Joyce Meyer - Performance Mentality (08/23/2019)
Tonight's sermon digs deep into how a performance-based mindset steals our joy with God—our best efforts fall short, yet God pours out blessings simply because He's good. Using Matthew 11:28-30, Joyce Meyer calls us off the exhausting treadmill of trying to earn God's favor and into true soul-rest through His grace and mercy.
The Problem with a Performance Mentality
Tonight I want to talk about a performance mentality and how miserable it makes us if we think that what God does for us or our relationship with God is based on our performance. First of all, even our very best good works are still not really all that good after all. Because all you really have to do in the midst of doing something good is just for a few minutes hope that somebody sees you and you get a little credit. It's ruined the whole thing. All you have to do is have just one little wrong motive. Well, you're doing it. You want to help somebody, but you really kind of want to get something for yourself too. So even our best, best, best good works, still to be honest, are not holy enough and righteous enough to be acceptable to God for any kind of payment for anything that we do wrong that would then cause us to deserve anything from God.
So everything that God does for us, everything that God does for us, He does it because of who He is, not because of what we do. Everything God does for us is because He is good, not because we are good. Do you understand me? Everything that God does for us is because He's good, not because we are good. Now, we have goodness in us, but that goodness is a gift from God. And if we are good, if we do anything good, it's only a manifestation of God working in our life and we still don't get to take the credit. God gets the credit and the glory for all goodness.
Some of the disciples called Jesus good master. And even He, speaking out of His humanity side, said, why do you call me good? There's no one good but God. So even Jesus, when He was here in a human body, He didn't even consider Himself to be good. Now, we don't have to have a bad opinion of ourselves. I like to say that I'm an everything-nothing. I'm everything in Christ, nothing in myself. And that's the way that we need to look at it. So, apart from Him, we can do nothing. I'm nothing apart from Him. But through Him, watch out world, we can do amazing things through Christ.
I heard someone say one time, and I really like this, it is yet to be seen what God could do through a man or a woman who would give Him all of the glory. All the glory.
Doing Good Works – But Not to Earn Anything
So, when we do make an attempt to do good things, or we perform in any way, and I'm not talking about putting on an act, but I'm talking about just the things that we do. Now, I want you to get this. We need to do good things. The Bible teaches us to be full of good works. It teaches us to be mindful, to be a blessing to other people, especially to those of the household of faith. We're taught to read and study the Word. We're taught to pray. We're taught to spend time with God. All of those are good things. And we need to do all of those things.
But when we do them... Now, listen. When we do them, we're not doing them for God. Because God doesn't need anything. It doesn't help God when I read my Bible. It helps me when I read my Bible. So, I don't need to act like if I get up every day and read three or four chapters of the Bible and spend, you know, half an hour in prayer that I'm doing God some big favor and now I get a check mark on my little heavenly calendar. And now that entitles me to more answer to prayer and greater favor and greater blessing. Because God doesn't need me to do that for Him. He's okay. I need it.
I pray because I need to pray. Who would not want to pray if you really understand that you have the privilege of going boldly to the throne of grace and asking a merciful God not only to forgive your sins but to meet every need that you have? Who would not want to do that? Who would not want to study the Bible and learn how to have a life worth living? If you buy a piece of equipment and take it home and it's not working, you go get the manual and figure out what you're doing wrong. Well, you know what? If life isn't working for you, here's a manual. And it doesn't take very long to figure out what's wrong. This is literally the operations manual for life. This is how you can have a life that is worth living.
The Exhausting Treadmill of Performance
So now, I want to make sure that everybody gets what I'm trying to say. So when we do good works, which we should do, when we do good things, we don't do them to get something from God because everything that comes to us from Him is a free gift by His grace and His mercy because we could never deserve it. But all those things that we do, we do because of what He's done for us, in gratitude for what He's done for us, wanting to glorify Him and to live the life that His Son died to give us. It's not to get, but to give. Is everybody with me tonight?
