Joyce Meyer - Faithfulness

I wanna talk to you tonight about FAITHFULNESS. Faithfulness. In revelation 2 it says: "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life". So faithfulness is something that's supposed to go all the way through to the very end of our lives. To be faithful means to keep your commitments. Today, people don't really understand, I don't think, a lot about the importance of keeping commitments and when you keep a commitment that means that you keep doing it when it's no longer exciting. That means that you keep doin' it when you go through times where you're really tired of doin' it and you do it when it seems like you're not getting the result that you thought that you would get. And basically, I think we should never quit on anything unless we know that we know that we know that God says, "I'm finished with that now. You don't need to do it anymore". Amen?

The definition of faithfulness can get pretty long and I'm gonna read you a little bit of it but this is from the Webster's 1828 dictionary. And if you ever wanna get a hold of a great dictionary, you order yourself this Webster's 1828 dictionary online. Thirty-four percent of this dictionary was the Word of God. Definitions have been changed quite radically from the time when Webster wrote the first dictionary. "Faithfulness", he says, "Is firm adherence to the truth, firm adherence of your duties in your relationship with God".

Imagine having a dictionary that tells you to firmly adhere to your duties of your relationship with God. "Firmly adhering to duty, being loyal, being constant in the performance of your duties or your services, being exact in attending to what an authority has given you to do. Individuals should be faithful to their word, faithful to their government, faithful to their constitution. People should be faithful to their marriage partner. To be constant, not fickle, true, and worthy of belief". The Hebrew definition is interesting. It says, "To stick to".

So, tonight we're gonna talk about the importance of sticking. Maybe some of you are ready to throw in the towel and God just wants to encourage you to stick it out, just a little bit longer. I wonder how often we quit on something when our breakthrough is right around the corner, amen? Luke chapter 16, verse 10 says: "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much, and he who is dishonest and unjust in a very little thing is dishonest and unjust also in much". I think God gives us the test of the little things. Don't despise the day of small beginnings. My ministry started, I'm sure, like pastors did or your business did or whatever. It didn't start out big: it started out little. And I had to be faithful over those little things.

I remember when my ministry first started getting somewhat popular after I got on tv and I remember somebody saying to me one time, "Oh, we never heard of you. Where did you come from? Your ministry's now, so where did you come from"? And I thought, "Well, I was somewhere but it's not anywhere where you would have wanted to have been". You see, when all of a sudden you show up and everybody thinks you're a big deal, you've had to go through a whole lot of stuff to get to where you're at and nobody was clapping and cheering for you then, amen?

The test of little things. God taught me so many lessons in the early days of my walk with him. I didn't get to go to Bible college. I didn't even really get to go to regular college but I tell you what. I have gone through the school of the Holy Spirit. And I will tell you that no matter where you're at, if you're open to God, he will use whatever's going on in your everyday life to help you mature and grow up and he can take absolutely anything and teach you an amazing spiritual lesson out of it.

Now, I've told these stories and so I'm not gonna take too long to do it, but pastor Mike reminded me tonight, he said, "Boy, some of your stories from the early days would fit in really good here". You see, I didn't know how to be a person of integrity. I didn't know how to be a person of excellence. And God really wanted me to be that because we're not valuable to God if we're not excellent and full of integrity and if we don't know how to keep our word and do what we said we're gonna do. God wants us to be honest people, doesn't he, amen?

And so my parents didn't teach me that. But God taught me. And the place where he started teaching me of all places was when I was, I guess I was about 36 then and that's been a while ago. I went to the grocery store every 2 or 3 days and had a family that I was feeding and cooking for and doing all kinds of stuff. And God started teaching me lessons about being faithful in little things when I was in the grocery store. And one of the first things I remember him dealing with me about was putting in my heart that when I got my groceries and I took them out to the car and put them in the trunk, that I needed to take the grocery cart back and put it in the space marked off for grocery carts, not lean it against somebody else's car.

Now this is sad but I'm gonna be honest with you. It took me 2 years to get to the point where I did it every time. I would do it sometimes if the weather was good. I would do it sometimes if I wasn't in a big hurry. But I'm telling you to do it every time, no matter how inconvenient it was, c'mon, I'm talkin' to ya. When you're given too much change at the store, you don't get to keep it and think it's God's sneaky way of blessing you. You gotta take it back. It's all part of being faithful. And I believe that those things are tests in our life and I will tell you and I believe this with all my heart, if I would have never started putting my grocery cart back, I wouldn't be standing here tonight.

