Joyce Meyer - Do Not Let Your Heart Be Troubled

Well, thank you for joining us today on "Enjoying Everyday Life," and I believe that what I'm gonna be teaching today is going to help you enjoy your life more.

Let me ask a question, does anybody here ever worry about anything? Yeah, I'll tell you the truth, there are so many things in the world and in our own lives that we could worry about that if we don't decide not to and get help from God in learning how to not let those worry thoughts in our heart, I mean that's all we're gonna have day in and day out is some kind of worry. And in John 14, Jesus said, and I love this, "Do not let your hearts be troubled". So, it kind of sounds to me right off the bat here like He's giving us a responsibility.

You know, a lot of times we like to think, "Well, I can't help it. You know, I can't help it". But He says here, "Don't let your hearts be troubled, distressed, and agitated. You believe in, and adhere to, and trust in and rely on God, now believe in, and adhere to, and trust in and rely on Me". So, one of the things that I've had to face in my life, and it's a little bit unpleasant for us, but the truth is is believing God brings us into rest. And so, if I say that I'm believing God, if I say that I'm trusting God but I'm worried all the time, then the truth is I may be trying to trust God. I may want to trust God, but it's obvious that I'm struggling with it.

Now, the psalmist David did say, "What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in you". So, there are times when you can not feel so great about something and you can still say, "Well, God, this is how I feel, but I'm going to put my trust in you anyway," because trusting God is a decision, it's not a feeling that we wait to have. And you're gonna put your trust in something. If it's not God, then it's gonna be yourself, it's gonna be your friends, the government, the world, your bank account, your employer. And all those things are shaky and very unstable but God is not. He is the one thing that is never shaken, that's why the Bible refers to Him as the rock. He's a rock that cannot be moved.

It's important to maintain a peaceful heart. Something that God speaks to me really often and I need to hear it often is stay relaxed in your soul, even like our physical body, you know, you right now you could say...Come on, let's just see, I don't know maybe because you're here in the studio and you know you're likely to get on TV, you may, you know? And I could be the same way here because I'm preaching, and this is gotta be good, and I gotta pull it off, and I got timing and everything is just like so I can be like... And that is our temptation.

But really, we can choose to relax, and I have found for me, I really need God's anointing, which is His presence and power in my life. The more we have of God's anointing, the easier everything is gonna be and the more we're gonna be able to enjoy it and the greater God can use us. So, let's just say, for example, like whether it's what I'm doing today or if I'm doing a big conference somewhere, if I get all tense, God is not gonna be able to flow through me like He could if I stayed relaxed because staying relaxed proves that we're trusting God to do what needs to be done, rather than us trying to make it happen.

I think as soon as we start trying to make something happen, we just tense up all over the place. And so, it's important to learn how to relax, breathe, relax in your soul, relax in your body, and guard your heart. Now, I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that you're not gonna have a fight on your hands because the Bible tells us in 1 Timothy that we are to fight the good fight of faith. And what that means is we have an enemy, satan, he's gonna come against us. The enemy roams about like a lion roaring in fierce hunger, speaking whom he may seize upon and devour, and we're to resist him steadfast in faith. He's always gonna try to get us upset about something but listen to this, everything that the enemy tries to do to us, Jesus has given us an antidote for that.

So, it's like satan wants to poison our minds and poison our souls but everything that comes against us, there's an answer in the word of God for that. And so, in the world you will have tribulation, it's a promise. There's no point in praying you'll never have trouble because I can tell you that is a prayer that will not get answered. You can pray that God will help you navigate your trouble, that He'll give you wisdom in your trouble, that He'll guide you, that He'll show you what to do, but it's useless to pray that you'll never have any and it doesn't matter how spiritual you become.

Matter of fact, I might even just say that the more spiritual you become, the more you grow in God, the more the enemy is going try to come against you to stop you because you have to understand if there's anything satan despises, it's progress. Any kind of progress in our life, he's gonna come against us. The thief only comes to steal, to kill, and destroy, but Jesus said, "I came that you might have and enjoy your life". Well, we can't enjoy our life if we're worried all the time and stressed out. So, you have to guard your heart and that means you have to pay attention to what you're thinking.

