Joyce Meyer - Living A Life That You Love

TOPICS: Lifestyle

Large majority of people don't even like their life let alone love their life. I wanna love my life. You know why? You only get one go-through. You don't get to rewind. You don't get do-overs. We only get one opportunity. And how many of you have already wasted some of your life? And you'd just prefer not to waste any more of it? Matter of fact, you'd like to really ramp it up to being great to kind of make up for some of the other mess that you had in the past.

So I was, you know, I'm calling this "Living a life that you love". But I probably could have called it, "Loving the life that you're living". However, I didn't think people would get as excited about that because if I say I'm gonna teach you tonight how to have a life that you can love you're all gonna think, "Wah-ho! I'm gonna get a brand new life. I'm glad I'm here tonight". But if I say I want you to learn how to love the life you have, we're gonna be, like, "No way. I can't do that, no. No, no, no, no, no".

You know, what you focus on in life is what you get. This is a little Polaroid camera. Takes the cutest little pictures. Now, look, I'm gonna get whatever I focus on. I can get this pretty lady right down here in the blue. Whoops, there it is. Now this has to develop, you know, like most things we focus on. You focus on trouble long enough, it will develop into more trouble, amen? But if we focus on, let's see, who else can i, let's focus on Dave 'cause he sure is good-looking, amen. Whoo! That Dave, I'll tell you, man! There you go. Whoo! Look, isn't that cute? $50, you can just take pictures everywhere you go.

I know, you got your selfies but I don't do good with those. So, it's just an example. You're gonna get what you focus on. What you focus on gets larger and larger in your life. It grows and it can grow to the point where it's just, like, totally out of balance. It's like, if you look at what's wrong with your life, you can actually get to the point where you just hate your life. And you think that you've got the worst life ever, when really somebody else might look at your life and they might actually wish they had your life because they're seeing the stuff that you quit looking at a long time ago. Because you're so busy looking at all the stuff you don't like, you've forgotten what you do like.

You might marry somebody and you might get so focused on what you don't like that you forgot what you liked about them that caused you to wanna marry them to start with. Do you wish you had somebody else's life ever? "I wish I had your life". "I wish I looked like you". "I wish I had your skinny thighs". I wish, I wish, I wish. Do you often think or say, "I'll be happy when"? "I'll be happy when it's the weekend 'cause I hate my job". "I'll be happy when I get a new job". "I'll be happy when I get a new house, this house is too small". "I'll be happy when I get married". "I'd be happy if I wasn't married". "I'd be happy if I could just have kids, I just want kids". And maybe your spouse doesn't want kids right now and you're just like, "I just can't be happy if I don't have kids". And then someday you'll be saying, "I'll be so glad when these kids grow up and get out of this house". And then, of course, you'll have to be unhappy because you have an empty nest.

You know, we always find something to be unhappy about unless we learn how to be happy in the Lord. Well, why do so few people thoroughly love their lives? Well, obviously, there's more than one reason. But the first one I wanna talk to you about tonight is that we cannot live our lives totally for ourselves, being selfish and self-centered and ever love life. It is just not possible. You know why? Because that's not the way God built us. God did not build us just to live for ourselves and serve ourselves and even in our walk with him spend all of our time trying to get him to give us what we want, amen? That's not what it's all about.

So that doesn't mean that God doesn't want us to have pleasure. Matter of fact, there's an insatiable desire in all of us that God put there for pleasure. We want to have pleasure and the Bible tells us that the thief comes to take that away but Jesus came to give it back. He came that we might have and enjoy our lives and have it in abundance, to the full, until it overflows. But here's the key. He wants us to let him give us the desires of our heart instead of us compromising in order to get them ourselves.

I think we need to say that again. God wants us to let him give us the desires of our heart instead of us compromising our conscience to get things or to make things happen that God is not making happen yet. For example, don't ever compromise on your job. Don't ever compromise your morals on your job to get a promotion. Don't do that. How many maybe young girls compromise their morality to get promoted in some industry? True promotion comes from God. And if we have to compromise to be promoted, then we're gonna get promoted into a place that's gonna make us very, very miserable and unhappy.

