Joyce Meyer - Book of James Bible Study

You don't wanna have a lousy circumstance come along and ruin your week, do ya? You don't wanna have somebody else do something that you couldn't control, and now have to give up your joy because they decided to have a bad day. That's not what Jesus died for us to have. He wants us to have peace and joy, and to be stable, and to have it all the time, no matter what's going on in our circumstances, amen?

Satan is the god of this world, and he can mess around with our circumstances. But if we trust God, He will use every one of them to our good. They will help us grow spiritually. And as we stay strong in Him, then we will see additional blessings in our life according to what God knows that we can handle.

And so Paul said, "I've learned, how to be content, satisfied to the point where I'm not disturbed". Being content doesn't mean you never wanna see any change in your life. There's all kinds of things that I wanna see changed, and all kinds of people that I wanna see changed. But thankfully, I've come to the point where I'm not upset about it now. I'm not losing my joy.

You know why? I'm really well aware that only God can change it. And me bein' upset about it's not gonna get Him to move any faster. And so he said, "I've learned how to be content whether I'm abased or abounding".

And he said that because he trusted God so much that he knew that if he was going through a term of difficulty, that there was a reason for it. Even if he didn't understand it, he trusted God to work it out for his good.

Can we believe that all things work together for our good if we trust God? All things. But let's be able to believe that while we're in it. See, I wanted to be able to say last week when I was going through my little thing, and it was a little thing, believe me.

It was nothin' to even crab about. But it was just a little thing. But as I was goin' through it I thought, "Now, God, I wanna go through this the way I'm supposed to go through it. And so help me now".

See, a lot of times we can go through very difficult things, and 3, 4 years down the road, we can look back and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I see how God used that in my life. It worked out for good". Can any of you think of stuff like that right now? "I see how God used that in my life. It worked out good". But God wants us to get it on this side. See?

The Israelites danced and sang, but they did it on the wrong side of the red sea. They waited till they got through the red sea, and then they had a party. God wanted 'em to dance on this side when they were facing it. Amen? They remind us to be totally dependent on God. They help us develop character. And we give glory to God.

Revelation 12:11 says: "We overcome him," him being satan, "By the blood of the Lamb and by the utterance of our testimony".

Well, you can't have a testimony without a test. Test-imony. What we have to make sure of is that when we're done, we don't just have the moanies. And still don't have a testimony. Because in God's economy, if you don't pass the test, you get to take it again.

Well, we had a piece of property we needed to sell. Well, I'll put it like this. I wanted to sell it. I don't know if "Need" is the right word, but I wanted to sell it. So 3 and 1/2 years, we didn't even get an offer. And 3 and 1/2 years is a long time for me to wait. Now, Dave couldn't have cared less if we sold in 2 days or 10 years, you know? Because he's just like, "It'll sell at the right time. God'll sell it at the right time".

You know, sometime, if you need to grow in patience and you're around somebody that's really patient, aren't they annoying? And so, okay, I mean, I'm prayin' about this piece of property. I'm getting people to agree with me about selling this piece of property. I'm rebuking the devil because I'm not getting any offers on my property. I'm confessing that my property is sold, in Jesus' name.

And one morning I started to talk to the Lord again about the property, and He said, "Will you forget that property? Will you just forget that property and let Me take care of it?"

Now, don't miss the second half of what I said. "Will you forget about it?" See, some of you have issues and you've just been camped on top of 'em so long that God couldn't get a chance to help you if He tried. You almost gotta get to the point where you just flat-out don't care. And it's like, "It's up to you". "Will you forget about that?"

Now, as God is my witness, I'm tellin' you the absolute truth. In 2 weeks it sold. Now, it would come back to my mind, and I would just say, "Nope, God's takin' care of that". Now, you know, I'm not sayin' that you can't pray about things for a long time. But I will be honest and say I think there comes a time where we don't need to pray about somethin' anymore.

Maybe if it comes to your mind, you just say, "Thank you, God. You're takin' care of that". That's a type of prayer too, you know? But we don't have to just keep askin' for the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Now, "When a man is fully patient," James says, "They're perfect and entire, lacking nothing". Now, that's an amazing scripture. And you know what that basically means, if I can just give it to ya in the short way of what I think? I think it means when we become fully patient, we so trust God for His timing, His way, that we know that God will take care of it.

We know that God will do what we've asked if indeed that is His will. And to be honest, I believe the church worldwide needs to grow spiritually to the point where we really truly don't want anything that's not God's will. Because we can't be happy with anything that's not God's will. I don't care how much I want it. If it's not right for me, then instead of tryin' to finagle around and figure out a way to get it. Amen?