Now, listen to me. Little things may well be more important than big things. God is always watching and, until we learn to live with that thought in mind that I can't, I don't just do what's right when people are watching, but I do what's right all the time because I'm living for God and God is watching. You don't just work hard when the boss is watching and then soon as he walks out of the room start doing all your personal business on your computer. "Well, they don't pay me enough anyway". Egh, egh, egh. That has nothing to do with your level of integrity, your faithfulness to God.

See, I'm talking about being faithful to God. I'm talking about being faithful to him to do what you know is right even if you're not being treated right where you do it. Because we're not living for people, we're living for God. And our reward is going to come from God. "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give you something that nobody else could ever give you. I will give you the crown of life". If you're faithful in little things, you will be faithful in much. If you're not faithful in little things, you will not be faithful in much. The test of little things.

Now, I want to talk to you for a minute about Ruth. There's a book of Ruth in the Bible. It's well worth reading. And Ruth's husband, her father-in-law, and her brother-in-law were all killed in a battle. Now, Ruth was from another land other than where she was at right now. She was not a believer in Jehovah God. Her mother-in-law now had no husband, both of her sons were dead, and she was gonna go back to her home country. She was a believer in the one true God. So she told her daughter-in-laws, "Both of you just need to go back home because I'm not gonna have any more sons and, you know, I don't really have anything for you. I don't have any money, I don't have any"... Well, the one daughter-in-law did, but Ruth said, "I will not leave you. Where you go I will go. Your God will be my God. I will not leave you".

How many people will choose difficulty just to prove themselves faithful to somebody? You know, the Bible says that Moses was faithful in all of the household of God. God is faithful. Jesus was our faithful high priest. And faithfulness is something that we need to talk about a little bit more, I think. I think we all know that we live in a world today where people aren't really very good at keeping their word. They don't keep appointments, they don't call to say why they can't come or if they're not coming. People are late all the time. I guess just to say it and get it over with, I mean, we gotta be very careful that we don't get sloppy with the rest of the world and not be the kind of people that God wants us to be. And I don't care if you're the only person you know that's doing what's right, if you keep doing what's right, let me tell you something, you are gonna be the one who's gonna get a reward.

So Ruth made a decision that was different than her other sister-in-law but she did the right thing. Now, they got to the place where they were going and there was a wealthy man there named Boaz. Actually, he was the wealthiest man in the country and he was some kind of a relative of Naomi who was Ruth's mother-in-law. And so I'm gonna start reading here in Ruth 2, verse 8: "Then Boaz said to Ruth, listen, my daughter, do not go glean in another field or leave this one, but stay here close by my maidens".

Now, the gleaning thing we might not understand unless I explain it so God always made sure that he took care of the poor back then. There were actually laws and rules about the way the poor had to be taken care of. And every person who had a crop and had a field where crops came up and they were successful, by law they had to leave, they couldn't reap the harvest from the corners of the field. They had to leave that there for the poor. And so when the workers would be done for the day, then the poor people would come in and they would glean in those fields and that's what they would have for their food.

So Boaz said to Ruth, "'don't go anywhere else and glean. You can glean here in my field. Watch which field they reap in, and then follow them. Have I not charged the young men not to molest you'"? So he's going out of his way now to make sure she doesn't get hurt, to make sure that she has some food. Why is Boaz, the richest man in the county, all of a sudden showing her favor? Well, I think it goes all the way back to her faithfulness to stay with her mother-in-law.

Let me tell you a secret. If you will be faithful, it will release the favor of God in your life. I don't know about you but I love favor. I love it when people do things for me and there's no real reason why they do it for me and they're doing it for me, they're not doing it for anybody else. It's just favor. And I believe it's connected to our relationship with God. If you're faithful in little things, God will give you favor that will leave you in shock.

"'And when you're thirsty, go to the vessels and drink what the young men have drawn'. Then she fell on her face, bowing to the ground, and said, 'why have I found favor in your eyes that you should notice me, since I am a foreigner'? And Boaz said to her, 'I've been made fully aware of all that you've done for your mother-in-law since the death of your husband, and how you've left your father and your mother and the land of your birth and have come to a people unknown to you before now. The Lord recompense you'", and that word means reward.