So one of the biggest mistakes that we can make is to get on this performance, acceptance, treadmill type thing where we think that every time we don't perform right, then we dare not expect anything from God because we're not going to get it. God is pleased with you as long as you are believing in Him.
Now, what about this treadmill? I've got a whole chapter in this book on this treadmill. Let me read it to you a little bit. Is your mentality, I owe, I owe, so off to work I go? And I'm not talking about physical debt. I'm talking about, well, I wasn't so good yesterday, so today I need to be better. So I'm going to get up this morning and I'm going to work really hard. So I'm going to study more. I'm going to read more. I'm going to do a lot of really nice works. I'm going to really try to be good with my mouth today. And then, boy, is God going to be happy with me and pleased with me. And then maybe I can get my prayers answered. That's just a bunch of nonsense.
And when you are blessed, if you think that you're getting blessed because you deserve it, then there's something wrong with that too. Every day when I woke up, I felt I had to pay for all my sins and mistakes the day before. So I formulated a plan on how good I would be, hoping to work my way back into God's good pleasure and favor. During that time, I regularly attended a church that taught salvation by grace and not by works. I said I believed it, but I didn't apply it to my life. Even though I did some things right, I also did many things wrong that overshadowed the little bit that I did that was right. So I never got ahead. The next day, I still owed from the day before and had to get back on the treadmill once again. By the end of each day, I was spiritually, mentally, physically, and emotionally completely worn out from trying to please God, and it made me grouchy and hard to get along with and not very enjoyable to be around. Can anybody say I relate to that, Sister Joyce? All right.
The Beautiful Invitation of Matthew 11:28-30
Now, Matthew chapter 11, verses 28 through 30. Beautiful scriptures. Come unto me, the most wonderful invitation in the Word of God. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease, relieve, and refresh your souls. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am humble, gentle, meek, and lowly in heart, and you will find rest, relief, and ease, and refreshment, and recreation, and blessed quiet for your souls, your inner life. For my yoke is wholesome, useful, good. It is not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing. It is comfortable, gracious, pleasant, and my burden is light and easy to be born.
God is actually really pretty easy to get along with if you get right down to it. I mean, honestly, God is really not hard to get along with. He really actually is pretty easy to get along with, because every day he's got a whole brand new batch of mercy whipped up. Just in case we used up all the yesterdays. He's got some new every day. He's gracious, and merciful, and good, and kind, and loving, and patient, and long-suffering.
Why we would ever let the devil trap us into this fear, this vague fear, that every time we make a mistake, God is mad. I now look back and I think, how could I have wasted so many years of my life, and been so miserable thinking that? And I pray, pray, pray with all my heart that God will use this book and these messages to set countless, multiplied, hundreds of thousands of people free from this treadmill of performance, and failure, and guilt, and condemnation, and crawling back out of it, and getting right back on the treadmill, and doing it again, and again, and again, and again. I want you to get comfortable with God. I want you to stop counting what you do wrong, and counting what you do right, and just simply come to Him. Amen?
Two Kinds of Rest from Matthew 11
Now, H.A. Ironside, a man that I've been reading a lot of books by recently, he was a wonderful Bible teacher, and he said about Matthew 11, 28 through 30, that in those verses we find two kinds of rest, a two-fold rest. We find, first of all, a rest of conscience, where we can have peace, even when we sin, because we can go to God, repent, and know that we're forgiven. That rest of conscience is wonderful, isn't it? I'm telling you, there's no worse pillow to lay on than a pillow of guilt. To lay down and know that you really made a mess out of things, and not know how to receive God's goodness and grace and forgiveness, that's a hard pillow to sleep on all night.
So I'm grateful for God's mercy and His grace and His forgiveness, and I'm not only grateful that I can be forgiven, but I'm also grateful to find out that according to the Word, I am dead to sin, and I can actually overcome it. That doesn't mean that I can be sinless and never do anything wrong, but I can improve, and so can you. There are things in our lives that we can overcome. We don't have to stay the same and keep fighting with the same dumb stuff over and over and over. How many of you have some kind of hang-up in your life right now that you really would like to get over? Bad temper, impatience, some kind of addiction, whatever. Let's say somebody, okay. Well, you know what? You can get beyond that. You don't have to stay trapped in it.
