Joyce Meyer - Get Your Hopes Up (08/21/2019)
Joyce Meyer shares a funny twin story to contrast pessimism and optimism, revealing how she once lived negative and hopeless from past hurts, but now urges believers to choose radical hope—confident joyful expectation of good—refusing negativity, speaking positively, and staying a "prisoner of hope" per Zechariah 9:12 to see God's double restoration and enjoy abundant life.
The Optimist and the Pessimist – A Cute Story
I'm going to start with a little story that I think is cute. There were two identical twins, and they were alike in every way but one. One was a hope-filled optimist who only saw the bright side of life in every situation. The other was a very dark-minded pessimist who only saw the downside in everything. The parents became worried about the extremes in the children of optimism and pessimism, and so they took them to the doctor. And the doctor suggested a plan. On their next birthday, give the pessimist a shiny new bike, but give the optimist only a pile of manure.
It seemed a fairly extreme thing to do. After all, the parents had always treated their boys equally. But in this instance, they decided that they would try the doctor's advice. So when the twins' birthday came around, the parents gave the pessimist the most expensive, top-of-the-range racing bike a child had ever owned. And when he saw the bike, his first words were, I'll probably crash and break my leg. To the optimist, they gave a carefully wrapped box of manure. He opened it, looked puzzled for a moment, then ran outside screaming, You can't fool me. Where there's this much manure, there's got to be a pony.
From Negative Past to Hope-Filled Life
Now, let me just share with you that I was, for a large part of my life, an extremely negative person. I saw what was wrong with everything. And I had been hurt a lot in my life. I'd had lots and lots of disappointments. And really, to be honest, when I married Dave at the age of 23, I could not remember ever being really happy. And that's sad when somebody grows up that way because sometimes the way you get started is the way you stay if you don't let Christ interrupt the mess in your life and give you a brand new beginning.
I believe that people that have had a tough time in life very often are afraid to expect anything good because they don't want to be disappointed. The pain of disappointment has been so prevalent in their lives that they just think, Well, I'm not going to expect any good thing to happen because it's probably not going to anyway. And I want to tell you, if that's you, today you need to make a change. You need to make a change.
Hope Keeps You Happy – Refuse to Stop Hoping
It's amazing how good life can get if you'll just refuse to stop hoping. And I can tell you, if you hoped for something good your whole life and never got it, you'd still be better off than if you hoped for nothing and got it. Because when you're full of hope, you're happy. You're happy. And the devil doesn't want us happy. The thief comes only to kill, steal, and destroy. He loves to steal our joy, but Jesus said, I came that you might have and enjoy your life and have it in abundance to the full until it overflows.
Many of the attacks of the enemy against us are not after him getting our stuff or keeping us from getting this promotion or whatever. He's after our joy. Because joy is energy. Joy is energy. The Bible says the joy of the Lord is our strength. But I want to put it a different way. Joy is energy. I actually feel physical energy flowing into my body when I have a good attitude and I feel everything draining down when I have a bad attitude.
Your Attitude Belongs to You – Choose It
Now let me tell you something. Your attitude is yours. And nobody can make you have a good one if you don't want to. And nobody can make you have a bad one if you don't want to. I'm going to say that again. Your attitude is yours. Nobody can make you have a good one if you don't want to. There's not enough good stuff that can happen to a negative person to keep them happy. And nobody can make you have a bad attitude if you don't want to.
We think because circumstances have been bad in our life that we have to have a bad attitude. That we're just obligated to have a bad attitude. I mean, that's the natural way of thinking. But you don't have to do that as a believer in Christ. Because He gives you something on the inside that is greater than anything that's on the outside. Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.
Cheer Up on Purpose – In Tribulations
And the Bible teaches us that right in the midst of all kinds of tribulations, we are to cheer up and to do it on purpose. Amen? I know some of you have probably had a really difficult year. Maybe some of you have had a difficult five years. Maybe some of you have had a difficult life. But I want to tell you that you cannot assist the devil in destroying your life by getting down and discouraged and negative-minded and becoming a pessimist and refusing to believe that anything good is going to happen.
We get what we believe for. Be it unto you even as you believe. I say this all the time. I'd rather believe for a lot and get half of it than to believe for nothing and get all of it. I think a lot of times we're not aggressive in hoping. We just kind of wait to see what's going to happen. Well... I hope the meeting's good this weekend. Well, you know, that's not... That is not Bible hope. That is not any different than wishing.
