Joyce Meyer - Can You Help Me Find Freedom? (08/21/2019)
Joyce Meyer powerfully teaches that wrong thinking keeps us in bondage while God's way of thinking brings freedom and victory. Renew your mind with Romans 6 truths—you're dead to sin, alive to righteousness—consider it so, reject stinking thinking, take thoughts captive, refuse to quit in well-doing, and press on with bulldog tenacity for breakthrough and a great future.
Think Your Way to Freedom
You absolutely can think your way out of bondage and think your way into freedom if you learn to think the way that God wants you to think. It is impossible to have victory and think bondage. It's impossible to be happy and think sadness and depression. It is impossible to be free from sin while you think that you are in bondage to sin.
There's a great example of this found in Romans chapter 6. In Romans chapter 6 verse 2, Paul said, How can you live in sin when you're dead to sin? The Bible tells us that when Christ died, we died in Him. That He took sin to the cross and that we are dead to sin and alive to righteousness.
Dead to Sin – Alive to Righteousness
You know what that means? There's a part of you, the born again part of you, does not want anything to do with sin. It's dead to sin. That's why now when you sin, it bothers you. Before you were born again, didn't bother you. You didn't care. You loved it. You enjoyed it. But once you get born again, now you have a new set of problems because you cannot comfortably sin anymore. It makes you miserable.
So there's a part of you that doesn't want to sin. However, you're still carrying around the flesh, an unrenewed mind, wild, out of control emotions, and a stubborn will that has to be worked on by God and the Holy Spirit. That actually is our wilderness. Our soul, until it's renewed by the Word of God, is our wilderness. We have to learn how to let God, who is in our spirit, invade our soul.
Renew Mind – Invade the Wilderness
He doesn't want to just live in this little place in the spirit. He wants to get out into your mind, into your emotions, into your will, into your finances, into your relationships, into your entertainment, and He wants to finally be seen through you as a bright shining light so the world can say, that person's got something that I want. Come on, somebody give God prayer.
So Romans 6-2 says we're dead to sin, but then Romans 6-11 says even so, now consider yourself dead from sin and alive to righteousness. I love that because the word consider is a process of your mind. So you might as well say that in Romans 6-2 it says you're dead to sin, but then Romans 6-11 it says, so now think that you're dead to sin. Believe that you're dead to sin.
Think Like God Thinks
So we'll say, I'm dead to sin, and sing songs about being free in Christ, but then we're afraid of sin. We say, we're addicted, we're this, we're that, I can't get over this, this is too hard, I can't overcome that. So we stay trapped in that wilderness area. We have to begin to think like God thinks and say what God says, and that's gonna help us fast track through the wilderness and begin to live in the promises of God.
You can control your thinking with God's help, a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, a lot of leaning on the Holy Spirit, you can control your thinking, but not until you learn to actually take an inventory of your thoughts, and I call it thinking about what you're thinking about. Where the mind goes, the man follows.
Think About What You're Thinking About
If you don't like your life, go home, have a meeting with yourself, and think about what you have been thinking about. Instead of blaming it on everything else, have a meeting with yourself, and just ask yourself if it's time for you to get rid of your stinking thinking. Amen.
Set your mind and keep it set on right things. Two of the most popular scriptures, I guess, that we use when we teach on the mind is 2 Corinthians 10, 4, and 5, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Casting down imaginations, reasons, and theories, taking every thought captive under the obedience of Jesus Christ.
Take Thoughts Captive – Renew Mind
So we know there's a battle in our mind, wrong thoughts, reasons, theories that don't agree with the Word of God, and the Bible gives us the responsibility of locating them and casting them down. Now, it's really not our responsibility by ourself, because when you start leaning on the Holy Spirit, all you've got to do is just say, God, I'm asking you to start making me aware when I'm thinking wrong thoughts.
Just pray. God, make me aware every time I'm thinking wrong thoughts. Don't let me just sit around and think stupid stuff. Make me aware when I'm thinking bad thoughts. And so as you begin to pray like that, you'll begin to realize, well, I don't need to be thinking that, I shouldn't be thinking that. That's not in line with the Word of God.