We don't have to just sing songs about how we've overcome. We actually are more than overcomers, more than conquerors through Christ. Don't ever get stuck in the thinking that I'm stuck in this and I can never get out of this, this is never going to change. That's a lie from the pit of hell. The only thing that never changes is God. But we can change, the people in our life can change, our circumstances can change, our habits can change. Sin is not dead. It's alive and well on planet Earth, but we are dead to sin. There's a part of us, the born-again part of us, that does not want to sin. And the more you believe that, the more you confess and say, I am dead to sin, the more you consider yourself dead to sin.
See, I can remember when I used to wake up in the morning and I almost dreaded getting up because I already knew that I had all these areas in my life that were out of control and I didn't know how long I'd be up before somebody would make me mad, somebody would hurt my feelings, somebody would say something and I would, you know, have a temper fit. Does anybody know what I'm talking about? And you know what? I'm not afraid to get up now because I know that I'm dead to sin and I know when I feel tempted I can start praying for God to help me and I can expect to have a lot of victory. I don't have too many perfectly perfect days, but I'm not counting anymore anyway, so who cares?
The Second Rest – Peace in Every Circumstance
And then there's a second kind of rest that is offered to us in Matthew 11, and that's the rest that we can find, the peace that passes understanding. When we have stinky, lousy circumstances that should worry us and should annoy us and should make us anxious and should make us fearful and yet we don't have any of that because we just know that, first of all, to be honest with you, problems are just part of life. And the thing that makes them seem so terrible is because we worry and fuss over them and fret over them and think about them too much and try to figure them out. We just need to do what the Bible says and do all the crisis demands and then trust God to take care. Do what you can do. Do your responsibility but cast your care. And God will take care of stuff.
So I did a little, just a little thing recently. I mentioned this last night, but I thought I would just bring... This is my personal journal for this year. I've been keeping them for, I guess, most of the 37 years I've been in ministry. I have literally a mountain of these things. Every morning, I write in here. And I decided, just for the sake of getting this into a message, that I would keep a record for several weeks of just things that happened that were irritating. Trials, problems, pressure, interruptions, things I wasn't expecting. And here's what I wrote at the beginning. I said, I am recording things that happened that I did not plan. They interrupted my plan, my schedule. And my goal, I made a decision about this before I ever went into this. My goal is to endure whatever comes with good temper and to show people that life happens to us all. I wanted to write some of these things down because I don't want you to think you're the only one this kind of stuff happens to and that those of us up here on the platform just have this privileged life and we float around on a cloud singing the Hallelujah Chorus all day. Life happens to all of us. And the reason why it seems so bad is because of our attitude toward it.
But in Matthew 11, God offers us a peace that passes understanding. He said, come unto me and you can have rest for your souls. You need to give your soul a vacation. You know what? You can go on a vacation and lay on the beach but never give your soul a vacation because you take time off from work to go lay somewhere and worry about all your problems. I'm going to take a day off today and just figure this thing out. Well, yeah, that's really a vacation. You'll go back to work tireder than you were if you wouldn't have even taken the time off. Amen? So we need to give our soul a vacation. And you know what? I now run with a lot of help. I don't really... I used to be able to say I run it but I really don't anymore. But I obviously have a lot of responsibility for a worldwide ministry and I just do it on vacation. Now some of you are looking at me like, I'm not talking about going and laying on the beach somewhere. That's not the kind of vacation I'm talking about. I'm talking about my soul is on vacation.
You know, I can honestly tell you that I'm up here tonight and I'm just as free as I can be. I mean, I really don't have one thought of concern or worry about what you think about me. Because when it really comes down to it, what can you be other than yourself? And when we start worrying about what everybody else thinks and what they're going to do and what they're not going to do, then all of a sudden we lose our peace. But if we're rooted and grounded in who we are in Christ and we know that He loves us and that He has accepted us, then we don't have to get overly concerned about how everybody else feels about us and what they think.
