Joyce Meyer - Prisoners Of Hope (08/19/2019)
Joyce Meyer explains that biblical hope is a powerful, confident expectation of good, not a wishy-washy feeling. She emphasizes that a hopeful, positive attitude is essential for faith to work and that anyone can decide to become a 'prisoner of hope,' which leads to joy, strength, and God's promise of double restoration for what was lost, provided we let go of negativity and unforgiveness.
What is Biblical Hope?
What is hope? Why would we take a whole entire conference, especially the 30th anniversary with these many thousands of women and just talk about a subject as simple as hope? Because it's probably one of the most important things that we need to talk about. To be honest, we talk a lot about faith, but I don't think it's possible to have faith if you don't have any hope. Sometimes we're trying to believe God for something, but we've got a bad, negative attitude. And you can't have faith and a bad attitude at the same time and expect God to do anything.
Now, I know none of you have a bad attitude. I know that. I know you're thinking now about all the people you wish were here that didn't come, that have a bad attitude, so they could be helped. And you're even thinking, I need to buy this CD for so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so and so-and-so. But how many of you admit that it wouldn't hurt you to have an attitude adjustment either? Amen? Now, I've come a long way, and I don't have a bad attitude very often anymore, but every once in a while I get one. And when I do, I have to do the same things that I'm telling you to do.
What is hope? Well, I hope for this, I hope for that, I hope it don't rain, I hope, I hope, I hope. Hope is not just kind of this wishy-washy, vague, well, I wonder if it'll happen, but I don't know if it will. Well, then I guess we'll just kind of k-sara-sara, wait and see. That may be a worldly kind of hope, but that's not Bible hope. Bible hope is extremely powerful. It's a favorable and a confident expectation. I want to say to you, what are you expecting God to do in your life? I don't know. Just kind of waiting to see. Hope it's better than what I have been getting.
Hope is Confident Expectation
Now, what are you expecting? What are you expecting? What are you expecting? What are you seeing in your mind, in your imagination? How do you talk about your future? What are you looking for? When you get up every day, are you just kind of like, oh, another day, just trying to make it through the day? Or are you like, man, there's no telling us what God might do today. Today could be the day of my breakthrough. You know, when a pregnant woman is expecting, the longer you're pregnant, the more expectant you become.
And so some of you may be saying, well, I've been believing God for the same thing for 20 years. Well, then I tell you what, you ought to be just about ready to pop with expectation. I carried all my children over their due date. The doctor said that I was the only woman he knew that stayed pregnant as long as an elephant. My first child was four weeks late. Yeah, the second one was five and a half weeks late. The third one was three and a half weeks late. And the last one was almost five weeks late. And he lacked one ounce weighing 10 pounds. I was really ready to get him out.
And I'm telling you what, every day I woke up, this has got to be the day. Today is going to be the day. I'd check everything in the suitcase and dust everything off and make sure I had everything just right. And you know, every time I would just feel anything, I go, oh, there it is. There it is. There it is. I was expecting. I'm going to ask you again. What are you expecting God to do in your life? God wants us to be expectant on purpose. It has to do with the unseen and the future. You don't hope for what you can see. You don't hope for what you already have. You hope for what you can't see and what you don't have.
Hope is the happy anticipation of good. I love that. The happy anticipation something good is going to happen to me. Something good is going to happen in my family. Something good is going to happen in our nation. God is good and he is doing good things. And hope releases joy. Hope is very simply a positive attitude, a positive mindset. Now, if I can stand here and say to you, have a positive attitude, coming from where I came from, and seeing what God has done in my attitude, then I'm here to tell you that no matter how many negative things you've had happen in your life, no matter how negative your mind might be right now, you can have a change of mind and a change of attitude, and you can become so positive.
The Characteristics of a Hopeful Person
that you won't even hardly recognize yourself. The hopeful person absolutely refuses to be negative in any way. Although they recognize and deal with the storms of life, they remain hopeful in thought, attitude, and conversation! And conversation! So often we say we're praying for this or we're hoping for that, and if you listen to the way we talk, we sure don't sound like we're hoping for any change. We can't be saying that we're in faith for God to do this and then talking about it like it's never going to change.