Bible Hope – Confident Joyful Expectation
Bible hope is a very close relative of faith. They hoped on in faith. Faith causes you to believe that good things are going to happen. You believe in the promises of God. Yes. You're expecting. Actually, the definition of hope is a confident, joyful expectation that something good is going to happen. I love that. And it's something... Now, listen to me when I tell you this, because a lot of people think, Well, I can't help it if I don't feel that way. We're not talking about how we feel. We're talking about what we decide to believe. And what we decide to say.
And I know I keep saying it over and over this weekend. But get your mouth open and say something positive. Because what you say runs across your face, gets in your ears, drops back down into your spirit. And you literally can talk yourself into a better mood. I said you can talk yourself into a better mood. You can talk yourself out of a bad mood. You can talk yourself out of a pity party. And you do it by using the Word of God.
Something Good Today – Speak It Out
Favorable and confident expectation. It has to do with the unseen and the future. Hope is the happy anticipation of something good. I started in January this year saying this in my own life on a real regular basis. I don't miss very many days. And I've been encouraging people everywhere I go. And it's been on TV. If I were you before you even put your feet on the floor in the morning. Or certainly do it within a few minutes after you're up. Open your mouth and say. And when I say open your mouth I mean speak it out loud.
Something good is going to happen to me today. And don't stop there. Don't stop there. And go on and make the enemy really mad and say. And something good is going to happen through me today. Something good is going to happen to me. And something good is going to happen through me. Because we are blessed to be a blessing. Don't stop at just wanting to be blessed. We're blessed to be a blessing. God told Abraham I will bless you. And I will make you a blessing. Causing you to dispense good to others.
Hope Is Positive Mindset – Refuse Negativity
Hope is very simply a positive attitude and mindset. The hopeful person absolutely refuses to be negative in any way. Although they recognize and deal with their problems. They remain hopeful in thought, attitude, and conversation all the way through to victory. They remain hopeful in thought, attitude, and conversation. And conversation. And conversation. And conversation. And conversation. All the way through to victory.
Anybody can decide to be hopeful. If I can't get that across from you today, then I'm pretty much wasting my time. Because if we're going to let our feelings and our circumstances determine whether our hope is up or down, then the enemy's in control. We've just turned over the keys to our life and said, here, do what you want to.
Be a Prisoner of Hope – Zechariah 9:12
But every person that's hearing my voice right now, whether it's on TV or some other recorded device that you're watching on social media, you're here in the room, you're listening by radio, you can decide today to be full of hope. And why would anybody want to decide anything else? If you can make yourself happy, why would you not choose to do it? Your thoughts, your attitudes, your words belong to you. And you do not have to wait for some special feeling to be hopeful. We make decisions and feelings catch up with our decisions. We don't wait to see how we feel, then make a decision.
Well, hey, you're going to go to the Joyce Meyer Conference this weekend? Well, I'm going to wait and see how I feel. Well, you're not coming. I mean, you are not coming. I love Romans 15:13. It says, may the God of hope fill you. The God of hope. He is the God of hope. He is not the God of hopelessness. He is the God of hope. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. And believing really is a positive expectation. It's looking at the promises of God and saying, this is for me. And I believe that God is going to do this in my life.
Fight for Hope – No More Jealousy or Passivity
Come on, fight for yourself. Don't be passive and just sit around and wish that something good would happen to you. Or even worse, sit around and be jealous of everybody else that's got a nice life. And I don't know why nothing good ever happened to me. Well, I do. It's the attitude. You say, thank you, God, that you've blessed them. And by the way, I'm in that line too.
God is the author of hope. There would be no such thing as hope without God. No wonder the world's in trouble. Oh, my gosh. Boy, we better get our hopes up because in the midst of what we're living in today, and the anger and the negativity and the bad news and all the stuff that we're hearing, no wonder God wanted me to write a book called Get Your Hopes Up.
Radical Hope – Something Good Today
If you've had a little hope, I want you to have a lot of hope. If you've had a lot of hope, I want you to have radical hope. You're welcome. Doubt and negativity steal hope. They block it. When you feel hopeless or down in any way, you just need a resurrection of belief and a positive attitude. Something good is going to happen to me. Something good is going to happen through me.
I don't care if you have to take one solid hour and march around your house and say over and over, something good is going to happen to me. God is good and something good is going to happen to me. If God can bless anybody, God can bless me. Something good is going to happen to me. Amen? And I sense an anointing in here, depression still being broken off of people, negativity being broken off of people. Say goodbye to those bad attitudes. It's a new day.