Jeremiah 4:14 – Offensive Thoughts
And the way those strongholds in our mind is torn down is by being a diligent student of the Word of God. Romans chapter 12, verse 2 says, be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed, completely changed by the entire renewal of your mind, so you can prove for yourselves what is the good and perfect and acceptable will of God.
Jeremiah 4, 14, how long shall your grossly offensive thoughts lodge within you? If you know God's dealing with you about a bad attitude, then deal with it. If you know God's dealing with you about unforgiveness in your heart, then deal with it. Don't make some silly excuse about how hard it is to forgive people.
Forgiveness Easier Than Hatred
I'll tell you what's hard, hating people. That is much harder than forgiving people. Forgiveness is easy compared to hatred and bitterness and resentment and being full of that poison all the time. If God is dealing with you about a habit that you have that is a destructive habit, if God is putting His finger on it, then you do not have to even think that you can't do it because God is never going to deal with you about something without giving you the ability to go all the way through to victory.
But you've got to believe it. I was sexually abused by my dad for many years, and when I walked away from his home, I thought I walked away from the problem. Little did I know that I had the problem with me etched in my soul. It was in my mind, it was in my emotions, it was in my will, and it affected every relationship that I had.
Secrets Make You Sick – Deal With It
My relationship with God, my relationship with me, and my relationship with other people. Your secrets will make you sick. And when God begins to say it's time to deal with things, then it's time to deal with things. Well, my first marriage was a nightmare. I married a guy that had as many problems as I did, if not more, and he ran around with other women and was a petty thief and a con man, and so that never worked out.
About five years of that nightmare, had one child and finally ended up getting a divorce. He went to prison and met Dave, who was born again, a Holy Ghost-filled Lutheran young man. I told you last night, wanting a wife, praying for a wife. He was dating three women. He was trying to possess the land. He had a... He could see it with the eye of faith, and he was going out to take it, let me tell you.
Dave & Joyce – Early Marriage Struggles
So, and he knew none of the three he was dating was right, and so he saw me washing my mother's car outside my house, thought I was cute, had on short shorts, my hair piled on top of my head, probably smoking my cigarette and drinking my beer or whatever. And he said, hey, you want to wash my car when you're finished with that one? I said, if you want your car washed, buddy, wash it yourself.
And he said, the thing that came to him was, that's the girl for me. Now, he was obviously either demented, or he was being led by the Spirit of God. Dave and I only had five dates and got married. I mean, he had to, he had to move fast before he figured out what he was getting.
Face Your Issues – No Blaming Others
So, we got married, about three weeks later, Dave looked at me and said, what is wrong with you? Well, see, I didn't know I had a problem. I thought everybody else was the problem. I didn't know I had a problem. And maybe that's your problem that you don't know that you're the problem.
I see you watching through that TV screen. I said, maybe that's your problem that you don't know that you're the problem. You thought I was just talking to all these pretty people here in this conference, but I'm not. I'm talking to you. Matter of fact, I'm doing this whole thing mainly for you. Got ya.
Testimony – Book Triggered Pain
You don't just get to lay there in your bed with your remote in your hand and don't you try to flip the channel either because I'll be on another channel. You can't get away from me in the morning. If you're going to watch TV, you're going to find me. And so I didn't know I had all these problems.
Well, Dave and I went to church. You know, we He loved God. I loved God. I believed in Jesus. I was born again. But I wasn't dealing with my issues. So one night, Dave and I went to a church service and there was a woman there giving a testimony who had been sexually abused by her father. Her story was so closely linked to mine that it was scary.
Time to Deal – Holy Spirit Speaks
She kind of handled her problems in a different way than I did. She went on to become a prostitute and had a whole lot of problems and then she met a godly man and talked about how God dealt with her and how she'd been healed. Well, she'd written a book. And Dave bought me the book.
Because by now he knew that I'd been abused. I shared with him what had happened to me. And he gave me the book. And the next morning, I opened the book up and I started to read her story. And what, as she explained the things her father had done to her, they were precisely what my dad had done to me. And I felt pain come roaring through my soul because, you see, I had all that stuff neatly shut off behind closed doors and I wasn't dealing with it.
It's Time – Face the Past
And I threw the book across the room. And I said, I am not going to read this book. And I heard the Holy Ghost say, so sweetly, but so strongly, it's time. It's time. It's time. And maybe God would speak that to some of you tonight or some of you watching by TV or listening by CD later on. It's time.