So, in 42 days, because I did this for 6 weeks, in 42 days I had 34 things happen. 42 days, 34 things. That means in 6 weeks I only had just a handful of days that went the way I had planned. Now come on, I want to teach you something here tonight. So, how many of you want to hear about my things that happened? Alright. Okay, first of all, first thing that happened was I injured my back at the gym. Then water spilled out of a humidifier that I was using and it bubbled up the wood on a table. I broke a nail, which might not seem bad to you, but it is bad for me. I twisted my wrist. I left some luggage on the plane. Now, my mom and my aunt are 89 and 86 and it is my sole responsibility to take care of them. And they are both now in nursing home care. Neither one of them can do very much. And so, we get calls all the time from the nursing home. You know, Aunt Marie fell out of her chair. Your mom fell out of the bed. You know, Aunt Marie needs to go to the hospital. Aunt Marie needs to be picked up from the hospital. And you never know when that stuff is going to come. So, the nursing home called by my mom two times. The nursing home called again. My back is still hurting. I hurt my arm trying to do stretches for my back. I spilled a red vitamin drink on a white couch. Dave hit a golf ball through a woman's window on the golf course.
Do any of you know what those pillows are that you can... They are like a little chair and you can sit in them and lean back like in your bed or something if you want to watch TV. Well, okay. I had been trying to use one of those and didn't really care for it that much and so Dave liked it so he had it on his side of the bed. And I woke up in the middle of the night one night and this thing was laying on its side and so it kind of looked like in the shadows it looked like... It looked to me like Dave was laying on his side with his arm like this. So I started talking to him. Dave, what are you doing? What's wrong with your arm? Dave, wake up! Then I started shaking it and realized I had been talking to a pillow. Dave was somewhere else. Left me with the pillow.
I had to spend some money I didn't plan to spend to replace a mattress and a couch I didn't plan to replace. Alright, here we go. I got my toe caught in my underwear. And I strained the tendon in my little... I got them caught between my little toe and the one next to it. And I'm hopping around with these... And my toe turned black and blue. It was a mess. A mess. Okay, things are heating up with my aunt. I had to tell her that she couldn't drive anymore. That was a big blow. Had to replace my mother's TV. Had to tell my aunt. She now had to move to the healthcare center. And here's the best. If I would have ever thought that I could really be embarrassed, this might have done it. I was at a spa. Out of town. At a rather nice hotel. Getting a facial. And they give you this nice little robe to put on. And you're supposed to put your clothes in the locker. And then after you get your little treatment, you go back, you get dressed, and you go home. Well, I went back to get dressed. Took on my clothes in a little dressing room. Started getting dressed. And all of a sudden, couldn't find my pants. So I'm kind of going like, Okay, how am I going to navigate this? So I put the robe back on over the clothes I had on. Went back out and started looking for my pants. Couldn't find my pants. Couldn't find my pants. Bottom line is, I lost my pants. My pants. Do you understand? I lost my pants at this nice hotel in Utah.
I had to go up to the desk. Now, it's not like nobody knows who I am. They knew I were in there. So it's not like just some goofy woman, you know, that can't keep up with her stuff coming in and doing this. I mean, I went up there and I said, I have a little problem. They said, what? I said, I've lost my pants. Long story short, they told me to go over to the gift shop and they gave me a pair of pants. After it was all said and done and I was thoroughly and sufficiently embarrassed and had this nice example to share with you, they found my pants. They had, they were folded on the desk under the appointment book the whole time. Somehow or another, I didn't get them in my locker and somebody picked them up and took them up to the desk.