"'The Lord reward you for what you have done, and a full reward be given to you by God, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge!'" I'm taking a little time to read this 'cause I'm gonna get to something here that I love. "Then she said, 'well, let me find favor in your sight, my Lord. For you have comforted me and have spoken to the heart of your maidenservant, though I am not one of your own maidservants'". And at mealtime he told her to come and eat with them and so he just kept blessing her and blessing her and blessing her. But verse 16, I love verse 16. "He went to his workers and he said to them", well, let's read verse 15, "And when she got up to glean, Boaz ordered his young men, 'let her glean even among the sheaves, and do not reproach her'".

So now he's making special arrangements for her to be able to go in a part of the field that other people can't go to. "'and let fall some handfuls for her on purpose and let them be there for her to glean, and do not rebuke her'". Here's what I wanna say to you tonight. If you will be faithful to God, especially when nobody's looking and especially in little things, even while you're in the times of faithfulness before your harvest, you may not be getting everything you want but God in your life, all along your path, will leave little handfuls on purpose for you. You know what I mean by that? Little winks from God just to let you know he's here.

I personally enjoy that in my relationship with God, probably as much as I do anything. It's just God just doing little things for me that just keep me encouraged, that just keep me going. One day last week, my daughter sent me a picture of a phone cover she ordered me. She said, "Hey, mom, I saw this online and I just wanted to tell ya I bought it for ya. I hope you like it". And she ordered me this phone cover that just says, "I love you, mom". Well, I was, like, "Thank you, Lord, for that wink".

You know, God is encouraging us through people. He's doing things for us through people. But do you know what my fear is? That we don't pay any attention to the little things that God does. We're so focused on this big thing that's not happening yet, that we don't see all the little things that God does for you. And I want you to begin to watch in your life for the handfuls on purpose that God leaves along your path, the favor that he gives you that I believe is directly connected to our faithfulness, our level of integrity, and keeping our commitments to God. Can somebody give God a praise?

Let me talk to you about some areas to be faithful in. Be faithful with what belongs to another person. If you borrow something from somebody, take it back in better condition than you got it in or at least as good as you got it in. When people tell you a secret, keep their secrets. That's part of being a faithful friend. Luke 16:12. Boy, Luke, you're in the Bible a lot tonight. Luke 16:12: "And if you have not proved faithful in that which belongs to another person whether God or man, who will give you that which is your own"?

So God tests us many times in having us need to serve or work for somebody else and he checks our faithfulness to see if we actually are the kind of person that can be trusted with something of our own. If you're not gonna be faithful on the job that you've got, you won't be faithful even if you owned your own business. If you work for somebody else, especially if you're in a position of any kind of authority where you have any discretion over any of the money, don't waste your employer's money. Spend it like it were your own. Be on time for work. If you're paid for an 8-hour day, then work an 8-hour day, hmm. If you have insurance benefits use them like you were paying for the insurance.

I'll be honest with you. To me, this is some of the most important things you can hear because it's these little behind-the-scene things that really mean so much more to God than what we can even possibly imagine. Always do what's right, especially if nobody's looking. Take care of the building you work in like it were your own home. Matthew 25 is probably one of the best chapters about this kind of stuff and you're probably familiar with it so I'm not gonna go through the whole thing. But it says: "A man was going on a long journey, and he called his servants together and he entrusted them with his property".

Well, this is talking about the things that God has entrusted us with. And it says he's gonna come back someday and require an accounting of what he's given us. "To one man he gave five talents about $5000, to another two, to another one", and I love this, "To each one he gave in proportion to their own personal ability to handle it". God doesn't give everybody the same thing because everybody can't handle the same thing. And so we don't need to be jealous of what somebody else has. We just need to do the best we can with what God's given us and then if we're faithful in that, God will give us increase and there will be more. Matter of fact, I think sometimes God will bless somebody with what you want in front of you just to see if you'll be jealous.

Do you know, it's a big test of spiritual maturity to be happy for somebody else who's getting what you want that you don't have yet. "He who received five talents went at once and traded them, and got five more. He who had the two talents traded his and got two more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money. Now after a long time the master came back to settle accounts with his servants".

Can I just tell you tonight that Jesus is coming back and it may not be all that long. I notice in the Bible, in the New Testament, the apostles were always talking about the Lord's coming soon. Be unselfish, the Lord's coming soon. The Lord's gonna return soon. Encourage one another because the Lord's coming soon. And so in the last year, I've been trying to tell our crowds more, "The Lord's coming back soon". If you would have to change something in your life, if I said Jesus is coming back next Saturday and you believed me, is there anything you'd have to change in your life to get ready for his coming?

