Joyce Meyer - What Do I Have To Do To Obey God? (08/20/2019)
James 4:7 shows our power over the devil comes from submitting to God first—resist him and he flees. Joyce Meyer stresses sincere repentance, keeping God first in everything, taking sin seriously, and relying on Christ to live the Christian life through us. Obedience, not self-effort, releases God's power and grace for change, victory, and practical daily living.
The Full Picture of James 4:7
Normally, when you hear people quote James 4:7, they only quote half of it. "Resist the devil and he will flee." But that's not what it says. It says, "Be subject to God. Resist the devil and he will flee." Our power over the enemy is found in being submissive to God. Did you hear me? Our power over the enemy, matter of fact, I'll tell you, the more you walk in obedience, the less the enemy can do anything to you except maybe try to annoy you.
Do you know that you have an enemy? Is anybody in the building aware of that? Do you know? I went to church for years and I didn't even know the devil was real. I thought he was a Halloween character that came out with a pitchfork and red pajamas and a long tail. I never heard anything about the devil in church. And let me tell you something. He's alive and well on planet earth and he is the source of our problems and we need to know how to deal with him.
Submit First, Then Resist
"Resist the devil and he will flee." But at first, you've got to submit yourself to God. Amen? I might as well just say this because it's on my heart. Some of you, you could turn things around in your life really fast if you'd just get about doing what God's told you to do. "Come close to God and he will come close to you." Remember, he's never more than a thought away.
"Recognize that your sinners get your soiled hands clean. Realize that you've been disloyal, wavering individuals with divided interests and purify your hearts of your spiritual adultery." Now here again, this doesn't mean that you can't enjoy other things and have other interests, but God needs to be first. That means he needs to be first in our time, first in our conversation, first in our thoughts, first in our finances, first in every decision that we make.
Keeping God First in Everything
If you keep God first, you'll never find yourself in last place. As you draw near to God, be deeply penitent and grieve, even weep over your disloyalty. Let your laughter be turned to grief and your mirth to dejection and heartfelt shame for your sins. Now this, you know, this does not mean that we go around like, you know, thinking that we're terrible all the time, but I think it's an exhortation to take sin seriously. Take it seriously.
We don't, you know, half the time now the world doesn't even call sin, sin. Half the things that the Bible says are sin are now addictions or these diseases or sicknesses. Amen? See, the biggest danger that we have is drifting toward the world and away from God. We cannot think like they think. We cannot talk like they talk. We cannot act like they act. We cannot believe what they believe. We have something higher and it's the Word of God.
And I will keep shouting from the house tops as long as God gives me a voice that this is the truth and anything that does not agree with it is a lie. Sincere repentance. Very sincere repentance. One time I was praying, I'd done something wrong. I don't even remember now what it was. And I said, oh God, forgive me. I missed it. And I remember the Lord saying, missed what? And I said, well, Lord, you know what I did. He said, yeah, I want to hear you say it.
True Confession and Repentance
Not because he didn't know, but you see, true confession and repentance is good for the soul. David, the Bible records the prayer of repentance that David prayed when he finally faced confessed the magnitude of his sin with Bathsheba. And believe it or not, he ignored it for a year. As close as he was to God, he had adultery and he had murder and he managed to think he was avoiding it for a year.
And if you read Psalm 32, it's really good, especially in the Amplified Bible. He basically says he was miserable. And when he did confess his sin, the Amplified says that he told it and told it until he told it all. And then the joy of his salvation came back. Don't go around with hidden stuff in your heart that you don't want to talk to God about because he already knows anyway.
And sometimes we need to hear the ugliness of what it is. Because it'll shock us even sometimes to realize that we're jealous or we're just being hateful or just being hard to get along with. "Humble yourselves, verse 10, feeling very insignificant in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you." He will lift you up and make your lives significant.