I was sharing this example with somebody the other day. And we were actually talking, it was Dr. Paul Osteen, Joel's brother, and he came in to do some television with me and we were kind of talking a little bit about the younger generation. And when I say the younger generation, I'm not complaining about 'em. We've got a lot of wonderful young people that work for us and if we didn't have their skills and talents, I doubt that my TV program would look as good as it does.

And so, you know, they're great. But there are a group of younger people and I mean that can be anywhere from 40 on down, I guess, I don't know at what age you're not younger anymore, but, they don't wanna wait for things. They wanna have what somebody else worked 20 years to get. And it's just not, to be honest, everybody needs to pay their dues. I mean, everybody just needs to have to wait and go through some stuff because if you don't have to work for what you get and wait for what you get, there is no way that you can ever really appreciate it for very long. It's just not possible. It is just not possible.

So sometimes, people promote them too fast and that's not always wise. Just because you have a talent doesn't mean that you're ready for the platform. C'mon, I'm gonna say it again. Just because you have a talent doesn't mean you're ready for the platform. A lot of people have a gift that can take them somewhere but no character to keep them there once they get there. And we've seen some great tragedies where people get in a high position and they're in a position where they're in front of a lot of people but you gotta keep in mind, I mean, the Lord spoke this to me one time and I'll share it with you. He said, "You better keep in mind that however many people I put in front of you that you can help, that's also just how many you can hurt".

And so that is a huge responsibility when you stand in front of people, whether it's a church platform or a platform like this or you're a supervisor or a boss where you work. Leadership means that you've got some experience and you've got some character and that you can lead people to the right place, amen? And we were talking about that, he and i. And there were some situations we knew of that we were talking about, well, why did this happen? So a lot of it was along these lines.

And I said, "I remember a situation, Paul, when I was out at a speaking engagement and I'd only had, like, I think it was maybe, like, my third or fourth, maybe my fifth speaking engagement. We were on just a few radio stations and maybe I'd written one small book, you know, I certainly didn't have any big ministry. I wanted to have that but I didn't have it yet. And I was out in California when this happened. And a 'marketing' agency came to us. They were where I was ministering that night and they said, 'you know, if you'll sign on with us, we can really get you places'. And so they told me all the good things about me and all the stuff, you know, to blow up your head and make you feel important and, you know, 'if you sign with us, we can get you speaking engagements all over the world. We can get you this, we can get you that. We can get you that'. Well, you know, a large part of me wanted to think, 'man, this is God opening a door.' but you know, a lot of times you get Ishmael before you get Isaac. And you gotta be really careful that you don't do that and take some kind of a phony copy of what God wants to give you if you wait on him, amen? And so, man, I wanted to. Whoo! I wanted to. I wanted to say, 'yes', and sign on the dotted line because I wanted our ministry to grow and be bigger".

How many of you know that "I want" can get pretty strong? I want, I want, I want, I want. And when I was laying across the bed that afternoon in that hotel room in California, Dave wasn't in the room so I don't know where he was at but somewhere important, I'm sure. I don't know, he might have been hitting some golf balls or something important like that. I'm sure it was. Oh, he said he was praying for me, that's where he was at. That's not what you said? What you say? Oh, he said he was praying for me not to take it. Hah. And he probably was.

And when I was laying across that bed, I mean, the Lord spoke to my heart so clearly, "If you do this, you're gonna be making a big mistake. If you wait on me," now c'mon, somebody here needs this tonight 'cause this was not in my message. This has got nothing to do with what I came here to say, much. He said, "If you wait on me, I will put you places where no man could ever put you," amen? And so I don't know, you know, what you may be going through right now or how big of a hurry you're in to get where you think that you're supposed to be, but I'm just saying again, God wants to give you the desires of your heart. He doesn't want you to try to make something happen out of its timing, especially if you have to compromise your conscience in order to get that.