My mother lost the new glasses that we paid $350 for. She accidentally threw them in the trash can. Our water was off for 24 hours. My aunt had shingles in her eyes and had to go to a specialist. A situation at work happened that I wasn't expecting and you always know that's not good. Dave had to have back surgery. Aunt Marie had to go to the hospital with pneumonia. Went to Indonesia, which is very far away, and many hours of flying. Something like, what was it, 42 hours and 7 days I flew. Got there, and for the first time in 10 years the city was flooded. And we're there trying to have conferences. Came home from Indonesia, been home 3 hours, got a call to go get Aunt Marie out of the hospital. Had an employee issue I wasn't expecting. Website was down 2 days, phone shut down for a day. Jammed my toe into the leg of the couch. Thankfully it wasn't the toe that I got caught in my underwear. So anyway, you get it, I'm not even going to finish this. I got a stomach virus here and here and there and there.
Now, here's the thing that is so beautiful about Matthew 11. To be honest, if I wouldn't have kept this record on purpose, I would not remember any of that. It wouldn't even be a memory to me. I couldn't even go back and draw it up out of my memory banks anywhere. You know why? Because each thing that came along, I trusted God and He gave me the grace to deal with it. You always have the grace to do whatever you need to do on the day you need to do it.
Mercy Triumphs Over Rules
If we go on in Matthew, after He talks about this rest that we can have, then in chapter 12, beginning in verse 1, He starts to talk to us about how even though we don't follow all the rules and regulations, when we need help, He still wants to give us help and show us mercy. Can you believe that? Even if you don't do it all right and you ask God to help you, when you have a need, God will still help you. Now, that doesn't mean that He doesn't deal with us about our sin, but it does mean that He will set that aside for a moment, He will help us and then He'll still continue to deal with us. But when you do something wrong, you don't have to withdraw from God, be afraid that He's angry, don't ever run away from God, run to Him.
And please, if you are in trouble right now in your life, and if you're watching by television and you feel that you have failed God and that He will not help you or take you back, the devil is a liar. You just need to say right now, God, I am so sorry I messed up my life. Help me. And I can tell you, God will help you. God will help you. Amen.
So He says in here, beginning in verse 1, At that particular time, Jesus went through the fields of standing grain on the Sabbath, and His disciples were hungry, so they began to eat the grain. They had a need, they ate the grain. And when the Pharisees saw it, and by the way, the devil is a chief Pharisee, they said to Him, see there, see there, see there. Isn't that just like that stupid devil? See there, see there, look what you did. And He not only has you see everything you do, He has you see everything everybody else does too. See there, your disciples are doing what is unlawful and not permitted on the Sabbath.
And He said to them, have you not even read what David did when he was hungry, and those who accompanied him were hungry, and he went into the house of God and ate the loaves of showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat. But the message here is okay. There was a rule that said don't do this. So they ordinarily followed that. But now all of a sudden, they had a need, and God said forget the law, you've got a need, and I'm going to help you. Why? Because mercy is greater than anything else. God is merciful, and He wants us to be merciful.
There's some people here tonight that need to receive God's mercy for yourself. You need to stop being so hard on yourself. You need to give yourself a break. You need to stop counting. And just say, God is not mad at me. I am not a failure. God is not disappointed. I'm not giving Him less than He expected. You know why? God knew exactly what to expect out of you. God is not like the coach who let the little boy play baseball. And the team was winning till the little boy came up to bat and struck out in the ninth inning and caused the team to lose. And so now the coach is all disappointed in the little boy. God already knew that you were going to strike out before He ever let you in the game. Amen? Does anybody feel like they might be relaxing just a little bit?
Let me ask you a question. How much is wrong with you? How much is wrong with me? If you made a list of everything that was wrong with you, how long would it be? Could your family and friends add things to that and it might even get longer? That would be a scary thought, wouldn't it? But here's the good news. God wants you to stop counting. Amen? God wants you to stop counting.