Mornings Tough? Speak Hope Anyway
Well, you know, Joyce, I just woke up this morning and I felt down. Yeah, well, I didn't feel too perky myself. Something good is going to happen to me today. I mean, boy, mornings can be tough sometimes. Whoo. Especially when you've gotten old enough that all the stuff that used to be up here fell down here. It's wild. It just all seems to go at once. It's wild.
Although we cannot prevent negative feelings from showing up, we can drive them away through right attitudes, conversations, and actions. Proverbs 15:15. Fight for yourself. Fight for your family. I tell you what, if you're the woman in the house, you're a mama. Mama, get happy. If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.
Evil Forebodings – Resist Oppression
You know, as I said, when I was growing up, I had a pretty rough time and I developed this habit of just expecting bad things. I mean, is there anybody who knows what I'm talking about? You just like, you've had so much junk in your life that you just like, you're waiting to see what the next thing is, you know? And as I began to serve God and get tighter with Him, one morning I was looking in the mirror, combing my hair. And I felt this, this threatening oppression. I could just feel it.
And I just said to God, what is that? And I heard in my spirit evil forebodings. And I didn't even really know what that was. But here in Proverbs 15:15, the Bible says, and all the days of the desponding and the afflicted are made evil by anxious thoughts and forebodings. But he who has a glad heart has a continual feast, regardless of their circumstances. Isn't that a great scripture?
Prisoner of Hope – Double Restoration
And we've been talking this weekend about taking authority over the enemy. And I know that, you know, you haven't been here all weekend. And so maybe you're like, what are you talking about? Take authority over the enemy. The Bible says that we can resist the devil and he will flee. And we don't see the devil or Satan with our eyes. We don't see evil spirits, but you can certainly feel their oppression.
I felt such a tremendous amount of freedom in this place this weekend. And even Matt Redman and the worship team, we were talking about it before. And he said the exact same thing. Well, I can tell you there was enough faith and positive, good stuff going on in this place this weekend. I mean, as we were worshiping God, there was no oppressive spirit that could come anywhere near this place. Amen.
Zechariah 9:12 – Return to Stronghold of Hope
And so when you feel oppression in your atmosphere like that, you need to just say, I resist the enemy in Jesus name. I'm not going to be down. I'm not going to be discouraged. I'm going to put my hope in God. And I believe that something good is going to happen in my life. God is good and he's going to be good to me.
Zachariah 9:12. Oh boy, do I love this. Return to the stronghold of security and prosperity, you prisoners of hope. Oh my gosh. Even today, do I declare that I will restore double your former prosperity to you. Wow. Okay. Now listen, he didn't say I'm doing it right this moment. He said, I am declaring to you that I will do this in your life. But in order for you to see it, you've got to be a prisoner of hope.
Trapped in Hope – Excited for Good
You know what that literally means? I am just trapped in hope. I just can't help it. I got to believe God. I can't help it. I'm just excited to see the great things that God does in my life. Come on. Why can't we live like this? I mean, listen, if I said to you, let's just say I picked out somebody here and I said, okay, you give me your address and I'm going to come over for dinner tomorrow. Now, okay, I'm just a person, but you say, okay, well, how about three o'clock? And I say, okay, three o'clock, I'll be there.
Here's what's going to happen. When it gets to be around quarter to three, you're going to be, you'll be pacing. You'll have everything ready. You'll be, you'll be down on the porch and look, look down the door. If we believe people enough to look for them expectantly... Come on, I'm talking to you today. Is anybody looking for God to show up in your life?
Keep Eternity in Mind – Hope for Eternity
You know, in this hour that we live in, we need to be looking for the return of the Lord. He said, I'm coming back. At a time when you least expect it, I'm coming back. You know, the early Christians, if you read the New Testament, I've been noticing over and over and over, they constantly were saying, do this because the Lord is coming soon. I even saw the other day in Philippians, he encouraged them, live unselfishly because the Lord is near.
I think that we need to keep eternity in mind a little bit more. So what if I don't get everything I want while I'm here on this earth? I'm going to believe for it. I'm going to expect it. And if I have to step out of this realm into eternity to get it, I'm still going to get it. Because I can tell you, when I get there, everything, and when you get there, everything is going to be yours. You're going to know, even as you are known. Just think about that.