Well, if there is, then change it now. Because Romans 14 says, "Every man is gonna stand before God and give an account of his life". We're not gonna give an account for somebody else's life. That's why we really should get around to just minding our own business and making sure we're right with God because God's not gonna ask me about Dave. He's not gonna ask you about me. He's not gonna ask me about the Barnetts. He's gonna ask me to give an accounting of what he has entrusted me with. And I want to hear what these people heard: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. You have been faithful and trustworthy over a little: I will now put you in charge of much", amen?

Maybe you're wanting more than what you have and I don't know this but maybe you're wanting more than what you have but if you really look at your life maybe, just maybe, you're not being faithful with what you've already got. Maybe, I don't know. And of course, then there was the one servant who went and hid his stuff in the ground and his master said to him in verse 26: "You wicked, lazy, idle servant"! God is not happy with us when we do nothing with what he's given us but waste it. The servant who did nothing lost what he'd been given.

Proverbs 20, verse 6: "Most men will proclaim each his own goodness, but who can find a faithful man"? I wanna be a faithful person. I wanna hear that, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord". But I'm not gonna hear that if I don't make right choices now, and neither will you. God sees everything that we do. He hears every word that we speak. In Luke chapter 12, it says, "Whatever is hidden behind closed doors will one day be shouted from the rooftops". We are not getting by with anything. Your boss might not be looking, but God's looking. And that's who we need to live to please. You take up this secret wonderful relationship with God where you're living for him, let me tell you something. There's gonna be a harvest in your life and while you're waiting for harvest there's gonna be handfuls on purpose left for you everywhere you go.

Psalm 12:1: "Help, Lord! For principled and godly people are here no more: faithfulness and the faithful vanish from among the sons of men". Be faithful with what God has entrusted you with. Be a good manager. Manage your money well. Know what you're doing with your money. Don't just be wasteful with it and have no plan for it. Proverbs talks a lot about prudence, and prudence is simply good management of our resources. Manage your finances well. Pay your bills on time. Don't buy more than you can pay for. Give a little, save a little, spend a little. If you do it all in balance, God will give you more and more and more.

I told my staff the other day, I said, "Do you realize if you as an individual from the time you got your first job, if you would have faithfully set aside just 5% of your income from the first time you got a paycheck, not one of you would be under financial pressure of any kind right now". It's not what we do right one time that makes a difference in our life. It's doing it over and over and over and over and over and over.

I'll tell you what, I want to be a finisher in life. A finisher. That's so important to me. I wanna finish my assignment. Every single one of us have some kind of an assignment from God. And it doesn't have to be a platform assignment. Mike and Pennie Shepard who travel with us, I've know them for over 30 years, and they served another pastor for 20 years the same way they serve in our ministry now. And they said to Dave and I not too long ago, we were on a plane and they came and sat down with us and said, "We just wanna tell you that we feel that unless God would speak something differently to us that we are committed to you and Dave, until you are no longer here, we will be faithful, we will be with you to help you".

Now, I don't know about you but let me tell you somethin', there's a very few people like that are gonna stick with you their whole life and I'm glad that he's finishing his assignment with us. Be faithful in your giving. Give and give and give and give until you make the devil so mad he can't hardly stand it. And be faithful in prayer. Just keep at it and keep at it and keep at it. Just tell the devil, "I am not gonna shut up. You are not gonna shut me up. I am going to do the things that God has asked me to do and I'm gonna do 'em with a smile on my face". Be faithful in your marriage. When you lose the goosebumps don't go get a new partner, amen? My husband has been so faithful in so many ways. I mean, Dave has sat in thousands of meetings like this, right where he's sitting right now.

Let me read you acts 20:22 through 24. Boy, this is one of my very favorite scriptures. This is Paul: "And now, you see, I am going to Jerusalem, bound by the Holy Spirit and obligated and compelled by the convictions of my own spirit, not knowing what will befall me there". He's saying, "I feel in my heart that this is what I'm supposed to do. I don't know what's gonna happen when I get there but I know I need to go". Verse 23: "Except that the Holy Spirit clearly and emphatically affirms to me in city after city that imprisonment and suffering await me".

Well, I wonder how many people would have stopped traveling right about then. But listen to what he said. "But none of these things move me: neither do I count my life dear to myself, if only I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have obtained which was entrusted to me by the Lord Jesus, faithfully to attest to the good news (of the Gospel)". He said, "I don't care how hard it is. I don't care what it takes. I don't care what it costs. I want to finish my assignment and do what God has called me to do".