Now here comes something for you to do. We always like to have something to do, right? Anybody can decide today to be hopeful. You don't have to wait for a special feeling. We live way too much based on our feelings. Well, Joyce, you just don't know how I feel. Well, can I tell you something? You don't know how I feel. Right now my contact lens is aggravating the living daylights out of me. And I got to stand here and preach to you anyway and not bat my eyes all day for the TV cameras. You don't... Nobody knows how anybody else feels, but we can't live by how we feel.
And the more we cater to our feelings, the more they're going to increase. Because when we give in to them, we feed them and make them stronger. But if we don't give in to them, we starve them and pretty soon they lose their power over us. Your feelings will catch up with your decisions. Now, let me just say from the outset, we can't do anything without God. That's already a foregone conclusion for me. The first thing that I say every morning is, God, apart from you, I can do nothing. And most mornings I slip out of bed and I get down on my knees by my bed and I say, God, I'm here just to simply say that I can't do anything without you. I am nothing without you.
So when I say to you, you need to do this, you need to do that, you need to decide. I'm just trying to provoke you to line your will up with the will of God. And to make the God-inspired, Holy Spirit-filled effort that God wants you to make. But I want to make it clear that you cannot do it on your own. We cannot do anything apart from God, but we are partners with God. I love what Reinhard Bonnke says, God needs manpower and we need God power. And that's the truth. God needs you. And He needs me and He needs us with a good attitude.
You Can Decide to Be Hopeful Today
He needs us full of hope and confidence and faith that all things are possible with God. Anybody can decide to be hopeful. Well, Joyce, you just don't know what's happened in my life. No matter what has happened in your life, you can start turning things around today if you'll make a decision today. That's it. I'm done being negative. I'm done talking negative. I'm not thinking negative. I'm not going to imagine negative things. I am going, with God's help, to have a good attitude. But I'm here to tell you, there is no promise of God that's going to manifest in our lives if we keep a negative attitude and a negative mouth.
Oh my gosh, I was so negative. I mean, honestly, if I thought two positive thoughts in a row, my brain would cramp. Dave and I had been married about three weeks and he looked at me and he said, what is wrong with you? See, we only had five dates and got married. We had to do it quick before he found out what he was getting. It was like this. You talk about a whirlwind romance. I mean, whew. And he said, what is wrong with you? You have such a negative attitude. This is what I said to him. This is how bad I was. I said, if you don't expect anything good to happen, then you're not disappointed when it doesn't.
He said, well, why did you think like that? Because I had had 23 years of nothing but pain and abuse and disappointment and unfaithfulness and one bad thing after another, after another, after another happening in my life. And that is exactly what the devil wants to do to you. He wants to bring a series of trials into your life to where you begin to think that nothing good is ever going to happen to you. Then you give your mouth to that. You give your attitude to it. You give your thoughts to it. You find some more negative people to talk to and the two of you get in agreement.
Breaking Free from Negativity
I'm not hanging out with negative people. I am not going to hang out and spend my time with negative people. I don't ignore problems. I talk about problems when they're there. But I'm not going to spend my life being negative. You can decide today. You can decide today. And you can be the catalyst to turn your whole family around. You can be the catalyst to turn your friends around. You can turn your workplace around. You can turn your school around if you'll be the first one to say, I'm done being negative. Doubt and negativity steal hope. When you feel hopeless or down in any way, you must have a resurrection of believing. And when you do, hope will immediately set you free.
Although we cannot prevent negative feelings from showing up, we can drive them away through having right thoughts, attitudes, conversation, and action. Let's look at Romans 12, 10 through 13. Love one another with brotherly affection as members of one family, giving precedence and showing honor to one another. Let me just throw this out for good measure. Loving people just really makes you happy. If you're not happy, I can tell you how to fix it. Get your mind off yourself. Go do something for somebody else. You'll start feeling different. Back to Romans. Never lag in zeal. I love this. Never lag in zeal and in earnest endeavor, be aglow and burning with the Spirit, serving the Lord.
Guess what? Christians are supposed to be excited. We are supposed to be excited. But I don't feel excited. Well, get your mind off your problems. Get your mind off what you don't have. Start talking about something positive. Start doing something for somebody else. I'm giving you an action plan, honey. Well, you don't know who I'm married to and you don't know the problems I have. You don't know and you don't know. You know what? You being negative about it ain't gonna change it. You may not be able to change everybody else, but you can change you. Amen. We have too much stiff, wooden, bored Christians. The Bible says we're to be born again, not bored again. Come on now.