Do I need to say this one more time? If you have to compromise your conscience or your morals to get something you want, you are not going to be happy with it. If you have to lie to get it, if you have to cheat to get it, if you have to compromise in any way, shape, or form, and don't buy into the devil's "Just once" lie. Don't do that. "Well, it's just once". And don't listen to the "Well, everybody does it" lie. You're not everybody and you're not gonna answer for everybody. You're only gonna answer to God for yourself, amen?

So that's what I have to say about that. Jesus wants us to have pleasure but he wants to be the center of our lives. So, whatever we try to do without God is just absolutely not going to work out. And you know, when I say, "God needs to be the center of your life," that doesn't mean that everything needs to be some spiritual activity. I mean, there's all kinds of people in here today that do all kinds of stuff. I mean, all kinds of stuff. We met a couple before the meeting that, I'm not gonna tell you their name 'cause I don't want everybody to start trying to find 'em but they, he's walked across the grand canyon on a tightrope. I thought, "It's a good thing you're a Christian". I mean, if I was gonna do that, I'd be a believer and if I wasn't when I made my mind up to do it, I'd become one real quick when I got on the rope.

So I'm just trying to make the point that to, you know, for Jesus to be the center of your life, that doesn't mean that you've gotta be some pastor or a preacher or a worship leader. Or that you just sit home and read the Bible all the time. I mean, God create, I mean, he gives so many different varieties of gifts. But whatever we do, whatever we do, we need to do it with the Lord, through the Lord, for the Lord, by his grace, for his glory.

And how awesome is it when you have all these multitudes of people that are just out in everyday life out there, just working at this shop and that shop and in the marketplace and in the business places and on the tightropes and, you know, on the platform and whatever, and they let their faith be made known. They give the glory to God. They don't hide the fact that they're believers. They're not ashamed of the Gospel and that doesn't mean you have to go to work and preach all day long. But it does mean that you don't cower and hide the fact that you're a believer.

What does the Bible say? "If you honor me before men I will honor you before my father who's in heaven. If you confess me before men I will confess you before my father who is in heaven". You know, Paul, the apostle Paul, made some very, very strong statements about this selfishness thing. And I want us to look at it because I'll be honest with you, everybody has a tendency to be selfish. It's probably the biggest monster in our lives, if you wanna know the truth. I mean, and if you don't think you're maybe a little selfish, just watch the next time you don't get your way. Enough said.

Romans 14:7 and 8, "None of us lives to himself but to the Lord, and none of us dies to himself but to the Lord, for if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or we die, we belong to the Lord". So, Paul had a revelation. It doesn't really matter because I belong to God and so whatever I do, it doesn't matter if I'm an apostle or a ditch digger, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters except that I belong to God and I'm living for him and this time here on this earth is extremely short compared to forever. And let me tell you something, when forever starts, you wanna know the right person.

2 Corinthians 5:15 is one of my very favorite scriptures in the Bible, "And he died for all," this is Jesus. Jesus died for all "So that all those who live might live no longer to and for themselves, but to and for him who died and was raised again for their sake". So, one of the reasons why Jesus died is so we don't have to live selfish, self-centered lives. He set me free from me. You know, we think about all the things that we want God to set us free from and if I went through here tonight and taken a survey, "Well, what would you like God to set you free from"? I doubt that I would have gotten very many, "I want him to set me free from me".

You know what? I mean, I finally got to the point where I just got sick of me because that was just pretty much all I had in my life and all I cared about was me, me, me. And I just got really tired of it and finally wanted to learn how to do things God's way. You know, if you're just locked up in a prison with you... And most of you don't even like who you are so that's, you know, we're gonna talk about that too.

It's like, in Galatians 2:20 and this scripture's interesting to me because Paul said, "I've been crucified with Christ: it's no longer I that lives," but I wanna let you know that he said this 20 years after his conversion. So it's not like you just get saved and wake up just oozing with love and wanting to give and sacrifice and do things for other people and you never think about yourself. And you just lay your life down. That's not the way it works. It takes a long time and the word "Crucify" equals pain. If you're looking for a padded cross, you're doing the wrong thing trying to follow God, amen? "I have been crucified with Christ in him I have shared his crucifixion: it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me".

