Joyce Meyer - How Your Mind Affects Your Walk With God? (08/18/2019)
A sermon on the transformative power of aligning our thoughts with God's. Using scriptures like Jeremiah 29:11 and Psalm 139, Joyce Meyer emphasizes that God constantly thinks good, purposeful thoughts about us. The conclusion is that we must learn to think and speak about ourselves as God does, rejecting self-condemnation to walk in our true identity and partnership with Him.
The Power of Intentional Thinking
The thing that we need to realize, which is so amazing, is that we can do our own thinking. That's quite a revelation to a lot of people. I often say, have you ever thought about what you're thinking about? When I do, people kind of look at me strangely because, really, we don't think to think about what we're thinking about. You need to do some thinking about what your mind is like all day. Pay attention to the thoughts that get into your head early in the morning, because I believe if the enemy can get us early in the morning, then sometimes he's got us for the whole day. We are taught in the Word of God to renew our minds according to the Word of God. Literally, it means... now, I don't want you to miss this... as believers, one of our main goals should be to learn to think the way that God thinks. Amen.
We've talked about a lot of different things and can't go back and cover all that. This morning, I want to talk to you about how your thoughts affect your walk as a Christian. They affect your relationship with God and how they affect you as a person. So, the first question I want to throw out is: what do you think that God thinks about you? Do you even realize that God does think about you? Actually, God thinks about us all the time, and this is so wonderful. Never one time in your life has God ever had one bad thought about you. Not ever. He's never thought, "Yeah, you're never going to change." He's never thought you're hopeless. He doesn't think like that.
What Does God Think About Me?
God doesn't even sit around and think about everything we do wrong. He doesn't think about our problems; He thinks about our possibilities. He thinks about our potential. God is the chief of all dreamers, and He has a dream for you. But the interesting thing is, since God has given us free will, no matter what God's plan is for us, if we don't come into agreement with Him, it's not going to happen. Having God in your life and having the promises of God doesn't just guarantee that all these things will happen while we sit around and either do the wrong thing or do nothing. We're partners with God on the earth. You are God's partner, and not only that, you're an ambassador for God. We are ambassadors for God.
We might as well just hang this around our neck and go out every day and say, "I'm an ambassador for God. This is really not my home. I don't really belong here. I'm just here for one purpose, and that's to try to help you and take as many people to heaven with me as I can." Our behavior is one of the most important things, but our behavior is also a product of our thoughts. Even though we may want to behave right, if you don't have a right relationship with God, if you don't know how much God loves you and what great potential you have, then you're going to keep basing all your worth and value on what you do.
Your Worth is Not Based on Performance
The thing is, we're not going to do it all right all the time. We are going to make mistakes. We need to learn that what we do doesn't determine who we are in Christ. It's only what we do, and what we do can be fixed; it's changing all the time. But if there's anything that we need in the church, it's for Christians—every one of us—to gain spiritual maturity through cooperating with Christ and get out in the world and just be the way that we say we believe. What do you think would happen if everybody who claims to be a Christian would get out in the world and act like one? Things would be pretty amazing, wouldn't they?
So today we want to focus mainly on: what do you think that God thinks of you, and then what do you think of yourself? Do you like yourself? Are you mad at yourself? Have you rejected yourself? Are you trying to be something that God is never going to help you be? Are you trying to be somebody else that you think's got it all together? You might as well settle down and be yourself because everybody else is already taken. Amen? You know, it's one thing to not like some of the things you do or maybe you don't like your toes or your thighs or whatever. But that's a whole different thing from not liking yourself. You need to have a good relationship with yourself. Amen?
Learning to Agree With God
Let me say it again: you need to have a good relationship with yourself. I love to do this teaching because I think a lot of people spend their whole life and they never even think about what kind of relationship they've got with themselves. I didn't for many, many years, and I didn't like myself. I was always trying to be somebody else—trying to be like Dave, trying to be like my neighbor, trying to be like my pastor's wife. I was always trying to be like somebody else. When you do, then you just end up confused and frustrated all the time because God is not going to help you try to be somebody else. You're not going to look like somebody else; you're not going to have the exact same body shape or size as somebody else.
