Joyce Meyer - How Can I Move Beyond The Problems Of My Past?

TOPICS: Victory, Problems, Everyday Answers

You see my pit here, don't you? How many of you know about being in the pit? Some of you probably still have one somewhere. Keep it around just in case you need to go in and visit for a day or so. Our pit is where we go and feel sorry for our self, when we go and remember all the bad things that everybody's ever done to us. And the pit ultimately refers to hell, but we can experience some of hell right here on earth unless we choose healing.

Psalm 40:2 and 3, a wonderful promise from God. "He drew me up out of a horrible pit a pit of tumult and of destruction, out of the miry clay (froth and slime), and He set my feet upon a rock, steadying my steps and established my goings. And He has put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many shall see and fear (revere and worship) and put their trust and confident reliance in the Lord".

Do you see what that's saying? He said, "Look, I was in a pit. He lifted me out of that pit. He set my feet on a rock. People saw it, and then they wanted to serve the Lord". Come on, people saw it, and then they wanted to serve the Lord. One of the best things you can do for yourself and for God, one of the greatest ways that you can serve God, is to let Him heal your life, and then be an example to other people that if God can do it for you, God can do it for them. And if God does it for you, God will do it for them.

I'm here to tell you tonight that you do not have to stay broken. You do not have to stay miserable. You don't have to live in depression, you don't have to live in self-pity, you don't have to live hating yourself and despising yourself. You don't have to live in regret, and you don't have to live in dread, and you don't have to live in fear. God is living in you, and you can live the life that Jesus died to give you. I wasn't this dressed up when I went into my pit, by the way. 'Cause you're going to sit in your pit, you certainly don't want to look good while you're in there. And I would sit there and just hate people.

And you know, if you live in a pit for a long time, you might as well decorate it and make it kind of nice, you know, so you've got something when you go in there. And so, you know, you can have pictures in your pit of all the people that you hate, and then it's like, "Ugh. Ugh... Boy, I remember, I remember what you did to me. And if you think I'm ever going to forgive you, I'm not going to forgive you. I hate you". And then I could just feel so sorry for myself. Dave plays golf, and he doesn't even understand what I'm going through. And when I try to tell him, he just says, "Cast your care".

And then I had this book of remembrance. I was so dumb, I actually remember one time getting out a pad of paper, and writing down on a piece of paper everything that I thought was wrong with my husband. Well, the last list I made, I made one of everything that I thought was right with my husband. God has changed me, amen? Now, here's the thing. You know, we say, "Oh God, You got to change me. God, You got to help me. God, You got to do something, You got to do something". Remember what I said last night? The first thing that Jesus said to a lot of the people that He encountered was, "Get up, make up your bed, and go home". And what He meant was, "Get up, get some gumption, shake that junk off, decide you're not going to live like that anymore, and let's clean up the mess, and leave no evidence that you were ever in that kind of a situation".

Come on, instead of letting our problems tear us apart, let's let them make us that much more determined that we are going to show how great God is. Amen? First point to the healing of your soul. You must receive God's unconditional, perfect love for you. You receive it as a gift. You can't deserve it, you can't earn it. And I don't care what you do, you cannot keep God from loving you. Because love is not something he does, turns on and off. It is who he is. You are accepted.

Close your eyes and swallow this. God loves you unconditionally. He is not going to love you any more when you behave better. God will never love you any more than He does at this moment right now because He already loves you with a perfect love. God loves you. "Even though my mother and my father have forsaken me, the Lord will take me up and adopt me as His own child". Nobody in here is an orphan. We are sons and daughters of the most high God, amen? Sons and daughters of the most high God.