Humility and God's Grace
Now here again, feeling insignificant is what the Amplified Bible says. I'm not real crazy about that translation. I don't think that God ever wants you to think little of yourself, but he never wants you to think more of yourself than you ought to. And that's the key. I like to say I'm in everything, nothing. Nothing in myself and everything in Christ. Nothing in myself, nothing without Him, everything in Him and through Him.
God gives us grace. We can't change without Him. We need to spend time with God and trust Him to change us on a regular basis. How many of you would love to be set free from always trying to change yourself and being unhappy with yourself? You know, there's been a lot of discussion from theologians about Romans 7, 15 through 25 and Paul's whole discourse of the thing that I want to do. I can't do the thing that I don't want to do. I always end up doing, you know, what's my problem? You know, on and on and on.
I mean, you read it, and if you don't really know anything about the Bible, you're like, what is with this dude? Let me just read you a little tiny bit of it. Romans 7:15. "For I do not understand my own actions. I'm baffled and bewildered. I don't practice and accomplish what I wish, but I do the very thing that I hate."
The Struggle in Romans 7
Verse 16. "Now, if I do habitually what is contrary to my desire, then that means and acknowledge that I agree with the law and that I need it. I take sides with it. However, it's really no longer I doing it, but..." And so I'm thinking, well, if you're not doing it, buddy, then who is doing it? You know? And... but here's the thing. I'm not going to read this whole thing. I just saw this a few weeks ago, and I did enough checking with people who know more than me to make sure that I wasn't off base.
But if... in verses 15 through 23, in the Amplified Bible, Paul uses the word I 26 times. I try. I, you know, I, I, I, I. And then, finally, he gets to verse 24, and he says, "Oh, unhappy, and pitiable, and wretched man that I am, who will deliver, release, and deliver me from the shackles of this body of death."
So, to me, it's like he's like worn himself completely out trying to be this person that he believes that God wants him to be. He gets up every day. He tries. Let me tell you, I have a plan for holiness every morning when I wake up. And it lasts until I put my feet on the floor and I see a person. How many of you are much more holy when there's no people there?
Thank God he sees our heart. And he sees that we want to. God doesn't see the way man sees. Man sees the appearance. God sees the heart. And I'm grateful for that. And I'm not where I need to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be. I'm on the journey. And I've decided to enjoy the journey and I cannot enjoy the journey if I don't enjoy myself.
And I cannot enjoy myself if I'm always going to be mad at myself because I'm not perfect yet. And so Paul said, "Who's going to deliver me from this body of death?" And I love verse 25. "Oh, thank God, exclamation mark, he will through Jesus Christ, the anointed one." Who's going to deliver me? Oh, thank God, he will.
Christ Living Through Us
So in essence, this is what I want to tell you today. You can't live the Christian life. Only Jesus can live it through you. It took a while in the last place I was in too. They're like... And I'm not saying that we don't put out an effort, but honestly and truly, our part mainly is studying the Word, spending time with God, staying in faith, trusting Him, and consistently doing what God asks us to do.
Let me tell you something. If there's anything in your life that God has told you to do or not to do, there's no point at all in saying it's too hard because if God has told you to do or not to do it, then He has also given you the grace to follow through with obedience. We can do whatever God asks us to do through Christ, who is our strength.
You could even drive home today from the conference with a good attitude. Come on, that's just good, plain old, ordinary stuff. What's the sense in coming to something like this and clapping and shouting and dancing and worshiping God and hearing all this Word and then getting in your car like, I dread this, drive home.
Obedience Releases Power
See, sometimes we want to have authority over the devil and we're not even taking authority over a sink full of dirty dishes. I mean, we need to start at home and start applying the Word to these practical, little, everyday things in our life. And the more you practice on the little things, the big things will get easier and easier and easier.
Don't try to go out and have a worldwide ministry if you can't even be a good example to your kids. Well, Joyce, I wish you'd have a seminar teaching people what their ministry is. Can I tell you the truth? If we all just focus on spiritual maturity, we'll just slip right into our ministry and God will show every one of us what it is.
All right. Obedience releases God's power in our lives.