Psalm 40:5 says, "Many, O Lord my God, are the wonderful works which you have done. Your thoughts toward us, no one can compare with you. If I should declare and speak of them, they are too many to be numbered." God's thoughts about us are so many that you cannot put a number on them. I can preach this to you, but I want you to learn to think about these things and to do it on purpose. God thinks about you all the time. You are on God's mind, and He thinks good things about you, and He has a good plan for your life.
Jeremiah 29:11 says, "I know the thoughts and the plans that I have for you, says the Lord." He has thoughts and plans for your welfare, to do you good in your final outcome. Okay, so now look, we're not at the final outcome yet, but it's all gonna come out good in the end. Can you hear me? I said it's all gonna come out good in the end. Look, so what if you really never get the thing you think you want while you're on this earth? It's still gonna work out good in the end because in the end... come on! When the trumpet blows, and the sky parts, and the archangel descends with a shout, and the dead in Christ rise, and those who are still on the earth are caught up in the air, it's gonna work out okay.
The Promise of a Good End
And you know, even if I'm not perfected, and you're not perfected—which we won't be by the time Jesus comes—it's gonna work out alright. Why? Because the Bible says that we will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Think about that. We will all be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and we'll live with Him forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Man, if you thought this worship this morning was good, just wait. Whoa, honey, we're gonna put on a seminar like you have never seen before. Maybe I'll get to preach sometime with Moses and Elijah, I don't know. It's gonna work out good in the end.
Psalm 139:17-18 says, "How precious and weighty also are your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them. If I could count them, they would be more in number than the sand. When I awoke, I could count all the way to the end, and I would still be with you." Everybody say, "God's got me on His mind." Learn how to think about that when you first wake up in the morning: "God, you've got me on your mind right now." Awesome. God thinks you're wonderful. Don't sit there and just go... I said, God thinks you're wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Speaking God's Truth Over Yourself
Now, I know this will be a stretch for some of you, but one of the things that you can do that is actually very biblical and has been very life-changing for me—and it also helps you to renew your mind—is not only to learn to think like God thinks, but to learn to talk like God talks. So, you can get up every morning and say, "God thinks I am wonderful." Good. We have three kind of wimpy, weak claps. Now, you have no idea how this will change your life, because you are never going to live beyond what you believe about yourself.
As long as you think you're a mess, and you never do anything right, and your life is lousy, and you think maybe God loves you on the days when you behave real well and He doesn't like you so much on the days that He doesn't, and He's really a little bit miffed at you and has been kind of mad and disappointed at you your whole life... come on. God thinks you are wonderful, even in your most messy times. God thinks you're wonderful. Come on. How do you feel about your kids? If any one of you has ever had a little kid that was just first learning how to feed themselves and they got spaghetti all over them, and put it in their hair, and stuffed mashed potatoes up their nose, and all the stuff that kids do.
Yes, you had to clean up the mess, but to be honest, you thought it was downright funny and cute. God understands that this spiritual maturity process takes time, and He's not mad at you today because you have not arrived at the place of perfection yet. God thinks you are wonderful. Just wonderful.
Is This Message Biblical or Prideful?
Now, let me stop here just for a minute and explain something. If I ponder, why is it that we don't hear more of this kind of stuff in our churches? Well, I think one of the reasons is because there's a fear that if you actually get people thinking like this, that they're going to get into pride. And boy, we know how dangerous that is, and it is. But here's the thing: it's not pride to think about yourself the way God thinks about you. It's only pride when you start thinking that you're better than somebody else.
So I am not afraid to tell you how wonderful and how amazing you are. I'm going to spend this whole morning doing it, and I'm hopefully going to get you thinking the way that God thinks about yourself because you're never going to be the person God wants you to be if you keep thinking about yourself in a way that's wrong. And if you get into pride, we've got a message for that too: humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that in due time He may exalt you. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to. Don't have an exaggerated opinion of your own importance. That's Romans 12:3.