How many of you know that he lives in you? Okay. "And the life that I now live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me". So here's basically what God's after. He wants vessels, empty vessels, that he can fill up and flow through, amen? He doesn't want a bunch of people that have bumper stickers and good church attendance and a pair of cross earrings and, you know, whatever else, a aqua Bible and a fuchsia Bible and, you know, whatever, but they're still full of themselves.

And I was a Christian just like that for so many years. I mean, even all my prayers were about me. I had a whole list of things that God had to do for me to keep me happy for 24 hours. "If I don't get this, I don't think I can stand it. And if Dave doesn't change, I don't think I'm gonna make it and"... C'mon now, I'm not the only one who does this kind of stuff, right? "I need a bigger house and we need more money and," yeah. Everything was about what I needed God to do for me. But what the Bible says in Psalm 37:3, another one of my favorite scriptures, there's a whole bunch of 'em, is trust in the Lord and do good.

So, it's the simplest plan if you see it. I got so excited when God showed me that scripture and really gave me understanding on it. Whatever you want and need, tell God and trust him and then get off of it. And spend your time doing good. Spend your time being a blessing to somebody else and let God give you the desires of your heart. Don't spend your time trying to get all this stuff yourself and end up ruining your life or making a mess out of it by compromising your morals and doing the wrong thing. You can't love your life if you don't have peace with God. It's not possible. "It's no longer I that lives".

You say, "Well, I don't know. If I live like this, what's gonna happen to me? Who's gonna take care of me"? And you know, I was like that a lot because I had trusted man and man had let me down. People had abused me, people had not cared about me, my parents didn't really care about me, my father abused me, my mother didn't help me, I married the first guy that came along. He mistreated me. He used me. He stole from me. He wrote bad checks. He ran up debts that I needed to then pay. And so when it came to the trust thing, I wasn't real good at it. I got really good at taking care of myself. It's, like, "I don't need you, I will take care of myself". But you see, the thing is, is God's not like people. You can trust him.

Now, I'm not gonna tell you that you can trust him to give you everything you want because there is an outside possibility that what you want might be the last thing in the world that you need. I better tell this side that. See, I'm not gonna tell you that God's gonna give you everything you want. I'm not gonna tell you that if you exercise your faith you can have anything. No. But you can trust God to give you the best thing for you. I'm not finished. At the right time. And that timing probably won't be your time, either. I tell you what, when you get to the point where you can trust God, misery is over. Did you hear me? Misery is just flat out over when you get to the point where you can trust God.

Part 2
Okay well, if you really wanna love your life then get the word "Hate" out of your vocabulary. "I hate the traffic. I hate my job. I hate doing dishes. I hate changing the oil in the car". Here's a really good one. "I hate unloading the dishwasher". Now, that is pathetic. You used to hate to do dishes. Now you don't have to do dishes anymore. Now you hate to unload the automatic dishwasher that does them for you. Come on. "I hate the way I look. I hate the way I feel". Well, did you ever think about doing something about it? "Well, no, I just wish my life was different".

Get the word "Hate" out of your vocabulary. The only thing we can hate is wickedness, and sin, and evil but you don't get to hate any people. Eh-eh, yeah really, no people. Don't get to hate any people. You say, "Can I just be mad at 'em"? No, you don't even get to do that either. Yeah, we'll get to that sometime too. So, love needs to be the central theme of our life. The worst-selling book I ever had was a book on love. It was pitiful, I mean pitiful, pitiful. It was just terrible. And it was about a love revolution, like turning your life into a... I got so excited about the book. Like, turn your life in... Let's start a revolution of love.

We got a world full of hatred. Christians, let's get out there and forget about ourselves and love people. Well, yeah, you're clapping here. Did you buy the book? How many of you bought the book, "The love revolution"? Well, that's more than I would have thought. Praise God. I finally got mad and just started giving them away. I thought, and it was a good book. There was nothing wrong with the book but the thing is, is people aren't interested in that.