Living with Zeal and Joy
I'm so bored. Who's gonna go to church again? Nothing good's gonna happen. Go to church. Go home. I'm so bored. So unhappy. Nothing good ever happens to me. We need some zeal, some joy, some enthusiasm. Some excitement. Some smiling. Some fire. Okay, but now listen to me. You know what? It's not hard in here. I don't even have to work hard to get you guys stirred up. I can say about anything and you'll go, yes! But what about when you go home? Hmm. Did you feel the... Did you feel the mood of the room kind of dip down about several levels?
See, if you really want people to think that your Christianity is working, then you stay happy no matter what happens in your life. I think joy is the greatest gift that God gives us. The joy of the Lord truly is our strength. I'm reading a book by Reinhart Bonnke on the gifts of the Spirit, and he said something that just really tickled me. Ephesians 2, 1 says, You hath he made alive when you were dead in sin, not you hath he stiffened. Too many Christians are just stiff with religion. They're bored and grumbling and complaining all the time. You hath he made alive. You hath he made alive. When you were dead in your sin, the resurrection power of God came and lifted you up. You hath he made alive. You hath. You hath. Woo hoo. Woo hoo. Woo hoo.
Let's go ahead and look at the rest of this scripture. I'm going to try to read it all. Rejoice and exult in hope. Be steadfast and patient in suffering and tribulation. Be constant in prayer. You see, they all go together. You can be patient and not quit and not give up if you'll keep rejoicing in hope. Contribute to the needs of God's people, sharing in the necessities of the saints. Pursue the practice of hospitality. You see how all this goes together? You stay busy helping people. You may have to persevere and be patient as you go through things, but if you rejoice in hope and keep helping people and you just stay hopeful and you keep helping people, there is no devil in hell that can keep you from having what God wants you to have if you'll do that.
But you can't just do it once or twice. You have to do it and do it and do it and do it and do it. I love this. 1 Peter 1, 3. We are born again into an ever-living hope. And in Titus, there's a couple of scriptures that talk about the hope of eternal life. And I said this last night, but I want to say it again. You know what eternal life is? It doesn't mean I repeat a sinner's prayer and then someday I get to go to heaven, but I'm miserable all the time I'm here. Eternal life means that when we're born again, we receive eternal life and that means that we receive life as God has life. What kind of life do you think God's got today? I bet he's happy. I bet he feels energetic. Life as God has it.
And then in the Greek dictionary, it says this. It is the full, this eternal life, it is the full manifestation and realization of that life which is already the believer's possession. Now see, this means something to me because I'm a teacher of the word and my whole goal is to help believers understand what is already theirs in Christ and appropriate it in their everyday life and live the life that Jesus died for them to have. I'm so glad that 4,982 people got saved last night. But you know what? That is not enough for me. I don't want you just to be saved. I want you to live saved. I want you to have the life that Jesus died to give you.
The Promise of Double Restoration
Now, Oh, one of my most yummy scriptures is Zechariah 9.12. Let's put it up. Return to the stronghold of security and prosperity, you prisoners of hope. Uh-oh. Even today, do I declare that I will restore double, double your former prosperity to you. Now we're going over the edge. Okay, now look. God promises us that if we will become prisoners of hope. You know what that means? I'm locked up in hope. I can't get away from it. I can't get out of it. Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope. Hope. Everywhere I look, hope, hope, hope. When you do that, the devil does not know what to do to you.
Now listen. The devil will attack us. He'll come against us. He'll come with negative thoughts and trying to tell us that... But... But... But... Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. He can't get to us. As long as we remain prisoners of hope. Amen. You get up in the morning, the devil says nothing good is going to happen to you today. You've already been waiting 25 years. It ain't going to change. Listen, I had migraine headaches 10 years. I don't have migraine headaches anymore. You got to keep hoping. Every day you got to say, today could be my day. I'm expecting.
You know, I have no interest at all in standing up here for an hour just trying to be a cheerleader. Yes, I can drive you into an emotion of excitement while you're here. That's not what I want for you. I want you to get a principle. I want you to get an understanding of something that this is something you can take home with you. And when you know how to have this godly attitude and stay full of hope, I am telling you there is no devil in hell that can defeat you. I don't care what's going on in your family, your finances. Yes, that doesn't mean it's not going to hurt and be hard. But when you say, God, I believe your word. I believe it. And you need to say it out loud. I believe your word. I believe your promises. And I'm going to keep believing and keep believing and keep believing and keep believing. And when you do, the God of your hope will fill you with joy and peace.