Don't think you're too good to lower yourself to help somebody else. You see, the thing is, I'm not better than anybody else, but I'm not beneath anybody else either. And neither are you. Because whatever I am, I am that in Christ. And whatever I'm not, He's got to fill up that weakness and take care of me. So the bottom line is, I'm not above or beneath; I'm just in Christ. No wonder the Bible says that if anybody is in Christ, there's no more Jew, no more Greek, no more male, no more female, no more slave, no more free. We're all one in Christ. He is the great equalizer. In Christ, everybody has equal opportunity.
The Foundation of Faith and Love
Well, I tell you, if we had more preaching like this, you couldn't get in the churches on Sunday morning. People don't want to go to church and just be beat up and go out with ten new rules to follow and nobody telling them how they can do it. You can never do what God wants you to do if you don't first know who you are in Him and how He sees you and how much He loves you. You can't do it. You cannot do it. So it's one thing to tell you what to do, and I spend plenty of time doing that.
But I also am always interjecting messages like this in my teaching because you cannot do what God wants you to do if you don't know who you are and how He feels about you and learn how to think the way He thinks. Don't ever say downgrading things about yourself out of your own mouth. "I'm so stupid. I am so dumb. I can't do anything right." Ooh, don't say that. Don't say that. "It's always me. It's always my fault. I'm just a big mess up." No, no, no. You say, "I am wonderful. I am a possibility waiting to happen." Now you don't have to go tell that to somebody else, but that's the way you should talk to yourself.
Amos 3:3 says, "How can two walk together except they be in agreement?" How can we walk with God if we're not going to agree with God? You know, we have a lot of scriptures in the Bible about believing: be it unto you even as you believe. And of course, believing has to do with faith, but it also has a lot to do with our thinking. How can I say that I'm in faith for God to do something and then my mind doubts that He's ever going to do it? I tell you, the more you think and talk like I'm sharing with you today, the stronger your faith is going to become.
Receiving God's Unconditional Love
How can you put faith in somebody that you're about halfway afraid is mad at you most of the time? We must believe that God loves us, loves us perfectly and unconditionally. Here's the thing: God doesn't know how to do anything else because He is love. It's the only reaction He knows how to have. So, whether you like it or not, God loves you. You can't earn it. You can't deserve it. The only thing you can do or not do is receive it. So, I mean, I can preach my heart out to you today, but if you don't decide, "I'm going to receive that. I'm going to receive... God is talking to me today."
He's not just talking to a room full of people. God knows your name. He knows everything about you. He created you in your mother's womb with His very own hand. You are not a mistake. And He thinks about you all the time. He's got good plans for you. Now, you know, not too many, but I see a few people sitting around like... And I can tell looking at you, you're not in any kind of faith. And so, you'll come back maybe to another conference and you might still be like this. Because how could anybody listen to this and not at least put a grin on your face?
I mean, you know, I don't know how we could at least not smile. I'm not talking today about the milkman or the postman or the guy at the grocery store. God, who can do anything, who created everything, loves you and He thinks about you all the time. God loves you. Now, God dropped it in my heart this morning to talk to the television audience for a few minutes because I believe that there are people watching me right now who have been contemplating and seriously considering suicide.
A Word for the Hurting
A lot of the reason why people get to that point in life is because they just feel that nobody really loves them or they feel that they just cannot ever get it right. And part of the reason why you get to that point is because you're trying to find worth and value in all these other things that will never give you true worth and value. So you begin to feel like you're just a big mess up. You didn't make it through college. Your marriage didn't work out. You know, you weren't as good at sports as your brother or you weren't as good at something as your sister.
And so you've always kind of felt like the tail end of life, and you're just ready to give up. I want you to listen to me today. God is talking to you, and He had you turn this program on specifically at this time, even if you think you accidentally found me. And I don't care if it's 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the morning. Here's my point: God loves you. And He thinks you are wonderful. And He's got a good plan for you. And if you'll just receive that by faith and speak it out of your own mouth—this is where it gets hard—to sit somewhere by yourself and say, "God loves me."