Now, what happens when you get yourself in trouble? Jesus simply reaches down in it and gets us out of the pit. Amen? If we try to live under the law, the law requires that we keep precise records. How many mistakes have I made? How many good works have I done? How can I pay for these mistakes? How long did I pray? How much of the Bible did I read? And I used to do this, and I'm sure you did. I mean, I heard a message, we should pray at least an hour a day. And man, every time I didn't pray an hour a day, I felt like I'd fallen short and wasn't doing what I should be doing. Anybody been there, done that? And yes, Jesus said to the disciples, can you not pray with me one hour? And I'm not saying that that might not be a good guideline to use, but you can't put that on people as a law.
I will not stand in the pulpit and tell somebody, you must pray one hour every day. And don't ask me how long I pray because I'm not going to tell you. You say, why won't you tell me? Because I don't want you trying to do what I do, and I don't even know how long I pray anyway. Now, there was a long number of years when I could have told you, because I probably wrote it down every day. And I had a little read the calendar through in a Bible year calendar, and you had to read six chapters a day, and I'd get my little check marks, and you know, I wasn't learning anything, but I was really reading fast to try and keep up with it. And I was so proud of that calendar, I put it on the kitchen refrigerator, so when people came in, they'd say, oh, what's that? Come on. Oh, I'm reading the Bible through every year. Oh, wow. And I'd feel so proud of myself. And I'd walk by that calendar and just feel my flesh puff up. Until all of a sudden, I got about 36 chapters behind. And then when I came in that room, I just wanted to get out of there, because that thing was... Oh, I counted everything.
I used to count all the people in the meetings. Well, I didn't count them, but the first thing I wanted to know when it was over was, how many people were there? How many? How much? How many? When? And God literally commanded me to stop counting. You know, David numbered the people, and he let a curse into the camp. God doesn't want us counting anything. Why did David number the people? Was he trying to find out if he had enough soldiers to beat the enemy? God didn't want him counting anything, because he is more than enough for us.
And it doesn't matter if I read ten books of the Bible every day, and you read one verse, the only thing that matters is, are we both being led by the Holy Spirit, and are we learning anything? It doesn't matter if I pray five hours a day, and you pray ten minutes. The thing is, is are we praying through? Are we getting the job done? Are we both following the leadership of the Holy Spirit? That's where freedom comes. Thank God! I don't have to be like you, and you don't have to be like me. And not only that, we need to stop telling everybody what we're doing anyway.
No Condemnation – Just Come to Him
I owe, I owe, so off to work I go. Let me tell you something. I had a little dog for almost 13 years. Her name was Duchess. And we had to have her put to sleep about 10, 11 days ago, which was a little hard on me. But on rare occasions, she would poo on the floor. It didn't happen too often, but she would do it occasionally. And it usually, the thing that I think that's a good, kind of, make a good relation here, is she usually did it when there was a storm. Now, is anybody with me? If we have pooey behavior, it's usually during a storm in our life. Come on, that's better than your acting. Come on. Okay.
She would hang her head and cower until she would hear me say, in a loving voice, come here. Come on, come here. The same thing that Jesus said to us in Matthew 11, 28. Come on, come here. Come here. Come on, it's okay, come on. But we don't quite behave as well as the dog does sometimes. As soon as I would say those words, come here. I can assure you that the moment she heard those words, she had not one ounce of guilt. She returned to her play and let me clean up the mess. Come on, there's a story here. Come on, there's a story here.
When there's a storm and you have pooey behavior, and you're hiding from God because you think he's mad at you, please hear him say, come on, come here, come on. Come on, come on. Now, you need to shake it off just as fast. There's no guilt. There's no condemnation. I am loved. God loves me. And I'm going to go play and he's going to clean up my mess. Amen.
Now, just in case there was a stain, I would get out this stuff called petzime and spray it on that stain. Well, let me tell you something. We got something a lot better than petzime for our poo stains. We've got the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen. That removes every stain. Every guilty stain is removed.
What are you offering God as payback when you feel that you've failed? Are you offering your guilt? Your enjoyment of life? Do you feel guilty when you try to relax or have fun? I went through all that. Any day that I didn't feel like that I behaved perfectly, I would feel guilty. I certainly wouldn't feel that I could do anything that would be considered enjoyment because I didn't think I deserved it. And it breaks the heart of God. He's provided everything that we need to live a great life. God has provided everything that we need to live a great life.