[Part 2]
You know, I believe that one of the ways that we can increase our hope is by giving hope to others. And as you support the preaching of the gospel, and you help us reach out to the poor and the needy around the world, you can be assured that God will always take care of you and meet your needs. Thank you so much. You know, I believe that being a prisoner of hope releases you from other prisons. The Apostle Paul was a prisoner of religion. And if you read the New Testament, Paul now says, I, a prisoner of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, I used to be a prisoner of negativity and doubt. I was a prisoner of my past. I was a prisoner of all the years of abuse that I had gone through. And I thought nothing good can ever happen to me. And you're just making a mistake if you expect it to because all you're going to get is disappointed. And now I am so full of hope and just expect God to do... Every day I believe God for favor in my life. And I just wait to see how God shows up and shows out. What have you lost during all the years that you didn't know the truth of God's word? How many years have you wasted?
What Have You Lost?
Have you lost your identity? Do you not know who you are in Christ? Do you spend your time feeling guilty and condemned? Depressed and discouraged and downtrodden? Have you lost your confidence? Do you know who you are in Christ? Have you lost your friends, your job? Your childhood? Your mind? My childhood was stolen from me. I never got to be a kid. That's tough when you don't ever get to be a kid. I don't remember ever just being a happy, carefree... I never felt safe, ever. Never. Thank you. But you know what? I am just having so much fun now that I can hardly stand myself. I mean, I am a 69-year-old kid. Woo-hoo!
Now you know what? Just about the time you start to think, well, you know what? What she's saying makes sense. You start to feel just a little bit of hope starting to bubble in there. Then you might as well expect it. The devil is going to attack. And he comes in a different way than he did before. I've got to fight the good fight of faith. And I've got to get my hope back. Because if I have my hope back... Ha! Na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Go away. I want you to go home with one of these. Amen? If you need to, make it your bathroom. And when everything that you look at looks like destruction, you just go get in that bathroom, run the water, flush the toilet so you can hear the kids, and say, I believe that God is going to do something amazing in my life!
Isaiah 61-7. This message this morning is not complicated. I've gone over it four or five times, and I thought, well, am I... Is this deep enough? Let me tell you something. This is deep as I'm going this morning. Get a good attitude. Have some positive thoughts. Say something good. If you leave this meeting today, and you go to lunch with a bunch of people, and you sit there and do nothing but talk about your problems the whole time you're at lunch. I mean, I want you talking about... There is no telling us what God is going to do in my life. I tell you what, I'm going to be a prisoner of hope, and I'm going to get double my trouble. Amen?
Isaiah 61-7. Oh my gosh, this kept me going for years when I just had so much pain in my soul trying to get over the abuse that I went through, trying to learn how to be a submissive wife, trying to learn how to be nice. Oh my gosh. And I'd go back to Isaiah 61-7. Instead of your farmers' shame, you shall have a two-fold recompense that means reward. Instead of dishonor and reproach, your people shall rejoice in their portion. Now watch this, it doesn't say, and when they finally go to heaven they'll be blessed. Therefore, in their land they shall possess double what they forfeited and everlasting joy.
I know some of you have been sad. Some of you came to this conference saying, God, I've got to have a breakthrough. You've got to speak something to me. I need a word. This is your word. I'm telling you that every person can take this. This is your word from God. And anybody else that ever comes to you that needs help, this can be their word from God. There is nothing negative about our God. Everything He says is hopeful. It's full of faith. It's full of confidence. You are no... You are not the tail end of anything. It's not too late for you. God's got a good plan for your life and it's never too late to begin again. Double.
The Double Blessing and Your Response
See, you just don't understand and there's no way that I could ever make you understand. What God has done for me. And you say, well, that must be nice for you. Well, see, that's just that attitude I'm trying to get rid of right there. That's it right there. We just hit it on the head. Well, that must be nice for you. I'm glad that you're so blessed. Caught you, didn't I? No, you know what you need to say? If God will do it for one person, He'll do it for me. I'm a whosoever. And God is no respecter of persons.