Questions and Answers

Joyce Meyer: Well, God's word teaches us that a faithful man will be richly blessed. But you know, if we're really honest, sometimes it can be hard to remain faithful. Many of you have questions about faithfulness, and Ginger is here to ask me some of the questions that you've sent in and, by God's grace and mercy, I am going to try to answer them. So Ginger, it's fun answering these questions. It's not so much fun not knowing what they are but so far...

Ginger: That's the fun for us.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah, that's the fun for you, but...

Ginger: We have some great ones. Thousands of people with questions on faithfulness. How many of us don't have questions on this, I don't know. So here's a great place to start. Rebecca asks, "How do I remain faithful to God when he hasn't answered my prayers"?

Joyce Meyer: Well, first of all, I think that we better give a little understanding about what faithfulness is. You know, faithfulness, if I just put it simply is sticking with something when you don't want to anymore, when you don't feel like doing it, when it doesn't seem like it's working. And so there's no real emotion that we like tied to faithfulness.

Ginger: Oh, that's a really good point. So it's not connected at all to if we feel like we should be faithful?

Joyce Meyer: No, not at all. So her question, "How can she remain faithful to God when he's not answering her prayer", well, first of all, a delay is not a denial. Just because God hasn't answered our prayer in the timeframe that we think he should or in the way that we think he should, doesn't mean that God is not working in our lives. And so faith is for the in-between. You know, you can ask for something and that's exciting because, "Ooh, I'm gonna ask God for this and he's gonna provide it". And when the answer comes, then that's exciting. But the in-between is the time that you need to be faithful. And I think the short answer to her question is we never want to tie our faithfulness to God to what he's doing for us because if we do that then our motive for even wanting to have a relationship with God is a little bit off base.

Ginger: Right, as long as you do what I want, yeah.

Joyce Meyer: We should serve God for who he is, not what he does for us. "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart". And there are tests that we will go through in life where we won't get what we want when we think we should get it. And I'll just say this and then we can go on to another question. You know, the attitude that I've learned to take and it's not always an easy one, but is that if I don't get what I want, God's not ever holding out on me. It's only because he has something better in mind and I don't yet know how to ask for that. And so God is faithful. He is good and just because we don't like his timing, doesn't mean he's not working in our lives.

Ginger: Right, okay, great. Beth would like to know, "I have a co-worker who isn't very nice to me and it's exhausting me. How do I remain faithful in showing her the love and grace of Christ"?

Joyce Meyer: Well, the Bible says in Galatians 6: "Be not weary in well-doing for in due season you shall reap if you faint not". The Amplified Bible says: "Don't be weary in doing what's right". And something that I like to share with people is that first of all when we're doing what's right when it doesn't feel good or when we don't seem to be getting a right result, that's actually when we're growing spiritually. When I do what's right and I'm getting a right result, I mean, if I treat you nice and you treat me nice back and I treat you nice and you treat me nice back, then that's not hard. I mean, you don't even need Christ in your life to do that. So the thing for us is being able to do it when it's hard, when it's difficult. And the thing about being kind to people that aren't kind to you, and I think that's probably one of the hardest things in the world to do if you wanna know the truth. I mean, that's challenging for me.

Ginger: It is exhausting, yeah.

Joyce Meyer: I mean, it is, and it's hard for anybody to just keep being kind to somebody. And I don't think that we ever just let people walk all over us, I don't think that's good for them. But all of these questions about faithfulness, the bottom line answer is we do it for God, we don't do it for people. And we do it for him not because of what we get out of it, but just because he's asked us to. Jesus said, "If you love me you will obey me".

Ginger: Yeah, that's good to remember, especially during those tough times. Well, obviously, a lot of these questions dealing with faithfulness are going to have similar themes in their answers but dealing with different situations are very helpful. You're just so practical and that helps. Tara would like just to ask: "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. How do I remain faithful in my commitments when I'm so tired and busy"?