↓↓↓ Part 2 ↓↓↓
In the second part Joyce Meyer focuses on the vital link between our thoughts and our Christian walk, using scripture from John 5:38 and Colossians 3:1-2. The key point is that we must learn to think like God thinks by receiving His Word as His personal thoughts toward us. The conclusion is that understanding our identity as new, loved, and powerful creations in Christ is essential for living in victory.
How Your Thoughts Affect Your Faith Walk
This morning I want to talk to you about how your thoughts affect your walk as a Christian. And I tell you, the more you think and talk like I'm sharing with you today, the stronger your faith is going to become. How can you put faith in somebody that you're about halfway afraid is mad at you most of the time? We must believe that God loves us, loves us perfectly and unconditionally. Here's the thing: God doesn't know how to do anything else because he is love. It's the only reaction he knows how to have. So, whether you like it or not, God loves you. You can't earn it. You can't deserve it. The only thing you can do, or not do, is receive it.
So, I mean, I can preach my heart out to you today, but if you don't decide, "I'm going to receive that. I'm going to receive... God is talking to me today," it won't matter. He's not just talking to a room full of people. God knows your name. He knows everything about you. He created you in your mother's womb with his very own hand. You are not a mistake. And he thinks about you all the time. He's got good plans for you. Now, you know, not too many, but I see a few people sitting around, and I can tell, looking at you, you're not in any kind of faith.
And so, you'll come back, maybe, to another conference and you might still be like this. Because how could anybody listen to this and not at least put your hand on your face? I mean, I don't know how we could at least not smile. I'm not talking today about the milkman or the postman or the guy at the grocery store. God, who can do anything, who created everything, loves you and he thinks about you all the time. God loves you.
A Message for Those Contemplating Suicide
Now, God dropped it in my heart this morning to talk to the television audience for a few minutes because I believe there are people watching me right now who have been contemplating and seriously considering suicide. A lot of the reason why people get to that point in life is because they just feel that nobody really loves them or they feel that they just cannot ever get it right. Part of the reason why you get to that point is because you're trying to find worth and value in all these other things that will never give you true worth and value.
So you begin to feel like you're just a big mess-up. You didn't make it through college. Your marriage didn't work out. You weren't as good at sports as your brother or you weren't as good at something as your sister, and so you've always kind of felt like the tail end of life. And you're just ready to give up. I want you to listen to me today. God is talking to you, and he had you turn this program on specifically at this time, even if you think you accidentally found me. And I don't care if it's 2 o'clock in the morning or 3 o'clock in the morning.
Here's my point: God loves you. And he thinks you are wonderful. And he's got a good plan for you. And if you'll just receive that by faith and speak it out of your own mouth. This is where it gets hard: to sit somewhere by yourself and say, "God loves me. God loves me. God thinks I'm wonderful." There's healing in that. This is what everybody wants. They want to be loved. They want to be accepted for who they are, where they're at. And the Bible says that God never rejects those who believe in him. He never rejects those who believe in him. The world can reject us, but God will never reject us.
God's Word is His Personal Thought for You
John 5:38: "And you have not his word, his thought." I love the way the Amplified Bible does that. This book is full of what God thinks. It's not just some arbitrary thing that he decided to have a bunch of guys write down in case we wanted to read it sometime. This is what God thinks about you, about your life, about your past, about your future, about your family, about your finances, and about his expectations for our behavior. "You have not his word, his thought living in your hearts, because you do not believe and adhere to and trust in and rely on him whom he has sent."
That is why you do not keep his message living in you, because you do not believe in the messenger whom he has sent. So the only reason why I'm reading this is to show you that there is a very close connection between believing and thinking. He said, you don't believe because you don't receive this as my thought. The Word is not some arbitrary thing that we read a chapter of every day out of obligation to God, so we get our check mark on our Bible reading calendar. It's God's thoughts toward us and about us, and we need to take it very personally.
