believe at my age I don’t have one wrinkle. So I think we better back off on the airbrushing just a little bit, and let me age a tiny bit on book covers.
My son got me a sign for Christmas: Lord, please help me accept what the spa can’t fix.
Watch for Tension Triggers
You know, we need to watch for what I call tension triggers in our life. Learn to recognize when you’re getting tense, and learn to relax on purpose.
When I write, sometimes I’ll get so focused on writing, I can literally sit there for hours and hours. But my chiropractor and my doctor have both said, don’t do that. Get up every 45 minutes to an hour. Walk around for a few minutes. Stretch. Take a little break every once in a while. Go outside for a few minutes.
And I can feel it if I don’t, honestly. I’ll be sitting there and I’m so into it, and my back is hurting, and my neck is hurting, and I’ve got a headache. But I’m into it and I’m not going to quit.
Breaking Bad Thought Patterns
Anybody know what I’m talking about? And I’m glad that I’m a determined person. But you know, sometimes I can be determined—so determined—that it’s not actually the best thing to do.
When your neck hurts, your head’s hurting, take a breath, go for a walk, go to the bathroom. Stretch. Stretch. Take some breaths, and do some on-purpose thinking.
My assistant was telling me, she said, after all these years, as much as I know about the Word, she said, every morning when I wake up, I hear this thought: you are so tired.
And she said, if I didn’t know better, the next thing that would come out of my mouth is, I am so tired. And she said, I’ll even look at my watch and count up. I got eight hours sleep, there’s no reason for me to be tired.
Counter Lies with Truth
You know, the enemy just loves to put junk in our minds. And one of the things that you’re going to find floating around in your mind on a pretty regular basis until you learn to recognize it and not put up with it is, I just can’t do this. This is just too hard. I just cannot put up with you one more second.
And we need to think, I can do whatever I need to do through Christ who is my strength.
You know, another thing that will drain your energy is thinking about the wrong stuff all the time. And it’s good to think about good things from the past, but it’s not good to think about bad stuff from the past.
Refusing to Relive Pain
Do you know that if I wanted to—and I’m telling you the truth, I could do this, and I just don’t let myself go there—I could go sit down somewhere and I could spend 10 minutes reliving mentally some of the despicable stuff that my father did to me when he was abusing me.
And I’m telling you what, I would get more and more and more upset. And it doesn’t happen very often, but every once in a while, I’ll find my mind drifting back to that.
And I remember how I hated him and all the years I hated him and all the tension that was in my life because of that. And how resentful I felt toward other people who had great lives.
Well, I’m smarter than that now. How many of you have gotten a little bit smarter since you’ve got God in your life?
Hate Takes Too Much Energy
And I don’t have the time or the energy to hate anybody. It just takes too much energy to get mad and have a good fit and then try to calm down. And I just don’t have the energy to waste anymore. I’ve got to save mine for what God has called me to do.
Come on now. And you know what, we sit around and we wish we didn’t have this and we wish we didn’t have that. And we wish people would treat us better.
Let me give you a sad revelation. I don’t mean to be negative, but the world is probably not going to change. It could even get worse.
Because if we really believe that Jesus is coming back, then all we’ve got to do is read the end of the book and see what’s going on when He shows up. Amen?
Change Yourself First
And I’m not saying that we don’t do our part to try to fix everything that’s wrong. I think that we’re protected when we do what we should do, but we don’t need to worry about it all the time.
And I kept wanting my life to change, and wanting my life to change, and I wanted my kids to change, and I wanted Dave to change, and I wanted everything to change.
And finally I thought, you know what, I think I better change.
Come on now, this is the best message some of you have ever heard.
And I decided to change my approach to life. I can do whatever I need to do through Christ who is my strength and I can do it with a good attitude because Christ is alive and well in me.
God Limits What Comes
And don’t say, I can’t do this, it’s too much for me—because God says I will never allow more to come on you than what you can bear. But with every temptation, I’ve already arranged a way out for you.
And I’ll tell you, when you really can’t take it anymore, God will get you out.
Philippians 3:12–14. Let’s look carefully at these scriptures.
Now, you know, Paul was talking about spiritual maturity here and moving toward perfection in Christ.
Pressing Toward Maturity
I don’t know about you, but I want to be everything that God wants me to be. I mean, I would just love to have a day where I’m just good all day long.
How many of you would like to have a day where you just don’t think anything nasty, you don’t have a bad attitude, you don’t have a temper? I mean, you’re just like, today, you got it all together. This is a perfect day. Wouldn’t we love to have one of those?
And I think that that should be our desire. But I also think that we have to not be devastated and disappointed when it doesn’t turn out that way.
Come on now. If I could be good every day, I wouldn’t need Jesus, and neither would you.
Paul’s Example of Forgetting
So Paul said, not that I have attained this ideal or have already been made perfect. But I press on to lay hold of and grasp and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus the Messiah has laid hold of me and made me His own.
I do not consider—consider is a process of the mind—I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own yet, but one thing I do. How many of you see that? One thing I do. It is my one aspiration.
Forgetting what lies behind and pressing forward to the things that are ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward.
Guilt Steals Your Strength
Here’s what Paul knew. Paul knew that thinking about his mistakes, that if he spent today thinking about his mistakes from yesterday, that it would actually prevent him from doing any better today than he did yesterday.
You know why? Because guilt and condemnation weakens us. It steals our energy.
Good. One person over here to my left got that.
Now, Joyce Meyer said this: your life cannot go forward if your mind is going backward. Amen. That will be a Facebook post.
God Uses Us Despite Our Past
In spite of your past sins, in spite of all of our many wretched past sins, God still wants to say tonight, I will help you, and I have a good life planned for you. Did you hear me?
Let’s look at Isaiah 43 for a minute. Verses 1 and 2. These are just so good.
Remember now, in spite of past sins. Now, this starts out, but now in spite of past judgment for Israel’s sins. Thus says the Lord, He who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: fear not, for I have redeemed you.
In spite of your past sins, you don’t have to live in fear, because I have redeemed you. I have ransomed you. I have paid a price for you instead of leaving you a captive.
You Belong to God
I have called you by my name. You are Mine. In spite of all your past sins.
And when you pass through the waters, I’ll be with you. And when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. And when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned or scorched. Neither will the fire kindle upon you.
I will protect you. In spite of your past sins, I will protect you and bring you out of everything that comes against you.
I mean this: being a Christian is the best deal going anywhere. I mean, this is like the most awesome thing.