Joyce Meyer: Well, first thing, I think we probably need to use a little more wisdom in what we commit to. I think that we don't spend enough time really thinking through what a commitment is going to take. A very popular music artist that I know said to me one time, I asked her how, we were talking about speaking engagements and different things that we get asked to do in ministry and how do you know which ones to say "Yes" to and which ones to say "No" to. Well, it may not be ministry for everybody, but everybody goes through the same thing. What do I say "Yes" to, what do I say "No" to? And the apostle Paul clearly said, "Our yes should be yes, and our no should be no". So we need to say "Yes" to what God's saying "Yes" to, "No" to what he's saying "No" to. But when we say "Yes", we need to stick to it. Keeping our word is very important, or at least going back and saying, "You know what? I just made a mistake in committing to this", but we can't just ignore the commitment. But she said something to me that I thought was very, very wise. She said, "When I'm asked to go do something", she said, "I take the time to really think through everything that's going to take for me to do that". Now for us, because it involves travel, you know, it's wise to think through, okay, how long am I going to be there, how long am I gonna get to speak? How much fruit is there gonna be compared to the amount of effort that I put into it? I think one of the things that we do in life, no matter what area of life you're looking at, is we spend a lot of time on stuff that doesn't produce very much in our lives. And I think it's wise to start looking at is the time I'm putting into this worth what I'm actually reaping out of this in the long run? And so, yes, when you're tired and you're over-committed, it's very hard to be faithful to something. So I think a good thing is, is to always take a little inventory of your life and find out if what you once were committed to doing, is that even something that you're supposed to keep doing? Now, I'm not talking about not keeping your word but I'm saying that commitments change, you know? I mean, obviously, a marriage commitment doesn't change, your commitment to God doesn't change, but, you know, just even, like, in ministry, you know, we make changes in our ministry all the time because what we were really Adamant about doing 5 years ago, we find is not exactly what we should be doing now and so we're always up front. We give explanations but I think maybe she just needs to re-look at her whole life and see what she can rearrange 'cause I don't believe that God calls any of us to a life that leaves us miserable and exhausted all the time.

Ginger: Right. So just to clarify, we have be faithful in our commitments. We keep our word. We have integrity. But before we over-extend ourselves moving forward, we need to look at what we're saying "Yes" to.

Joyce Meyer: And if you find that you just said "Yes" to something that you really should not have said "Yes" to, then I think you can still correct that but you go back to the person in honesty, rather than ignoring it, you go back and say, "You know what? I said I would do this but I just really made a mistake. It's, like, it's not working for me. I should have said 'no' and I didn't". You know, sometimes we say "Yes" to things because we don't want people to get mad at us, we don't wanna disappoint them. And I just find that when you're honest with people, they can handle a lot of stuff. But if you just ignore commitments then that's a problem.

Ginger: Yeah, all right, very helpful. Thank you. This is a great question from the UK: "How can I be faithful in my Bible reading and prayer time without being motivated by guilt, obligation, or even selfish reasons"?

Joyce Meyer: Well, I think that there's no reason to ever feel guilty about not studying the Bible because we're not doing it for God. I mean, he got that across to me years ago. He was, like, "Stop trying to study because you think you're doing me a favor". You know, everything that's in the Bible is something that's going to help us. It's gonna help us live better lives. I mean, it's really a guide book for life. So we study because we want to. I think there's too much "Have to" thinking in our minds. "I have to clean my house. I have to go to the grocery store. I have to read my Bible. I have to go to church". Well, we really don't have to do any of that. We do it because there's gonna be a good result. Now, I think part of her question was, "How can I do it without having a selfish motive". I'm not 100% sure what she means but it's not selfish to want God's will in your life. And it's not selfish to want to have a good life. And so I spend time daily in the word whether it's reading or thinking about portions of the word or talking to somebody else about the word. I do it on a regular basis, number one, because God asked me to and I know that anything he asks me to do is always gonna be for my benefit. And number two, it's like eating food. You know, the Word of God is what keeps us strong spiritually. Just like we eat food to stay strong physically, we need the Word of God to stay strong spiritually. And there's so much going on in the world today, so many stresses and pressures and problems and things that you weren't expecting that you don't like. And you can't wait until you have a problem and then try to, "Ooh, man, I'm gonna go get studied up so I can handle this". Then it's too late. So we need to stay strong in our life. And the way to do that is to have a steady diet of the Word of God. But feeling guilty about not doing it, you do it because you need to, not because you're doing God a favor.

Ginger: Yeah, so your faithfulness is in helping see your own spiritual growth, it's in what God wants for you. It's not an obligation.

Joyce Meyer: Yeah, I need it. I mean, you would not like me without the word every day.

Ginger: Me either, yeah.

Joyce Meyer: I need the word every single day of my life. So I hope some of these answers have helped.

Ginger: Very helpful, thank you.