It's time to stop going around and around and around the same mountains, blaming somebody else for all your problems, looking back at your past all the time with no positive vision for the future. Let me tell you again, that no matter what has happened to you in your past, no matter what is going on in your life right now, it does not have the power to keep you from having a great life if you will have a positive vision for your future.
Deuteronomy 30 – Commandment Not Too Hard
Deuteronomy 30, 11. For this commandment which I command you this day is not too difficult for you, nor is it far off. Right here, chapter 18. This commandment which I command you is not too hard for you. Can you say tonight, anything that God asks me to do, I can do it.
See, some of you wouldn't even bother to say it. Everybody say, anything God asks me to do, I can do it. Nothing's too hard with God. All things are possible with God. God is on my side. I don't have to be afraid of problems. I don't have to be afraid of trials. I don't have to be afraid of things that surprise at noonday.
Prepare Your Mind – Bulldog Tenacity
Today, I am equipped with the Holy Ghost and power. And whatever comes my way today, I can do it through Jesus Christ. And that's not a bunch of cheerleader hype. What that is, is getting a right mindset early in the morning. It's preparing yourself mentally to believe that whatever happens to you, you can handle it through Christ.
You don't have to get them thinking, I sure hope I don't have any problems today because I just, I just can't handle one more thing today. Well then get ready because you're going to get one more thing, or two or three, and it's going to put you over the edge. And you're going to act bad. And then you're going to feel guilty tomorrow. And it's all because you didn't prepare your mind ahead of time to believe what the Word says, that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
Don't Quit – Greatest Works Ahead
You got to have a bulldog tenacity attitude. And you have to be the kind of person that in difficulties just refuses to give up. Handel, the great musician, lost his health. His right side was paralyzed. His money was gone. His creditors seized him and threatened to put him in prison. He was so disheartened by his tragic experience that he almost, almost gave up.
But his faith prevailed, and after that he composed his greatest work, the Hallelujah Chorus. Hallelujah, you know, the song we, I mean I just, you just feel like you've gone to heaven when you hear that song by a big choir. What if he would have given up? If he would have given up, we wouldn't have that today.
Press On – Greatest Days Coming
Some of your greatest works are yet to come. If you won't give up. I said some of your greatest works are yet to come. Some of your greatest days are yet to come. But the devil whispers in your ear. Tries to put a wrong thought in your mind. This is never gonna change. This is not gonna change. This has been going on 20 years. It ain't gonna change. You might as well forget it. Nothing good's ever gonna happen to you.
That's when you just need to say, I'm not giving up. Learn how to say, I am not giving up. You really have nothing else to do other than press on. What else are you gonna do?
Isaiah 40 – Wait on the Lord
Isaiah 1-5, I love this, says the whole head is sick and the heart is faint. In other words, what's he saying? The thinking is wrong and it causes us to faint and give up. When our thinking is wrong, then we give up. Galatians 6-9, be not weary in well-doing. For in due season, you shall reap if you don't quit and give up.
Isaiah 40, 28-31. We're all familiar with it if you've heard much of the Bible. God never faints nor grows weary. He never gets tired. But even young men will faint and stumble. I'm probably not keeping up with the prompter here, but...
Room Full of Hope – Don't Quit
Even youth shall faint and be weary. And selected men shall fall feebly, stumble, and fall exhausted. But they that wait upon the Lord. That's what you're doing here tonight. You're here to wait upon the Lord. And you're gonna stick around and spend another 30 minutes worshiping God. Man, you're gonna go home so strong.
Thank God you're not gonna have a hangover in the morning because you stayed in the bar and got drunk all night. Hallelujah! Whoo! Thank God you're not gonna be hopeless in the morning. You're gonna be full of fire. You're gonna be full of hope. You're gonna say, I got a vision for my future. Life's not too hard. I'm gonna deal with stuff. I'm not gonna quit and I'm not gonna give up.
Encourage One Another – Grab Hope
We need to encourage one another in the Lord. That's what's happening here tonight: the room is full of hope. You can just reach out and grab it. And say "it's for me". Life is not too hard.