Don't just read the Bible; read it for yourself. Take it for yourself. Don't just sit here today and think, you know, this is a great message for everybody. No, God is using my mouth to talk to you. God is speaking to you, not to somebody else, to you. Colossians 3:1 and 2: "If you've been raised with Christ to a new life, thus sharing his resurrection from the dead, aim at and seek the rich eternal treasures that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God, and set your minds and keep them set on what is above, the higher things, not on the things that are on the earth."
Setting Your Mind for the Life God Promises
So, very simply, he's saying, look, if you want the life that I'm offering you—how many of you want to actually enjoy the life that Jesus died to give you? Boy, me too. Then he says, if that's what you want, you seek it by setting your mind on those things, not on things that are on the earth. So, you can ruin your whole day by sitting around and being upset because of what somebody else thinks about you. But the truth is, what they think about you does not make one bit of difference. It's what you think about you that matters. It's what you think of you.
Now, remember, we're not better than anybody else, but we're not beneath anybody else. Anything that we are is because of Christ and Christ alone. We're not going to have the life that Jesus died to give us if we don't learn to think the way God thinks. And we're never going to learn to think the way God thinks if we don't ever think about what we're thinking about. You're going to have to fight the good fight of faith. The devil is alive and well on planet earth, and he is not going to shut his mouth.
The big problem comes when we shut ours and just let him beat our heads off instead of talking back to the devil like Jesus did. Talk back to the devil? What kind of preaching is this, Mabel? Just the kind you need. Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world. Don't be like the world. But be ye transformed, changed entirely, by the complete and total renewal of your mind." Amen. Now, you know, I said this last night, but I'm going to say it again. If you have a lot of problems with your mind, I don't care if you have to go out to my resource table and buy everything that I have ever written or said about the mind.
I mean, there's The Battlefield of the Mind, there's Power Thoughts, there's the Power Thoughts devotional, there's the Battlefield of the Mind devotional. You keep those in your bathroom so you can't even go to the bathroom without getting a little work. You get the Secret Power book and you stick that in your purse if you're a lady or in your man bag if you're a man or whatever you have. I happen to have to carry Dave's stuff, which I get tired of sometimes. Oh, but no, he's not going to carry a man bag. He won't even carry my purse. "Can you carry this for a minute?" "No, I'm not carrying that purse."
Which I think is hysterical because Dave is the most confident person I've ever seen in my life, but he will not carry my purse. The only time he carried my purse was when I had my hip replaced and I was on a walker and I was trying to get from the car to the coffee shop. He said, "Here, I'll carry your purse." I was like, whoa, this... We are over in the big stuff now. We don't need to be like the world. We don't need to get our confidence from our education and what we look like and our abilities and talents and our work.
Your New Identity in Christ
Once you know who you are in Christ, then everything else that you do is just fruit unto Him. And you're not doing it to get attention or to be well thought of. You're just doing it because that's what you do. You love God and that's just what He's enabled you to do, so you do that. The entire renewal of your mind. Second Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if any person is engrafted in Christ"—that means we've been taken out of the old life and put into Christ, the Messiah—"he is a new creation. A new creature altogether. Completely new. Totally new. All the old stuff gone." Your life can't go forward if your mind is going backward. Amen.
And like I was saying, if you have to go out and buy everything that I've got on that resource table that has to do with the mind, you listen and read and study and look up scriptures about your thoughts and your mind until you finally get it. And just because you're hearing me preach a good message today doesn't mean you got it. See, a lot of you are underlining your Bible and you're doing stuff. That's good. But even that doesn't mean you got it. I study this stuff all the time and I've been at this for 40 years.
And the more you're doing for God, the more the devil is going to come after you. I don't mean that to be bad news, but also the more victorious you become, the quicker you recognize him, the less he bothers you because you know who you belong to. I suffered so much with condemnation. It was absolutely pathetic how much I suffered with guilt and condemnation because of being abused and starting out in life thinking something was wrong with me. And I just pretty much don't ever feel guilty now. Now see, that makes religious people mad too.