When you see somebody else with victory, don't be resentful and jealous. Let it be an encouragement to you that if God can do it for them, God can do it for you. I don't even know how to talk about the changes in my life. But everything that I'm telling you guys that you need to do by the grace and the mercy of God, I had to do it. I didn't just get it sitting around wishing. You have to fight the good fight of faith. In Job 42.10, we see that God restored double to Job everything that he had lost when he prayed for his friends and forgave them.
Now, let me just say something quite serious to you right now. Don't expect any of this if you're going to stay mad at people. Did you hear what I said? I'm going to say it again. Don't expect this stuff to work in your life if you're going to have bitterness and resentment and unforgiveness, offense, and be mad at people. And the sad thing is I've ministered to people long enough to know that from what I can tell, about 80% of all Christians are mad. It's the truth. I've never been anywhere, never been to any church, never had any meeting where I have ever taught on unforgiveness or strife or any of that stuff, asked people to stand up at the end so I could pray for them if they need to forgive somebody. I've never had less than 70 to 80% of the whole congregation get on their feet.
Forgiveness is Non-Negotiable
The first thing that God does for us is forgive us. And what God gives you, He expects you to give away. Don't give the devil your inheritance by staying mad at somebody that did something to you that doesn't even care if you're upset and they're out having a good time. You can do yourself a favor today. You can put this double blessing in action in your life by saying I am not going to stay mad at anybody. It is not to my benefit to stay mad at anybody and I want to see God's plan. I forgive, I forgive, I forgive, I release it, I let it go. You say, but it's not fair. But if you do it, double, double, double, double, double, double, double, double. How many of you understand clearly what I'm saying?
This is not going to work for you if you're going to stay mad at somebody. Do you have that? It is not going to work for you if you're going to stay mad at somebody. And while I'm at it, let me just throw this out there. That includes you. You've got to get over being mad at you. Well, I don't like myself in any... Why don't you just get busy being you? You can't be somebody else. Everybody else is already taken. You're it. You're stuck with you. Let's just make the best out of it. Amen? The way out of any prison... the way out of any prison is to become a prisoner of hope. I love that.
Jesus said He came to open prison doors. The door is open. You've got to walk out. And the way out of any prison is to become a prisoner of hope. To get in here and say, something good is going to happen to me. I'm expecting. I'm like a pregnant woman that's about 25 years overdue. I'll tell you what. I'm expecting. Today may be my day. I'm going to deliver today. I'm going to give birth today. I can't wait to see what good thing God does in my life. Amen? Don't you like my little jail cell? I think that's so cute. Full of these little flowers. Double blessings don't come to the double-minded.
Make Up Your Mind and Keep It Set
I'm going to write a new book. Won't get around to this one for a couple of years. But what do you think of this? For a book title. Make Your Mind Up and Stop Changing It. Now it's mine, so don't anybody else get the bright idea that you're going to steal it. Make your mind up and stop changing it. You know, you're making... You agree with what I'm saying? You're like, this is it. This is it. I've got to change my attitude. I've got to get positive. I've got to start talking positive. I've got to agree with God. That's it. Prison of hope. That's what I'm saying.
And then, when you go home, and the kids didn't clean the house like you told them to, and your husband's still in the recliner. Didn't clean out the garage you told them to clean out. Nobody did anything you asked them to do. The house's a mess. You walk in, they wonder, what are you going to cook for dinner? Now, you're about to change your mind. You're about to get a new mindset. This stuff, man, they don't work for me. Nobody could live here and have any kind of an attitude of hope. No, the double-minded don't get the double blessing. It's easy to have this work in here. It's when you go home that you're going to have to apply this.
Come on, folks. You've got to go home. I'm sorry to tell you, but you've got to go home. You know, the people that Jesus touched, a lot of them said, oh, let me just follow you and I'll just be with you now. And he said, go home. Show them what a great thing I've done in your life. You've got to go home and show people that you've changed. Don't just take them to CDs. Go home and show them that you've changed. The double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Do not let that man even think that he will receive anything that he asked for from the Lord.
I love Colossians 3.1. Set your mind and keep it set. Make your mind up that God is good, that he's got a good plan for you and that you're going to have it. Everybody say, God is good. He's got a good plan for me. Now, this part, you've got to say really loud. And I'm going to have it. Now, remember, you can't do it just on the good days. You've got to do it especially... This is especially important on the not-so-good days. You can't just do it when you feel like it. You have to do it especially when you don't feel like it. Amen.