Now, if you say how to be a millionaire overnight, well, get ready for the best-sellers' list. "Lord, give me what I need, not what I want". New prayer. Anybody bold enough to pray that? "Lord, give me what I need, not what I want and give it to me in your timing, not in mine". Whoo! "Give me however much money I can handle and not ever let it get more important than you". David prayed, "Don't give me too much lest I forget you. And don't give me too little, lest I complain against you".

So, he was praying that he got just the right amount of what he could handle and still keep God first in his life. So, love needs to be the central theme of our life, but it will not be if we don't do it on purpose. There is just too much selfishness in our flesh to ever get out of bed every day and lay our lives down and put other people first if we don't have a lot of help from the Holy Spirit and if we don't do it on purpose. And see, this is like kind of like a new idea for a lot of you. It's kind of like, hmm? "I don't know, you wanna come back tomorrow or not? I thought this might be a little different than this".

Love goes in a lot of different directions. First you really don't, you can't love anything till you let God love you. That's where it all begins. He's the beginning of all things. And so, the love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son". He is love. It's just not something he does and his love is unconditional. And God just loves you and you can't buy his love. There's nothing you can do except receive it but a lot of people don't. And so, in John 15:9 Jesus said, "I have loved you, just as the father has loved me: abide in my love".

Now, abide means to live, dwell, and remain. I love that word "Abide". "If you abide in me and my word abides in you, you can ask what you will and I'll do it. But apart from me, you can do nothing". That's in John 15. So, he said, "I love you, now abide in my love". Jesus was letting God's love, his father's love, flow to him and through him. See, you can't love anybody else if you have not received God's love and when you receive God's love, now listen to me very carefully, when we receive God's love, then we love ourselves not selfishly, but in a healthy way. Because the best gift that you can give the world is a healthy, together, secure, confident you.

That's much more important than your gifts and talents. I would rather work with somebody that was a little less talented and was real secure than to work with somebody who's got all kinds of talents but boy, if you don't like one little, teeny, tiny thing that they do "Well," then they're all offended. How many of you just it wears you out dealing with insecure people?

Now see, some of ya are insecure and you think I'm being mean. I am not being mean. I'm just simply saying that it is really, really, really hard on relationships if one person has to spend all their time trying to keep the other person fixed. And you might be thinking, see, you're thinking about whether you wanna clap for this because we've come to feel sorry for people that are like that. But here's the thing, Jesus came to heal us from that so we don't have to be like that so we can be full of confidence, so we can do great things, so we can be world-changers, so we can have an amazing life, not so we can just wimp around and have people feel sorry for us all of our lives.

Hey, I got all kinds of reasons I can feel sorry for myself. My father abused me. My mother didn't help me. And I did that for a lot of years. I just sat in my pit and felt sorry for myself, but I ain't doing that anymore. You might not have a good start, but you can have a good finish but a lot of it is up to you. Amen? And the only way that we can be secure is to receive megadoses of God's love. "God loves me. He loves me". I remember back 38 years ago when I would stand and look at myself in the mirror and say, "God loves you". 'Cause I didn't have that revelation. I wasn't loved as a child and I didn't have that revelation in my life. And guess what. I couldn't really love anybody else. I was having a difficult time getting along with people. I was having a hard time in all my relationships 'cause I wasn't getting along with myself.

Are you there? If you don't love you, how can you love anybody else? You can't give away what you don't have. Don't ever say, "I hate myself". Just forget talking about all the stuff you don't like about yourself too. You can not like your sin and still love yourself. "Are you sure about all this, Joyce"? Well, yeah, pretty sure. Pretty sure. We can be secure. You know how wonderful it is to be free to be who you are, to be secure in God's love for you and to not even have to fall apart every time you make a mistake?