And like I said this morning, I love what the Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3. For I am determined that I will take hold of that for which Christ Jesus died to take hold of me. God has taken hold of us in Christ for a purpose. He has taken hold of you because there's a life that He wants you to live. The Zoe life of God is what's offered to us. It's called eternal life. And the moment you receive Christ, eternal life is not just about getting to go to heaven when you die, it's about a quality of life that you get to live while you're here that includes righteousness, right standing with God, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, and overcoming and being a conqueror in life.
Well, God's love for you is not based on your performance or how well you've done. It's based on who He is. And you know, that is really good news. So no matter how disappointed or mad you might be at yourself, remember, God is not mad at you. Many times when people are hurting or experiencing loss, they believe it must be because God is mad at them. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Don't Blame God – Run to Him in Pain
Take a look at this and I'll be back in just a few minutes with a final thought. Yesterday I went, I was at the nail shop getting my nails done and a lady was, they put her right next to me and the girl that does my nails owns the shop and normally there's nobody else that sits at her table, but this lady was sitting there and she heard me talking a little bit and as happens to me so often, she said, don't I recognize your voice? And so I told her, I said, yeah, I'm a Bible teacher. I'm on TV. That's right, I've seen you. So then the next thing out of her mouth was, you know, I'm a little mad at God. I thought, okay.
And I said, well, what are you mad at God about? She said, well, my brother died of cancer and I really was close to him and loved him and you know, I just have to tell you, she wasn't belligerent about it, but she said, I'm just a little mad at God. And you know, the truth is, is there's a lot of people that are just a little mad at God. And there's a lot of Christians that are just a little mad at God. And because they didn't get what they wanted or they got disappointed or they had a big loss in their life or something happened that they didn't understand.
And so I sat and shared with her, which is always interesting when you're in a shop like that because you not only get to speak to the person you're speaking to, but everybody else who's listening, which is a bunch of them. And so we kind of had a little mini meeting right there at the nail shop. So I just told her, and I just want to... when I asked the Lord what he might want me to just share with you, we call this a time of exhortation, just a little personal ministry for you. I really felt like he wanted me to share what happened at the nail shop yesterday.
And when she said she was mad at God, I said, well, you know, you really don't want to be mad at God because he's really the only one that can help you. So that's the first thing I'd like you to receive tonight, if you're hurting now or if something happens in the future, is don't ever be mad at God because he's the only one that can help you. He's the one that wants to comfort you and make things better. And don't blame God for your troubles. God is good. He is good. And the devil is bad.
And, you know, you can't always find a pigeonhole to put every problem that you have. Nobody can ever sit down and sufficiently explain to somebody that's really hurting. Why what happened to them happened? Because the question always comes up, well, if God is sovereign and he can do anything, then why didn't he do something about this situation? Well, you know what? I don't think there's any human being that's qualified to answer that.
When I was a little girl and my father was abusing me sexually, I prayed. I didn't know all that much about God, but I knew he existed. And I prayed that he would get me out of that situation. I did go to church with some relatives when I was nine years old, and I received Christ. And so I leaned on God a little bit more. And I mean, I prayed things I shouldn't have prayed. I prayed for my dad to die. I prayed for my mother to divorce him. I prayed for a lot of things because I was hurting so bad. But God did not get me out of the situation, but he did give me the strength and the grace to go through it. And later in my life to let him take the things that had happened to me that hurt me so bad and turn them into something that could actually really get the devil back by helping millions of other people know that God can help them.
So, you can... Anything that the enemy does that hurts you, you can always turn it back on him. See, the thing he wants is for us to be mad and bitter and full of hatred, and he wants us to move away from God. But see, when you're hurt, don't ever run from God. Run to him. He's waiting with open arms.