One of my biggest problems in life was I never thought about what I was thinking. And so, for years and years and years, I mean even something like the next time you feel depressed or discouraged, don't just talk about how you feel, but stop for a moment and ask yourself, "What have I been thinking?" And I can promise you that you cannot get discouraged without thinking thoughts that don't line up with the Word of God. Maybe you're just under pressure and you kind of think, "Well, what's been in my mind?" Well, maybe you're worrying too much about a mistake you made yesterday that now only God can fix.

And so, there's no point in being stressed out over something that you did that you can't undo. Even like, you know, my past and all the abuse that I went through and other people have gone through a lot of things like that, you know, we can spend our whole life wishing that wouldn't have happened but the truth is is you can't wish it away. It already did happen. You can't do anything about that now, but what you can do is learn from it and you can be determined that you're still going to have a good life, but you will have to be careful about your thoughts. As a man thinks in his heart, so does he become. And I think I said this in another show, but I don't know if it's because we're not fully awake early in the morning or, I don't know, maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one that has this problem, but I have to be really careful about my thoughts when I first get up because it's almost like there's a little bidding war going on for who's gonna have you for the day.

And I think especially when you first wake up, you're a little tired, you're not fully awake. You got the whole day in front of you and maybe a lot of things you're not really looking that forward to. And, you know, if you got a few years on you, your body maybe is not wanting to cooperate with you so well, a few things are stiff. You don't feel real good just yet. And so, especially early in the morning, I want to encourage to guard your heart. The Bible says, "Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance or diligence and above all that you guard". So, we're to guard what we let into us more than anything else in our life. If our physical heart is unhealthy, it affects many other areas of our body and life. And if our spiritual heart is unhealthy, it also affects pretty much every other area in your life.

Now, one of my favorite scriptures is from John chapter 14. Also, you know, we started with John 14:1, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me". But then Jesus continues this point and in John 14:27 He says, "Peace I leave with you, My own peace I now give and bequeath unto you, not as the world gives do I give to you". See, there's a type of peace that you can have if you function on the world's system where if everything's going the way you want it to, there's nothing to worry about, you're good. But He wants to give us a peace that functions in the middle of the storm, amen? And I mean, that's your inherited right.

He said, "This is what I bequeath to you. This is what I give to you". As a child of God, you have a right that's been purchased by the Blood of Jesus to calm down, not have to worry, not have to try to figure everything out no matter what is going on in your life. And I tell people frequently, and I think this is good to hear, when you have a problem, it's okay for you to go ahead and enjoy your life. I'm gonna say that again. When you have a problem... hmm? See, for some reason we think it just wouldn't be right. I mean, if you got a kid that's in trouble, you can't enjoy the day, you gotta worry, you gotta figure it out. You gotta, you know, my goodness, if you've got a financial problem, you gotta try to figure this out.

I remember in our younger years when I first started studying the Word, my husband, of course, is not a worrier, he's calm about everything, and it actually would make me mad because when you're upset, you want somebody to be upset with you. And it seemed like every month we didn't have enough money to pay the bills, and I would be with the calculators and the bills and, you know, I'd figure it all out and sure enough we were short. And then I'd figure it all out again and sure enough, we were short. I don't know why we think if we count it again and again that something may change, but it's just more to just keep irritating us.

And I can remember Dave would be playing with the kids and watching TV and I would get so mad. It's like, "You need come out here and do something". I remember saying, "You need to do something". He said, "What do you want me to do? We tithe, we give, we're obedient to God to the best of our ability. We're doing the best we can. God will take care of it". And you know what? How many things have you worried about in the past that now you look back and God took care of it? And all of your worry and all your stress certainly didn't do any good but it did do harm because all it does is hurt you. "Not as the world gives do I give unto you. Don't let your hearts be troubled".

This is what I want you to see. "Don't let your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Stop allowing yourselves to be agitated and disturbed and don't permit yourselves to be fearful, cowardly and intimidated". So, wow I'm getting four big instructions here right in a row. "Don't let your yourself, stop allowing yourself, don't permit yourself". Now, we can't do it on our own. I mean, I can tell you there's nothing that we can do simply by willpower alone. However, we do need to use our will. God has given us a freewill and it's up to us if we decide to worry or to trust God. And I do believe the longer that you're in a relationship with God, the more experience you have with God, the more you see Him bring deliverance into your life, the easier it becomes to not worry.