Listen, I repent all the time. I'm a chief repenter. Amen? But I tell ya what I don't do, I don't waste one minute of my life feeling guilty. But I did. I wasted a lot of it feeling guilty. God's love is not based on you never making a mistake. Amen? And you can love your imperfect self. You don't have to, don't love your sin, but you can just, you can face it. You know, I'll just tell you the truth right here. Look at me, I'm just kind of impatient. And I mean, I've gotten better over 40 years but I still got a long way to go, amen?

Now, Dave is just, he was born patient. Drives me nuts. He just was just like, "Sure, that's fine. Take your time". I'm like, "Why aren't you ready? You knew we were supposed to be leaving right now. Now, let's go. Why aren't you ready? You're never ready". "Don't stress yourself out, honey," he says. "Just take your time". Unless he's going to play golf and that's another story. I mean, well it is. How many of you know your weaknesses? How many of you are impatient? How many of you talk too much? That mouth gets you in trouble, whoo! How many of you like to be in control? We can just stand here and do this all night. This would be like getting exercise, wouldn't it?

You know how mad it makes the devil when you know who you are in Christ and you know what you're not by yourself? And you still like yourself anyway? Do you know how upset he is that you're hearing this tonight, that you might actually be able to go home and say, "I love myself. I just absolutely love myself". And then you what happened? You might be able to get up tomorrow and love some of other people that live with you. And they might say, "Go back in the morning. Please go to all four sessions". I haven't gotten very far tonight but we're having fun and we're learning something, right?

Now here, one of the best things that I can tell you about this thing about really knowing that God loves you I learned from 1 John 4:16. And this is what it says, Amplified version. I probably would have never gotten this out of it if I wouldn't have been reading Amplified. "And we know (we understand, we recognize, we're conscious of", and all these words are important, "(by observation and by experience) and we believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love that God cherishes for us". So, what's he saying? He's saying, "Look, I am really consciously aware of God's love". It's not just like oh, you come to church on Sunday and the pastor says, "God loves you," and you clap and say, "Amen". No, you abide in the love of God. You wake up in the morning realizing that God loves you. You watch for his love all throughout the day. He says we're to come to him like little children. We need to start getting excited about all the dozens of little things that God does for us that we have effectively learned to ignore.

I'll give you an example. Last week on Tuesday, I wanted to get an appointment to do something on Wednesday at a place that's pretty busy. And not only did I want to get an appointment, the best time for me to go would be 1:30. Now, you know, in the natural without some help, there's not much chance of that. And so at first I said, "Nah". And then, I thought, so I just a real quick little prayer, "Lord, I'd like to do this. If you could work it out for me, I'd really appreciate it". So, I call the place and I said, "Would you happen to have any appointments in the early afternoon"? She said, "We have 1:30". Wow, thank you, Jesus!

Now some you would say, "Well, you know, coincidence". Uh-uh. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's the kind of stuff we gotta stop. Let me tell ya something, when you put yourself in God's hands, you need to watch for his love. You need to be conscious of it. You need to be aware of it. You need to make a big deal out of it. And we especially need to make a big deal out of the little things that God does for us. And some of them a lot of times I don't even tell people those things because I've kind of learned that there's a preciousness and a holiness that comes into my relationship with God if I have a bunch of secrets between me and him. I mean, I share some things just because I wanna get a point across in teaching but there's other things that I've just learned I just need to just keep quiet about that and just enjoy that between me and God. Let me tell ya something, God loves you and he will show out in your life if you'll let him. And then you love him in return.

Come on, we got a cycle of love going here. He loves me. I receive his love. I learn to love myself. Now, I'm gonna love him in return and it's very simple, the way we do that is by obeying him, hmm? John 14:15 Jesus said, "If you really love me, you will keep my commands". The second way that we show our love for God, and it kind of comes under this heading of obedience, is by loving other people, doing things for other people. Jesus said to Peter, it's recorded in John 21:15 through 18, "Peter, do you love me"? "Yes Lord, you know that I love you". He said, "Feed my sheep".