And you know, as far as the why didn't God do something question, you know, a lot of these questions are found in the answer that God didn't want a bunch of robots that had no choice about what they did. He doesn't want us to have to love him. He doesn't want us to have to be good. He doesn't want us to have to do the right thing. He gave us free choice. And any time you give a bunch of human beings free choice, lots of them are going to make the wrong choice. And so there's a sin principle that's at work in the earth today. And sin has just caused everything to go haywire. And it's really not hard to look around. Come on, we are smarter than that. We can look around and see what's happening in the world today. And what's happening in society today. And the more rampant that sin is, the less morality there is, the more violence there is, the more destruction there is, the more hatred there is. The less that people turn to God, the more open the door is for the enemy to get into their life.
Let me tell you something. This is just the way I feel about it. If I didn't have God in my life, I don't even know why I would bother to get out of bed every day. Because there's certainly nothing out there to live for. So, and I told her, I said, you know what? Really, I said, I think more than being mad at God, you're just hurting. Now listen to me, because somebody needs to hear this. And when you're hurting, you always want somebody to blame. Always. You want somebody to blame. The doctor didn't take good care of my relative. God didn't do this. Somebody else didn't do that. Somebody else didn't do something else. Forget the blame. You can't go back and undo something that's been done.
Whatever your pain has been, take it all up in your little sweet little hands tonight and just offer it to God. And say, God, you take this pain and work it out for my gain. I think there's some people in here tonight that you could just... It would just help you a whole bunch if you would just let go of some stuff. I mean, why don't you just let tonight be the place where you decide that you're not going to waste any more of your time trying to figure things out that you're never going to figure out anyway.
I love what David said, the psalmist. He said, I do not put my mind to things that are too wonderful for me. There's a lot of mysteries about God. And if we just simply hang on to the fact that God is good, and someday we will know everything, but it's not for now. And for now, we have the privilege, not a have to, the privilege of trusting God. What a benefit that is to be able to say, when all hell is breaking loose in your life, and there's nothing that you understand, and you're hurting so bad you can't hardly stand it. I trust God. I believe that He's good, and this will work out for my good. Amen? It will.
Final Invitation – Come to Jesus for Rest
So I want to read you a scripture, and then I want to pray for you guys. You've heard this, but just really take this in. Jesus said, come to me. He didn't say run away from me. Come to me, all of you who labor and are heavy laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. I will ease and relieve and refresh your soul. Take my yoke upon you and learn about me. For I am gentle, meek, humble, lowly in heart. Does that sound like somebody that goes around hurting people on purpose and making them miserable? And you will find rest, relief, and ease, and refreshment, and recreation, and blessed quiet for your souls.
Last verse. For my yoke is wholesome, useful, good. It's not harsh, hard, sharp, or pressing. But it is comfortable, gracious, and pleasant. And my burden is light and easy to be born. We can do whatever we need to do in life with Jesus by our side. Amen. You may not know the answer right now to what's going on in your life, but God does.
Father, we pray in Jesus' name that you would comfort people tonight that are hurting. That you would strengthen us for the days ahead. None of us know for sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but we do know that when tomorrow comes, you'll be there just like you are today. Father, I ask you to heal the souls of anyone that has had a great loss. They've had tremendous pain. They've lost a job. They've lost an opportunity. They've had a disappointment. They've lost their health, someone they love. Or if they're hurting in any way, comfort them. Just visit them in their seats with the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
And I pray the word tonight will refresh them and instruct them and teach them and lead them and guide them. And while the word is being taught, that you would heal people that are physically in pain and sick. Because your word says in Psalm 107, you send your word and you heal them and you deliver them from destruction. And there's power in your word to heal, to deliver, to set free. Break the power of addictions in people's lives tonight. Thank you, Lord, for touching people, for saving the lost. If there's any here that do not know you, God, let tonight be the night that they open their hearts and let you come in. Touch people with the power of your Holy Spirit. Fill them tonight with Your Spirit. Thank you for strengthening us and changing us. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. Amen.