I mean, if there's any religious demon listening to me right now, he's trying to stir some people up and you're thinking, "Well... You think you got it all together?" No, I know I don't. But I also know it doesn't matter. You say, "Well, that can't be right." Well, the thing is, my behavior may not be right, but my attitude is I love God. I'm depending on him. I get up every day. Oh my gosh, I would love to be perfect today. But just in case I'm not, I'm not going to ruin tomorrow over today's mistake. I'm just going to get up tomorrow and go at it again. Hallelujah.
"The old previous moral and spiritual condition has passed away. Behold, the fresh and the new has come." Everybody say, "I'm a new creature in Christ. I'm a new creature in Christ. I'm a new creature in Christ. I'm a new creature in Christ." Now, you know, I can't get to all the stuff I got here, but you absolutely are royalty. Thank you. The queen has nothing on you. You're in the royal bloodline. And you get to inherit the throne. It's coming to you down through the bloodline. Amen.
Reigning in Life Through Righteousness
The Bible says in Romans 5:17, "If because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one"—it's talking about Adam. Sin came to us through Adam, and we received that sin nature. We didn't fight about that. It says then, why can we not then receive the free gift of righteousness that comes to us through Jesus Christ that enables us to reign as kings in life? Really. You know, nobody ever argues with you if you tell them, you know, you're born with a sin nature. "Yeah, I know, man."
But you try to tell somebody, "And because of Christ and your faith in Him, you have now been made right with God. Actually, you are the very righteousness of God." Then they're going to go, "No, no, I'm just a poor, miserable sinner." No, you sin, but your identity is not poor, miserable sinner. You sin, but you are a king and a priest unto God. You are a new creation. You are wonderful. You're born again. Is anybody getting it? And I'm not telling you this so you can just keep sinning and get by with it.
The whole point is, the more you understand how much God loves you, the less you're going to want to sin. And actually, I can tell you, if you're struggling with some sin in your life, instead of just continuing to fight it, fight it, fight it, and failing every day, just go lock up with God extra time every day, and it won't be long, and you won't want anything to do with that. Revelation 5:10: "And you have been, and you have made them a kingdom, a royal race, and priests to our God, that they shall reign as kings over all the earth."
Let me ask you a question: Are you reigning over things, or are they reigning over you? Let me tell you something. Listen, the Bible says that when the Holy Ghost has come upon you, you shall receive power. Luke 10:19 says, "Behold, I have given you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and power over all the power that the enemy possesses, and nothing shall by any means harm you." Come on, shout it out: "I'm powerful." So see, now you don't get to get up in the morning and go, "I'm just, oh... I just, I don't even know if I can make it through this day. I just... Oh, I tell you what. It's rough." No.
Living in Victory with Your God-Given Identity
You get up and you think, "Bring it on. I'm above and not beneath, the head and not the tail." And I want to tell you something: I am not just up here leading some kind of a holy cheerleading session. I am telling you, this is the way I live. And if you want to live in victory, you're going to have to learn how to know who you are in Christ, think the way God thinks, and talk the way God talks. You talk to yourself all the time; you might as well start saying something that's going to help you. I love this: "And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity..."
"Through the fruit of your body. And the Lord shall open up his good treasury of the heavens to give you the rain that you need in its season. And he will bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord shall make you the head and not the tail. And you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath. If... Uh-oh, now the hammer falls. If you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you this day, and you're watchful to do them."
Now, that was in Deuteronomy under the law, and they had to struggle, struggle, struggle to keep the law. Well, we now live under a covenant of grace, but grace doesn't mean that we don't still have to do that stuff. It means that now we have the Holy Ghost living in us as a guarantee. Let's talk about identity theft for a minute. That's a big thing today. Somebody that works for me the other day just said, "Oh my gosh, my identity's been stolen." We even take out insurance now against fraud and identity theft because it's such a nightmare if somebody steals your identity.
Well, I think we've got a world full of Christians that don't know who they are. They've had their identity stolen. But you know what, you're protected. You've got an insurance policy that guarantees you. Oh, come on.