Can I give you my translation without offending anybody? "Peter, do you love me"? "Yes Lord, you know that I love you". "Well, go help somebody. Feed my sheep" might sound a little too spiritual for you to get it so I wanna bring it down to, that's what he was saying. He considers us his sheep and he said, "Feed them, help them, do for them, meet their needs". Three times, "Peter, do you love me"? "Yes Lord, you know that I love you". "Feed my lambs". "Peter, do you love me"? "Yes Lord, you know that I love you". "Feed my sheep". And then if we went on to verses 17 and 18, he proceeds then to tell Peter something that we really don't wanna hear and that was, "Up until now, you have kind of made your own plans and done whatever you wanted to but from now on, somebody else is gonna guide you and take you to places where you do not wanna go". Ouch.

See, we don't have to be where we wanna be. We need to be where God needs us. Come on now. I said, we don't have to be where we wanna be. You know, I'll be honest, nobody's gonna jump up and down about flying 42 hours to go to India but that's where God needs me. And so, I'm just as happy to be there as I can be. I am so looking forward to it. You know what? There's a difference in fleshly fun and spiritual joy. Dr. Paul Osteen that I was talking to ya about earlier, he's just a fine man of God. I mean, actually, all the Osteens are just great people, they really are. And three months, three to four months out of every year, he leaves his nice, air-conditioned church in Houston and his nice home and he goes to Africa and operates on people free of charge, every year, every year, every year.

So, and he told me the other day. He said, "You know, when I was in Africa before I came home this time," he said, "I'd operated on people all day one day and was tired". And he said, "I was walking down the road," you know, going back to where he stayed and he said, "I just thought there is no place in the world that I would rather be than walking down this road right now".

Now, come on, that's somebody who loves their life. I'm not talking about loving your comfort. I'm not talking about loving vacation or loving weekends. I'm talking about loving your life, every season of your life. We have great seasons and we have seasons that are a little bit more challenging. We have ones that are more fun, some that aren't so fun. We have sowing seasons. We have reaping seasons. But you can never enjoy a reaping season if you don't have a sowing season and a sowing season means you're giving something up, giving something up, giving something up, giving something up, giving something up. And then you wait. There's seed time and harvest. No, let's do it right. Seed, time... And then harvest. But you can't just get excited about a harvest because you gotta go through the seed sowing time to get there. And it might be sowing seed into a relationship.

You know, sometimes you might have to do what's right for a few years before the person that you're treating right begins to treat you right. Would you be willing to do that if maybe that would be their open door to receive Christ? "Well, bless God, I'm out of here. I ain't putting up with this". "Why'd you get a divorce"? I asked a lady recently. "Well, we're just not compatible". I thought, well, who is? Who is just naturally compatible? God sticks you with somebody that's the opposite of you and not just for entertainment. It so happens that if you would quit finding everything wrong with them, you'd figure out that they've got some stuff that you don't have that you need.

I love to talk and Dave doesn't like to talk as much. Hallelujah, I've got somebody to listen. Praise God, amen? Lord, we're having too much fun tonight. Obeying God. "If you really love me, you'll keep my commandments". And love people. Oh my, I've got so many good scriptures on loving people. Matter of fact, I'm gonna have to preach the rest of this message tomorrow. I don't know, I still got boatloads of this. My goodness. 1 John 3:11, we'll close with this. "For this is the message (the announcement) which you have heard from the first, that we should love one another," amen?

You know, God created us all to breathe, didn't he? But you know what? You don't just breathe in, you breathe out. And if people just wanna take in, "Give me something, give me something, give me something, give me something," and they're never giving back out, you just try it. Come on, just as we close, just try this. Just try. Just take a breath and hold it. Now, take another breath and hold it.

Now, come on, there's no letting out. Take another breath and hold it. Two more. Take one more breath and hold it. See, you're not created for that. And if you were successful, honestly, you would pass out, you really would. So, God has created us to breathe in and to breathe out. So, what he wants to do is pour something good into us and then have us pour it back out to somebody else. Then he pours something good into us and then we pour something back out to somebody else. So, hey, you can come back and get more of this.